Recently, on the Internet, I was watching an unmarried woman with 15 kids complaining about not receiving government assistance. What? She has 15 children, no husband, and she wants "the government" – meaning you – to pay for the support of her children?
I have an "inhumane" question: Why should I (who worked for more than 30 years, and who is still working, with working children and grandchildren of my own) be required to enable her to sit at home, watch TV and get pregnant (by three irresponsible men) each year?
There is an old proverb of which most of us are aware: "What gets rewarded gets done." That leads me to another question: If she is going be rewarded for what she does, why shouldn't she continue? And why shouldn't millions of other women do the same? Well, actually, those questions have already been answered in the affirmative; they do.
The National Review reported, "With little fanfare, the federal government has posted its annual compilation of birth data, including out-of-wedlock births. Here's the bad news (essentially unchanged from last year): Preliminary data indicate that 40.7 percent of all 2012 births were out-of-wedlock, which is appalling, and there are vast differences among racial and ethnic groups. Among non-Hispanic blacks, the figure is highest, at 72.2 percent [now 75 percent]; for American Indians/Alaska Natives, it's 66.9 percent; 53.5 percent for Hispanics; 29.4 percent for non-Hispanic whites; and a mere 17.1 percent for Asians/Pacific Islanders."
Let me quote something from a column by a gentleman for whom I have a great deal of respect, Dr. Walter E. Williams:
Today the overwhelming majority of black children are raised in single female-headed families. As early as the 1880s, three-quarters of black families were two-parent. In 1925 New York City, 85 percent of black families were two-parent. One study of 19th-century slave families found that in up to three-fourths of the families, all the children had the same mother and father.
Today's black illegitimacy rate of nearly 75 percent is also entirely new. In 1940, black illegitimacy stood at 14 percent. It had risen to 25 percent by 1965, when Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" and was widely condemned as a racist. By 1980, the black illegitimacy rate had more than doubled, to 56 percent, and it has been growing since. Both during slavery and as late as 1920, a teenage girl raising a child without a man present was rare among blacks.
Much of today's pathology seen among many blacks is an outgrowth of the welfare state that has made self-destructive behavior less costly for the individual. Having children without the benefit of marriage is less burdensome if the mother receives housing subsidies, welfare payments and food stamps. Plus, the social stigma associated with unwed motherhood has vanished. Female-headed households, whether black or white, are a ticket for dependency and all of its associated problems. Ignored in all discussions is the fact that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994 (italics added).
American poverty? Can we look at the true facts of American "poverty" (according to the 2015 Federal Poverty Guidelines – 48 Contiguous States & D.C.; Persons in Household and Amount Paid)?
Poverty level for:
1 person: $11,770
2 people: $15,930
3 people: $20,090
4 people: $24,250
How does that compare with worldwide poverty?
It's a fact that at least 80 percent of humanity lives on less than $10 a day and more than 80 percent of the world's population live in countries where income differentials are widening.
The governor of Maine, Paul LePage, offered a solution. He opted to reimpose a time limit for taxpayer-funded "government" assistance programs.
As the Angry Patriot blog explained:
Recipients of the monthly checks had to work 20 hours per week, enroll in a job training course, or volunteer six hours per week to continue receiving food stamps. If the program recipients wanted to continue to receive "benefits," they had to comply with the new stipulations AND be limited to garnering such aid for only three months out of a three-year period.
Sadly, an unsurprising number of food stamp recipients were outraged about doing even the bare minimum to give back to the society that was feeding them. There are now more Americans living on government assistance than at any other time since the social program was created.
Why would 80 percent of the people who claimed they needed help putting food on the table suddenly drop out of the program? Working for your food is not a new concept, or at least it shouldn't be.
The requirements for able-bodied food stamps recipients in Maine were not meant to punish but to help. The job training and volunteer hours would help the unemployed learn new skills and have something to show on their resumes to entice potential employers.
Now, run that 15-child, "poor black" mother thingy by me again.
Media wishing to interview Ben Kinchlow, please contact [email protected].
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