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Comment by hilariously | Hacker News Reader

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"live large on medicaid" is more funny than "live large on foodstamps". Just sitting back and enjoying getting a bunch of medical procedures?

We're getting off-topic here, but while "unemoloyed" I worked part-time as a cashier at one of the local grocery stores. Now I can't see how people on food stamps live, but I CAN confirm what they buy. Mostly, its pretty reasonable. But "welfare queens" do, in fact, exist. They buy shrimp and steaks with those stamps. Weekly.

I won't go into my theories as to causes or reasons or whatever. Just know that it IS a thing amongst a small subset of welfare recipients despite propoganda otherwise.

I don’t think anyone disputes that it can be abused, and sometimes is. It isn’t at a scale that it is killing you or America, and the remedy should reduce abuse without impacting those that need the help.

I am glad you have an anecdote to counter everyone else's, but the thing we should be using is data, not anecdotes.

The reality is that most places you get on the order of 200 bucks per person PER MONTH, so that's not going far on steaks and shrimp.

Auditing and finding fraud is useful, but we also have to value it against the cost of auditing and fraud management in the first place, and the value is put up against honest people who have to a decent chunk of hours every month juggling government paperwork and websites to get the most meager of handouts.

If you receive government benefits you get around $80k a year in benefits when you account for food, healthcare, rent benefits, etc.

So yes, they are living larger than most part time or minimum wage employees. That's the problem.

buddy will be so surprised to learn how many people on social programs like that hold down a job and are some of the nicest, sweetest people in the world who just got screwed over by circumstances

in the same way people are delusional in thinking they're just temporarily embarrassed billionaires, they also don't realize how precarious their own financial positions are, and how they'll definitely want a safety net that helps them to survive if it happened to them

It's always "someone over there is getting something they don't deserve". Every. Single. Time.

Yeah, they are

Everyone deserves to eat. It’s unfortunate that we can’t all agree to this

Everybody deserves the right to work for their own upkeep. Nobody deserves to eat off somebody else's labour.

ah, hacker news. the place I go to see people saying disabled people should starve.

You can also find that on plenty of other places on the internet.

Not at all HN specific, nor wholly representative of it.

Tell me. What do they not deserve to be getting?

It's easier to kick down than kick up. Cowards.

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