Maine now requires 6 hours of volunteer time for for food st

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What about homeless people without adequate transportation, nowhere to regularly shower or clean up? I just think its kind of screwy to expect people already on the streets living very much day to day to have to do 6-10 hours of community service that they probably have to find their own transportation to get to and are expected to be somewhat clean...just to get food stamps to attempt to feed themselves that month. Seems like that is essentially who this policy would target if it excludes those on disability, people who work 20 hours a week and those with dependents...well except for the homeless who do manage to keep a job.

I mean it just seems this is mostly going to hit the most desperate, rather than do a very good job reducing fraud.

Last edited by Sweetleaf on 11 Sep 2015, 5:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Sh!t in Wisconsin we need to work 20 hr's a week/min in order to even be eligible for food stamps....What's the point of food stamps then? For people who who have jobs but just not enough hours wtf?

We got billions of dollars to bomb the sh!t out of other countries, or our own trade center *caugh caugh* but can't afford a decent program for the poor and hungry?

A lot of welfare recipients are employed though....how would requiring them to receive work training and seek employment help those people? And those who aren't employed are much of the time on disability implying an inability to work so for those individuals it would be asinine to expect them to just go 'get a job'.

Wow that's ridiculous...do they make an exception for people on disability? In Colorado I think its just based on income...no requirement of working a certain amount of hours or anything.

Yeah, I will admit that I find it exceptionally screwy myself. But there are homeless people out there that do it.
There are also homeless people out there that sit on street corners and make a lot of money because they can't work, don't want to work, or just want to live that sort of life (although there are many more variables involved than just those three).

The people who are homeless, without vehicles of their own, often populate the larger cities. We have very significant public transportation that will bring you to very nearby areas that have places of businesses, that basically bring you to the front doors of DHHS and other important places in a fairly timely manner. Often for free if you are homeless, people pay for extra rides and even if you have to pay for it.. it isn't very costly.

There are enough jobs out there to get one, for those that are able to work. Those unable are generally at the mercy of their abilities and the government, just like every other state out there quite honestly. Those on disability, or more importantly SSDI, do have somewhat of a livable income if they have enough years of work under their belt and they CAN apply for food stamps. Its just if you have an income that you're left with either about 2/3rds of your income after rent/mortgage and utilities (heat, electric, water, etc).. you supposedly have "enough" money to feed yourself.

DHHS does not take into account of the other bills, unless it is college related, and that is where things get tricky. Because you may have a recorded monthly income of 1800 (this is hypothetical), and you pay around 550 (highly improbable amount, far too little..) a month for rent and utilities, and then you have all this extra money (in the state's eyes) that you could be using to buy food, health care and such with. But for all they know (and don't give a crap about) is that you're in debt, you have a car payment or you have car insurance to pay.. or perhaps you have old credit cards that take up your free money. Something like that..

And that is where some people get stuck and get the 16 dollars in food stamps per month. That's just what happens.

The homeless in terms of the disabled, you can apply for disability for benefits through DHHS. It isn't you applying for SSI/SSDI but you can be labeled as disabled, get benefits and still be homeless without work to my understanding. Homeless people do get extra stamps for being homeless, they give you about an extra 30 because that is a qualifying question. That's just how it works.

As for showers for the homeless, the sheer amount of shelters in the Portland area alone would probably give you showers every other day for however long you needed. Aside from that.. well. We have a lot of religious groups, churches, etc that would willingly allow people to bathe. There is always a way to get clean, during the summer months I would not be opposed to going to the river and washing up there. The water is clean and its remote.

There are a lot of ways around it. I was homeless multiple times in the past, and recently, and my benefits were never removed but they were reduced because I made 700 a month with no real 'bills' that DHHS concerns themselves with. I still got 70 dollars a month. That's not a lot, but its enough for the barebones for what I do eat (I eat a lot of produce/greens).

I don't like our republican governor, in fact I think he's made way too many mistakes and blunders to still be our governor.. I will admit I do feel like the "reforms" are targeting our most unstable group of homeless, disabled and even mentally ill citizens.. but until that -insert bad word- gets booted.. We can't change a darn thing, he vetos everything like a child arguing with his mother over a cookie. His argument was that "other states do it" and "have success with it" and he's right.. they save millions of dollars, but that's all this guy cares about.

As a state, as food prices and such go up but income stays the same.. we are in deep trouble.

But, if you take the people who are currently working crappy low-paying dead-end jobs and actually manage to give them access to better jobs, who will work those crappy low-paying dead-end jobs?

How about pay people a living wage for their labor...getting a 'better' job is not realistic for everyone. For one not everyone has the same skill sets so some people may be better at more general labor than say meticulous, very precise paper-work or working in a finance department and dealing with a lot of data and numbers or other more specialized kinds of jobs.

Not to mention where are all these 'better' jobs' are there enough to go around for all the people stuck in crappy, low paying, dead end jobs? I sure do hear of a lot of college graduates being unable to find work in their field who end up settling for jobs that don't really use their degree/developed skills...sometimes those are more menial labor jobs.

And yes if everyone doing the 'crappy low paying jobs' moved to better jobs...who would do those? technology/robots is an idea since some menial labor can be done by machinery, but then therein would still lie the problem of not enough 'better' jobs to go around.

Hmm maybe it is a little different there...around here where I am from, the city does a terrible job at providing any help/shelter for the homeless. I sort of had that in my head when I posted this, and yeah here it would be very asinine plus unrealistic to expect the homeless to do community service for EBT or any other welfare benefits. I mean the bus is cheaper than driving but kinda pricey if you're homeless, there is an inadequate amount of homeless shelters with showers/bathrooms/places to clean up and the few that do exist are specifically for homeless and/or abused women, there is a lack of public restrooms and I know full well if they enacted a mandatory community service policy here they certainly wouldn't be giving the homeless bus vouchers or helping to ensure they have somewhere to shower before showing up...let alone provide a meal on the community service site.

Maybe in Maine the homeless have a little more access to shelters or other help....than they do here, still though mandatory community service sounds sort of like a punishment, and people should not be penalized/punished for qualifying for EBT or other welfare so I'd still oppose the move. Now if mandatory community service was something all citizens had to participate in I could see it. But currently the only time adults are required to do community service typically is because they committed a crime and that's part of their punishment, so whats it look like when you force people who need EBT to do community service essentially for being 'poor'?

Furthermore, where are the menial labor jobs even?

There are basically no production jobs in America today.
All union jobs are ripe with nepotism.
Many off the books type things like landscaping and contracting are occupied by illegal immigrants.
Many menial office tasks are either being outsourced overseas (Call centers) or phased out by technology (clerical jobs, mail room, etc)

Not to mention today's working culture that tells you it's not ok to just look at a job as a way to make ends meet. A co-parasitic equation. We are expected to care deeply about what we are working doing. To be personally invested in it. It's not enough to go in, do your best work, get your check and go home anymore. Why is it that you can view ME as a fungible tool, but if I view you that way I have a bad attitude?

And to your point about college degrees, my brother, who just graduated from Rutgers and is now working in Dunkin Donuts would agree.

I don't know, to me the answer is a small social stipend for every legal US citizen who resides in this country full time. Well, and I can hear the Fox News crowd now, Where's that money gonna come from!?!?! BLAH! My Tax dollars blee blee..

Well how much money is spent today on maintaining all of our various social programs? How much money (not what's paid out mind you, just operating costs) of the SSA, State unemployment offices, programs for the homeless, various law enforcement efforts to combat fraud, etc etc. What if we just instead gave that money to the citizens? This then would allow a more motivated less competitive work force to flourish because people who are content to barely get by will be allowed to, and those that are ambitious will not be encumbered by those of us who are not. Then we don't have to force companies to raise minimum wages thus eliminating more jobs, decreasing profit margins and thus tax revenues. Then people like myself could take my little stipend, get a bs part time job to supplement and still get by happily. This will theoretically create a happier populace, therefore reducing many crimes. Which decreases law enforcement costs, helping even further.

I mean, how many people area already "on the system" in one way or another? While Im not an economist and this idea may have it's flaws, something along these lines is going to be the only solution pretty soon because there are only so many jobs to go around. And they are only disappearing. New jobs are not going to be created at the same rate as they are lost. Ever due to technology. And our population only increases. Furthermore, there are still a sizable portion of the population, most a little older, that did not go to college and may not have the capacity or living situation to do so later in life. The mid 30's to mid 60's demo mostly. Something has to give. But those that romanticize Capitalism would fight this to the death. Because, yeah Capitalism and my great grandfather worked 78 hours at the coal mine to feed 42 children in the golden years blah blah...

Beakybird: lifelong NYer here. Lived in four of the five boroughs, though the vast majority of my life in Queens. Live in Queens now.

It's a complicated issue---there's a problem with unions, who want their labor to do the job. In theory, it's not a bad idea for people to work for their welfare/dole payments. It's a grinding life being on welfare/the Dole. Unions hate it, though, because it excludes their relatively high-salaried members from getting these jobs.

Pretty ridiculous but not as bad as requiring recipients be drug tested like some other states are doing

Scott Walker's punk ass passed that in Wisconsin not too long ago I think

Less competitive though...the worst nightmare of social darwanists, many who are more conservative/right wing though you have those weird leftist types who are very socially conservative just as bad as the religious right usually call themselves democrats and love censorship of art...like the 'OMG Marylin Manson caused the Columbine shooting' crowd.

But yeah the only solution I can really see is some sort of sustainable system that grants everyone a livable income, since more and more jobs are replaced by technology, and as is there aren't enough specialized jobs for all the people qualified to do them.

I wonder if those people know the required drug tests will cost taxpayers money...they aren't cheap to do from what I understand and most people on welfare certainly cannot afford to pay for them on their own.

It costs a tremendous amount of money, way more than they'd ever save from the people they'd kick off benefits who I guess just have to starve.

article from ThinkProgress about it

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/0 ... ng-states/

The problem with people working for their benefits is where will they work? The jobs-to-people ratio is just way too far off and getting worse. To compound that, now many places are pushing for a 15 dollar minimum wage (I believe the city of Seattle may already have done so). In theory this sounds nice, however all it's going to accomplish is reducing job availability even further. If anyone thinks businesses that typically pay far below that are going to take that in the bottom line they're fooling themselves. They will just place more strenuous demand on half the workforce and raise the prices of their goods/services, likely increasing their profits because big business/old money NEVER loses. Ever.

The bleakness of this overall situation is staggering when you start to really break it down. There appears to be no good solution here. Many sources/people will claim it's a lazy, under-educated, self-entitled workforce, and to that I say BS. There are plenty of educated people out of work or underemployed, saddled with their education debts for what will be the majority of their adult lives. And it's a simple concept, what used to take 10 people maybe 50 years ago, took 5 20 years ago. Now it takes maybe 3. Soon it will take 1, or none. Eventually computers will just program other computers, and will fix each other so even tech jobs will disappear. And it'll happen alot quicker than most people think. And we still keep growing in population and there is no good way to stop this either. As with most issues, we've become, one way or the other, boxed in with no way out. Take even unions, as you brought up. They started as a very necessary establishment to combat worker abuses. They're the ones who now have become the self-entitled ones and the entire concept is perverted to create more dissent among the people.

We can all dream and wish for better solutions, however I don't think the powers that be (regardless of party lines or left/right ideals- they're mostly for show anyhow) want a solution. They want to enslave the common man, eventually drastically thin out our population, and have a very select group of elites running the world with no fear of recourse, never having to life a finger while a slave race (us) serves their every need. And unfortunately there isn't a hell of alot any of us can actually do about it.