I'm writing a research paper on welfare reform, and I'm looking for

[Lyric]

potential interviewees. If anyone here has received some kind of welfare benefits (especially if you received them both *before* the 1996 changes and *after* the changes) and is interested in being interviewed sometime this week or early next week, let me know. I can change names to protect your privacy, of course, and I can also provide references from my professor so that you know this is indeed a legitimate research project, and that your confidential information is 100% safe.

Drop me a PM if you're interested, and if anyone feels inclined to give this a kick from time to time, I'd appreciate it!

Edit: Cross-posted to the Lounge

[Lyric]

1. Self-kick

:hi:

[Rhythm]

2. Kicking

Because this is the real deal.

:grouphug:

ThinkBlue

[Lyric]

3. kicking again

forgive me--it's important that people see this :)

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

4. Would you be interested in "pre-reform" challenges?

The reason I ask is, the one time I sought 'hardship' benefits was as a college student (this happened in 1990). I was surprised that a single parent would be denied benefits FOR pursuing a higher education. If you were enrolled in college, you also HAD to be working 20 hours/wk to receive food stamps (and, in that case, you wouldn't be eligible for them, anyway). Whereas, if I had dropped out, I could have received full benefits. So, I wonder, did the "reform" assist those attempting to become more productive, better?

Since then, I've always wondered why it is that, there's an assumption the receipt of help is somehow easy. The courage required to engage in the complete humiliation necessary to ask for help,...in addition to attending the requisite meetings and paperwork and persistent scrutiny and judgmentalism,...is far more work than the righteous ones' self-pleasure in beating up on those "beneath" them.

Funny thing, though. Those who demean others in need and thereafter lose everything tend to self-destruct pretty quickly. Whereas, the needy find a way to persist no matter how difficult their lives.

Another perspective I'll share is, not everyone is suited to the demands of an 'establishment'. Do any of us really believe any one of us can be a doctor or lawyer or scientist or president or olympian? Do any of us value those who are unable to achieve such high expectations? Is the waste-disposal guy less valuable than one of those "experts" pushed unto the public on the media? Would your life be better without the waste-disposal guy or the "expert",...after a month?

Perspective. Perspective is lost in this nation of perpetual turmoil because whatever "values" and "ideals" have/are being marketed are merely smoke covering "REAL" motivations and activities. The fact that "marketing" is a heavily invested means of impacting "consumers" defines what this country has become: a means to make money completely detached from family "values" and those "ideals" associated with democracy.

Well,...that's all.

[Lyric]

5. I would be interested in any story relating to welfare benefits

PM me please?

Thanks!

[many a good man]

8. Best article I've seen so far

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/18565

What Happened to Welfare?
By Christopher Jencks
American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare
by Jason DeParle

Viking/Penguin, 422 pp., $25.95; $16.00 (paper)

A few weeks after announcing his bid for the presidency in 1991, Bill Clinton promised that if he were elected he would "put an end to welfare as we know it." Although many Americans refer to any program for the poor as "welfare," most voters who cared about the issue knew that Clinton was talking about only one of these programs, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). This was the program that had been providing cash assistance to single mothers since the 1930s. Clinton's promise became his principal campaign issue, defining him as a Democrat who was ready to abolish "the dole."

After Clinton was elected, he kept this promise. In 1993 he began approving waivers that allowed states to impose stiffer work requirements on AFDC recipients. In 1996 he ignored his cabinet and over their objections signed a Republican bill that replaced AFDC with a new program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). TANF included federal work requirements for welfare recipients and time limits on recipients' benefits, but the fine print gave states almost complete control over these mat- ters. Most governors and state legislatures concentrated on cutting the welfare rolls, which was popular with voters. They did this mainly by insisting that those receiving welfare also work, which forced many to leave the rolls immediately, and by making it much harder for new recipients to qualify for benefits.
1.

When Clinton promised to end welfare, most Americans, according to many polls and surveys, saw AFDC as a Democratic program that had contributed to the spread of unwed motherhood and economic dependency. Clinton's long-term goal was to remove welfare from national political attention so that it would no longer cost the Democrats votes. His effort succeeded. By 2000, when George W. Bush was running against Al Gore, the welfare rolls had fallen from 4.8 to 2.2 million families, and welfare was no longer an issue in electoral politics. That remains true today.

Clinton also expected that it would be much easier to win political support for helping poor single mothers if they were working, and the abolition of AFDC was, in fact, accompanied by a big increase in assistance to the working poor. In 1993 Clinton persuaded Congress to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which can now raise the annual income of a low-wage worker with children by as much as 40 percent. TANF also gave states money that they could use to support child care for low-wage workers, and many states did so. A few days after passing welfare reform in 1996, the Republican Congress also approved an increase in the minimum wage.

[Lyric]

6. kick!

:kick:

[hootinholler]

7. k&r