[Video] Woman Scolds Man for Using Food Stamps and Raises the Topic of Welfare Myths

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Recently a woman in a Walmart was caught on camera berating a man in front of his young children for paying for his food with food stamps. There are multiple problems with this scenario which were outlined perfectly by Ana Kasparian, Hasan Piker, and Francis Maxwell in the video below. The incident has raised the topic of welfare myths, and provided in this report is a list compiled by Tom Cahill of US Uncut that details some of the most common stereotypes associated with individuals on Welfare.

The Young Turks – Woman Scolds Man For Using Food Stamps:

The discussion above covers the situation well, however there are quite a few other issues at hand that the pompous woman in the video obviously isn’t aware of, or doesn’t care about, such as the tremendous economic gap in the United States that according to reports, is actually worse than people think. Reports from 2015 state that “the percentage of Americans now receiving a federally-funded ‘means-tested program’ now stands at 35.4%. When you add pensions, unemployment, Social Security, and Medicare to the mix, the percentage of Americans relying on government for part or all of their subsistence is 49.5% of the American population.”

Does this mean that nearly 50% of Americans are “lazy,” or could the problem lie in the fact that wealth distribution in the United States is the most unequal of all advanced economies?

Here is a list of common misconceptions that will shed a little light on the subject for those who are easily susceptible to stereotypes:

Myth #1: Welfare encourages people not to work.

A popular argument for right-wingers is that welfare programs encourage people not to work, however according to the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, 73 percent of welfare recipients work at least part-time, and keep in mind, most people would prefer to have a full-time position, but depending on your region, part-time jobs can be more abundant.

Myth #2: Welfare recipients can milk the system indefinitely.

US Uncut points out that contrary to popular belief, the welfare system is actually extremely rigid. For example, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program has a federal lifetime of five years, which means if a family utilizes this service during a recession or depression, they can never use it again later on. There are also “conservative bureaucrats heading welfare offices who are all too happy to withhold assistance from the needy for arbitrary reasons.”

Myth #3: Undocumented immigrants abuse the welfare system.

FOX Opinion Network’s conservative commentator, Bill O’Reilly, once stated that undocumented immigrants would take advantage of the welfare system. O’Reilly is apparently oblivious to the fact that it’s impossible for an undocumented immigrant to qualify for any kind of public assistance. Food stamps are only available to immigrants of legal status who are age 18 or under, receiving disability insurance, or if they’ve resided in the States for at least 5 years. States are allowed to distribute benefits however they see fit, even if they choose to bar immigrants from public assistance illegally.

Myth #4: The welfare system is full of loopholes that get exploited at the taxpayers’ expense.

To express their point on this myth, US Uncut took Ronald Reagan into consideration. First, it should be known that during Reagan’s presidency he incorporated an economics program called “supply-side economics” by proponents and “trickle-down economics” by critics, (Foner, 2014, p. 1051). Reagan’s program relied on high interest rates to curb inflation (or so he thought that’s what would happen), and tax-cuts to businesses and high-income Americans with the belief that by saving the wealthy even more money, they would in turn invest that money back into the economy (hence, “trickle-down”). They didn’t, and supply-side economics has since spurred an alarming rise in economic inequality.

One of the most damaging things Reagan did before his presidency, however, was to create a prejudice against individuals on public assistance by telling a story during his first presidential campaign about a woman who was scamming the welfare system and making tremendous profits. Critics have since attributed this prejudice to all welfare recipients, and it continues to this day, despite the fact that regulations have tightened tremendously and it is impossible for anyone on welfare to live extravagantly.

Myth #5: Welfare recipients are bankrupting taxpayers.

No, welfare recipients are not bankrupting taxpayers. If anything is bankrupting the American people, its war. While Americans pay for useless wars, the military-industrial-complex is making a killing (pun intended), and conservatives, in return, blame the poor for the state of the economy, purposefully choosing to ignore the real issues because they undermine the establishment’s goals.

As mentioned in the video above, nearly just as much of your tax dollars goes to the military as the combined amount that’s put into programs such as Medicaid and Children’s Health, and education is neglected even further—while an average of $3294 of your annually paid taxes goes to the military, only $461 goes to public education. Roughly $152 billion a year goes to federal welfare programs for citizens, whereas taxpayers are spending around $1,5 trillion a year “on welfare for the pharmaceutical industry, the fossil fuel industry, too-big-to-fail banks, performance-based bonuses for corporate CEOs, corporate jets, and other superfluous programs that run on taxpayer dime.” Technically, the wealthy are receiving far more public assisted benefits than the poor.

Myth #6: Most welfare recipients are minorities.

During his short-lived presidential campaign in 2012, former Pennsylvania US Senator, Rick Santorum, made the following public statement:

“I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them someone else’s money…”

This common (and rather racist) stereotype is also incorrect, as 40 percent of food stamp recipients are white, making them the largest demographic in that category. Those who receive TANF are even across the board, with whites, blacks, and Latinos each accounting for 30 percent of TANF benefits. The remaining 10 percent is divided among the various other races.

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Sources:

Foner, Eric (2014). Give Me Liberty: An American History. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

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