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From: orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory
Subject: Reagan's hidden victims: the *working* poor
Message-ID: <1030@whuxl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Mar-86 17:46:56 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxl.1030
Posted: Mon Mar 10 17:46:56 1986
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Guy gives the following personal account:
> 
> Now for my meaningless personal report.  I know a person who is totally
> dependent on government aid for her support, no children, and who
> runs out of food stamps early sometimes.  I'm not sympathetic.
> Why? Am I just a cruel Reaganite?  No, I'm a compassionate Reaganite,
> like most of us, but I know what she does with her money.  Largely
> it is wasted on consumer goods.  She exhibits no frugality and as
> such I think that her problems are mostly her fault.  
 
Now let me give my own personal account.  When I was working my way
through school I worked in the college cafeteria.  The cafeteria was
largely staffed by blacks who were descendants of the slaves of
plantations in the Tidewater Virginia area.  Their pay, even after
years of working was just above the minimum wage.  Several of
the workers that I knew personally worked several jobs, one of them
worked *two* fulltime jobs at 40 hours a week.  They *had* to do
that to survive and raise a family and have any kind of disposable
income at all. They worked hard, and they were not lazy.
 
These are precisely the sorts of people hurt worst by Reagan's
budget ax.  They have *not* benefitted from Reagan's tax giveaways:
their taxes have increased proportionately more than any other
income group.  To the extent they may have been eligible for
benefits under previous administrations who did not say you had
to be absolutely without an income to obtain benefits they have
also been hurt more than any other group: their benefits, whatever
they may have been have been drastically decreased.
(I will post statistical substantiation of this later)
 
I agree that the welfare system needs reform.  But please explain
to me how crippling the *working* poor and providing no
incentives to work by continuing to receive some minimal benefits
after earning some income from a job helps anybody.
 
    tim sevener  whuxn!orb