Where can I find the percentage of poor in America that are freeloaders?

The question is meaningless until you define “poor” and define “freeloader”.

But for a list of non-working moochers, you could include:
Disabled people
Children
Retired people
Prisoners
Sick people
People living off family trust funds
Unemployed people looking for work

Is it that difficult to understand? I thought most intelligent people know the many faces of our poor. The faces you included. I don’t consider them the moochers.

I’m talking about the people who are able bodied but continue to have children to get government assistance. The people that can work but find ways around the system.

edit: most compassionate people. not intelligent.

I don’t agree with the premise, and I think it’s going to be hard to define “mooch” and to get statistics. Especially if you think being a mother doesn’t count as work, and that there are identifiable people who are merely having children to collect welfare. Even the few people who may say they have done that tend to have train wrecks for lives and psyches.

I tend to think that people who express upset about “the poor in America that don’t work and mooch off the system” are being crazy at one level or another. Generally it sounds to me like someone is actually resentful of the anxiety and obligations they feel to do things they don’t want to earn money and so on, and/or feel outrage at the idea of people “taking their money to give to freeloaders”. I suspect the outrage at “moochers” comes from unprocessed rage from the anxiety and unwanted obligations.

I also tend to think that “the poor in America that don’t work and mooch off the system”, any of them, even if there are those who are complete asshole sociopaths about it, are also people who have mental issues, and need healing and not more abuse and shame.

I feel great pity for both types of people, and think they should get the attention they need to get out their suffering. It sounds like hell to be either of them.

Of course, it also sounds like hell to be someone struggling to make ends meet and doing their best. Especially with a culture of apathy and shame towards poverty.

Both of those mental issues seem like problems. Providing humans with basic needs even if they don’t “work” seems to me not an actual problem. The problems are that someone is having trouble finding motivation or opportunity to do something fulfilling with themselves, and that some people have great resentment that ends up turning into a quagmire of annoying arguments for social policy and politics.

@dammitjanetfromvegas I get what you are saying.
Here is a report with some really good charts from NYS that discusses the subject of disability payments and rates.

Before you read it. I want you to make a guess. What percentage of adults in NYS and the US are collecting disability for “imitations due to physical, mental, or emotional problems OR have health problems that require the use of special equipment.” Is that a sustainable number?

Now look at the official numbers. Then look at the rates vs. BMI (Obesity) and the rates vs. education.
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

Thank you @LuckyGuy

Here is another interesting chart. It plots the number of children on disability from 1974 to 2011.
The chart starts off at ~ 75,000 in 1974. It quadruples to 300,000 in 1990. It triples again and reaches about 1 million in 2004 and ends at 1.3 million in 2011 – a 1700% increase! During that time the US population only increased 45%.
That’s a lot of disabled kids that workers are supporting.
If I saw that chart and was not told the country I would guess the data came from a country that had been at war and was blanketed with landmines.
Is this sustainable?.

You are asking for a number of an entity that is entirely fungible by the presenter of that number to better represent whatever it is their agenda depends on. Unemployment figures are a prime example of this. The Feds manipulate these stats more than a Chiropractor manipulates ones muscles in a session. How many people are actually gay? Only those that are gutsy enough to raise their hand and publicly admit it. Same thing with Trump supporters…how many of them will stand there and actually punch his ticket?

Really…how many people will raise their hand to be counted when asked “have you ever pursued Government freebies when you really did not need them?” You can review the hard stats that show how many have received Government assistance….what would be truly revealing is how many of those truly did not need these handouts. I know of a few.

I should add I don’t for a minute think all those people are freeloaders. I just think perhaps we have lowered the bar a bit too much.

It reminds me of handicapped parking. Now, almost anyone can get a hang-tag to park in a handicapped spot by complaining to their doctor that “my feet hurt, my back hurts, my knees are weak, etc.” Rather thhan waste time arguing the doc will write the note.
One of the women on the road here does not have the use of her legs and is permanently wheelchair bound. She gets around in a modified van with hand controls and has a special device that loads and unloads her wheel chair off to the side of the driver’s door. Her door will not open if there is a car next to her. THIS woman NEEDS an handicapped spot! However she can rarely find one. The majority of te time the spaces are taken up by people who manage to walk to the store and do their chopping and push their carts around.

She now resorts to parking in the fire lanes. The local police and the Town court know her and either do not ticket or once per month discard any tickets she collects.

To assume you know what people are capable of, their motivations, their abilities is egregious, sanctimonious bullshit. What hubris. Not everything, and most probably, very little, of what you think you know is what is actually true.

Ever volunteer at a homeless shelter? Ever talk to a girl who had babies and gets welfare? Maybe that handicapped person you are sure doesn’t need a placard has some sort of disorder that can flare up at any time. You’re ignorant and prideful.

Disgusting. The concept of humanity is not reflected in most humans. What a misnomer.

^I’m with you. It’s my friend who thinks otherwise and I’m trying to debate her without calling her names. Tis why I came to Fluther for a little help.

I do believe there are many people who are disabled and need help. I just can’t believe that in this country, with all its safety laws and regulations, it is justifiable to have 23% of adults classified as disabled and collecting benefits. I don’t know what a reasonable number should be. 5%? 10%? But 23% seems way over the top. That means a little over 3 workers are paying for one on disability. It is too much. A disability rate of 5% would have about 20 workers paying for the disabled. That is manageable.
As more people lose their jobs or age out, the burden will increase. Eventually there will be a backlash. The system can’t sustain it.

This is what I’m arguing against. A quote from my friend:

“You cannot take from those who have, to give to those who don’t give a crap, without eventually having those who have, stop working themselves because it isn’t worth it. You can’t tell me that if you want something bad enough it can’t be achieved. There is always opportunity.”

23% seems way over the top.

It is over the top. Because you are misrepresenting the data.

Your link is about people who “report activity limitations.”

And you are leaping to the conclusion that they are all non-working and collecting benefits.

You made these erroneous claims before, and I pointed it out before.

You can tell her, from me, that she’s more than welcome to give up her comfortable, middle class lifestyle and find an apartment in Flint, Michigan.

@tinyfaery Re: the placards. Don’t trust my data. Take your own. Please sit in the parking lot and watch for 3 minutes. Follow someone into the store. Watch them as they shop. They seem to put on a lot of distance with little to no visible handicap. The symbol for handicapped. is a wheelchair. Those are the people who need them.first. The placards are misused. A young kid takes Granny’s car and slips the card on the mirror then goes into the store to get one item while his girlfriend waits in the car.

The store’s solution is to add yet more spaces.

I don’t know the stats. No matter what I think the stats aren’t extremely accurate. One of the biggest problems in my opinion is low wages. If doing nothing gleans you more money than work, then why work? Also, if your parents raised you in “the system” then that’s what you know, it’s familiar, and it’s no surprise children raised in the system utilize it also.

As far as high earners eventually not wanting to work, because they have to give so much of the money away, I think there is some validity to that, but most work you can’t do less. Usually, you do your job or you don’t. Married people sometimes have a situation where one spouse doesn’t work, because the tax bracket gets very high, but for a single salary the higher tax bracket is usually moot.

I definitely think as a society we must support our truly disabled.

Also, there is not always opportunity. That is idealistic.

Not being american, I obviously have no idea of the nature of the welfare system over there.
What I do know though is there are a rotten core of benefit claimants over here who not only bleed the system dry but fucking revel in it, some even get a macabre celebrity status because tv producers lap that shit up & make fly on the wall documentaries where these people proudly display that they have no intention of finding a job & are more than happy to have their wretched lives funded by the taxpayer.

Not saying all unemployed people have that mentality, of course they don’t, some are trapped by the very system designed to help them & often suffer sanctions through no fault of their own, but the percentage to who I refer is a growing number of complete & utter wasters.

Link

In December 2011, 4.6% of adults in the US were receiving SSDI. It is completely impossible to determine how many were freeloaders.

I was one of those recipients. My story is none of your business. The Social Security Administration kept careful track of me. The rest of you can jump in a lake.

Here is a Newsweek article from two years ago. Their figures are about what I was taught in college. 20% of population has mental illness; some are able to cope, some are not. That is part of your number that “Lucky” had in the NYS statistics.

There are many highly “functional” people and over-achievers who also have mental illness, and often than mental illness includes looking for other people to complain about, so they can avoid having attention (theirs or others’) fall on the things they are ashamed of about themselves.

There are also plenty of super-profitable mega-wealthy corporations on welfare and subsidies and sweet deals and laws they write which benefit themselves. Also companies such as Wal-Mart who help teach their employees how to collect government welfare rather than pay them enough to live on, again while collecting massive profits and driving more humane shops out of business. If we didn’t have such corrupt government, and didn’t hand out so much to corporations, and had better rent control and low-income housing and didn’t have companies throwing away perfectly good food instead of giving it to the needy, then it would not be hard to make sure everyone has their basic needs met.

It might even be best, it seems to me, to just have a system where everyone can get basic housing and food and medical care and so on, and/or a stipend, whether they need it or not. Then it wouldn’t be a case of some people “lying and mooching”, and also the sad folks who feel like they need to work a job they hate to survive and resent it but transfer that anger to “moochers”, could feel less pressure. Even many wealthy people I know in the US have long felt an unrealistic anxiety about the need to constantly do something or else they fear homelessness, starvation and shunning. It’s pretty pathetic, particularly considering we have a massive surplus of resources, housing, clothing and food. Being a shunned “moocher” is not fulfilling and no one sane really wants to do that. If we end the panic, we could get to work at the things we’re actually best at, and probably be much more productive. Unfortunately, our culture’s emotional development seems to have been stuck in dysfunctional arguments like this for a very long time.

You’re not going to get statistics on how many people are “freeloaders” or “moochers”, because it’s not an actual demographic. Might as well ask for statistics on how many people are assholes or jerkfaces.

Just who is more guilty of riding the Government gravy train?
Those so called on it, or companies that pay so poorly that their employees are forced to seek Government assistance just to put food on the table at the end of a 40+ hour work week?

I agree @SQUEEKY2, but try telling that to someone that believes everyone has a chance to succeed if they work hard enough. I thought some kind of statitistc might be available to counter that argument.

I was trying to find some stats to provide an example earlier @dammitjanetfromvegas, but I couldn’t find what I wanted. The problem is, and I’m certain you know this, there is no clear definition of ‘freeloader’ and ‘moocher’. In addition, those who tar certain groups of people with these labels often don’t bother to gather an accurate impression of the group. So single mothers become demonized as ‘moochers’ who are having children just to claim benefits. The reality in Australia is that the majority of single mothers have been in a stable relationship, they had a child or children with a partner they loved, that relationship broke down, and they’ve been left with responsibility for the children. They’re usually not on benefits for more than a few years and many of them are studying during that period of time. Those who want to point to a group in society and paint them as ‘freeloaders’ don’t bother to find out who that group such as the ‘single mother’ really is.

So it’s impossible to present statistics for “freeloaders” or “moochers” because we don’t know who those people are.

One way you can measure freeloaders is by looking at the birth rates of women on public assistance. This constitutes as freeloading since it indicates they’re starting a family or expanding an existing family while collecting welfare benefits. Census Bureau measures the birth rates of women on public assistance. Here is what they reported: “For the nation, the birth rate for women receiving public assistance was 160 births per 1,000 women, almost three times the rate for women not receiving public assistance.” link

With a population of around 50 million on welfare, if you do the math, you will have a rough estimate of how many poor people are freeloaders.

This is the image that sparked the discussion,.

Let’s try to bear in mind that many women on public assistance cannot afford to see a doctor, cannot afford health insurance, and thus cannot afford birth control. If birth control fails (common with inexpensive alternatives like condoms), abortions can only be paid for out of pocket. That’s roughly equivalent to two months’ rent in my area.

Medicaid will happily cover a pregnancy and delivery for a woman with up to 200% of the federal poverty level in income. In states that did not expand Medicaid, non-pregnant women are screwed. Adults get absolutely no help until they are of Medicare age.

@Seek,...women men and children no matter what their circumstances now can qualify for health care under the Affordable Care act.

^They qualify for care they still can’t afford.

If people on public assistance are aware that they can’t afford birth control and that alternatives are not reliable, why are they still having sex knowing the high risks of getting pregnant and how much that will accelerate/prolong their need for public assistance? They’re gambling with their lives, and the taxpayers. Why not keep their legs closed? Why not masturabate? This just makes it all the more clear that they’re freeloaders.

@dammitjanetfromvegas Not true…I know a direct relative that doesn’t have 2 nickels to rub together and they waited 2 years for Obama care to get passed so his wife could get 2 hips replaced by the good grace of Obama care. Health care under the Affordable Care act is exactly that….pay what you can afford. It is a grueling amount of red tape from what they reported to me but they are humbly grateful for the medical treatment they did receive.

Sorry, @Cruiser, but those of us living in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid and who bring in less than the federal poverty level are royally fucked.

@efnuttin : because they are human.

@jane

I think that regardless of how beneficial (or not) the statistics are to the point you’re trying to make with your friend, in the end it’s likely an exercise in futility. But thanks for trying.

The problem is that people making the “moocher” argument, are unlikely to have had the misfortune of being in dire financial straits due to an unfortunate turn of circumstance (illness, sustained job loss, or similar)

If they tend to be all about the numbers economically then that’s what they focus on. Unless they are a naturally compassionate person, they just can’t identify with that. So it’s easier to demonize those whom they know so little about.

A few years ago there was a TV program which featured a different rich person (or couple) who spent a week in a different location with no money except what a typical welfare recipient would receive.

They also were to choose several charities to volunteer with. At the end of the week they would choose which charities to give to. (Their OWN money; not from the TV show.)

Week after week it was fascinating to see these people try to live in that limited amount of money and also get to know people at these charities whom they would not meet in their everyday lives.

I don’t know why it didn’t continue but it was one of the best uses of TV I’ve ever seen. It was really eye opening.

I can’t remember the exact program name but will try to find it. Perhaps viewing a few episodes might give your friend a different perspective.

(Or maybe not…who knows?)

We had health care under the ACA last year. My mother in law moved in and now we don’t make enough money to get the help intended for poor people. Thanks, Rick Scott!

Don’t forget to count my crack whore niece and her ex’s.
All working the system. All think people who work are chumps.

Here’s one woman’s brief account of her participation with the show.

What I liked best about this program was the wonderful grass roots charities operating on a shoestring budget that were showcased. Truly inspiring. Plus they listed each charity and their contact info. It was great.

….......
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alibrown/2011/03/22/secret-millionaire-money-giving-tv-and-emotions-run-wild/#2b9fb7c17cc8
—————————
.....
And here’s an overview of the show in both the US as well as UK. And since it’s no longer airing there must be episodes available to watch somewhere on the net. YouTube maybe?

…..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Millionaire

These kinds of questions are nearly impossible to answer with any degree of accuracy unless the qualifiers are carefully established first, as several respondents have already attempted to do.

I can offer some anecdotal evidence, for what it’s worth.

The last time I worked in the field in US power plant construction, in 1991, the wage for boilermakers and pipefitters on Union projects was around $29 per hour in cash wages, plus additional compensation in the form of Union Health & Welfare contributions (their insurance was better than mine), Pension and other non-cash payments brought the average wage for these high-paid individuals to over $40 in most parts of the country. (Union contracts are negotiated locally, so the only national constants are the non-cash payments that the union leadership demands.) And there is frequent time-and-a-half overtime for those who want it, and double-time OT on Sundays and holidays. (Though it has been even longer since I did repair work, when a utility power plant shuts down for any length of time on a planned or forced outage, it’s all hands on deck around the clock until it’s back online, so there’s lots of overtime for those who want it.)

Making that kind of money, and having the skills that they do, a lot of construction workers plan their lives around the repair circuit. They know that the plants in their area shut down for annual maintenance, and the schedules that they follow, and they know that there are occasional forced outages besides. And they know which projects are starting up, which can pretty much guarantee them a steady 40-hour work week for months or years. So they plan the months and times that they will work – and leave the job when they’ve had enough, or earned enough to make a certain cushion – and then collect unemployment.

But this is “planned” unemployment. Many of them simply walk off the job or request a layoff (which employers will give, because they don’t want discontented employees working around high risk work, and they don’t want to have to fight the Union and the State over “termination for cause”). But, you say, the employer has paid “unemployment insurance” contributions against this very event, and the employee IS without a job now, so it’s okay for him to collect, right?

Yes, but …

Most of these people, having the skills that they have as mechanics, welders, riggers, etc., and having the tools and knowledge that they have, generally have home-based businesses in all kinds of things: boat-building, trailer manufacturing, home building and repairing, excavating – all kinds of things. We’re talking highly skilled, highly competent and generally hard-working people here.

So they manage their home business, or help their brother-in-law with his (or, let’s face it, some of them just take extended vacations in warmer climates) … and collect unemployment benefits while they claim to be “not working; looking for work”.

And everyone in the construction industry knows it.

It is true for many people I know @Cruiser.

@Seek…How does Obamacare cover my friend, his wife and my niece and nephew 100% free and clear then?

@CWOTUS I worked side by side in the trades with cops and fireman who had these side gigs on their days off. I was self employed, self insured and resented these guys who had full bennies and pensions thanks to my tax dollars and were clearly breaking the rules of their employment contracts. In the end I probably would have done the same given the opportunity.

Well, since I don’t know what state they live in or what their household size and yearly income is, I can’t possibly know.

100% ? Wow. Where do I sign up.

Amazing how people always personally know of folks who are gaming the system, yet they never report these folks. Easier to just sit back and bitch I guess.

@Darth_Algar Would you turn in your own brother? I would not be surprised if you did

@Darth_Algar Are you saying no one is gaming the system? There are definitely people who make sure they earn only a certain amount so they don’t lose benefits. I’m not sure if that’s gaming or not.

@Cruiser

Sure would. That sonofabitch doesn’t exist to me.

@JLeslie

No, I’m saying if you truly know of someone gaming the system then act on it. Or don’t act, but if you don’t act then don’t bitch.

I never thought I’d say this but I think I need to make my best friend an acquaintance on FB so I don’t see this crap: There’s no reasoning with her.

http://m.newsok.com/article/5475578?utm_source=MobileNewsOK.com&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=ScrollShare-Facebook

I wrote this long post last night about this and I’m not sure what happened to it.

I work for the system (in other words, “in” the system”) and I can assure you that if you turn someone in for being a fraud, you either need some solid proof or you need proof to be available.

We all may have theories about who can work or should work but on the other side, the recipient has medical documentation proving they can’t for either mental or physical reasons.

The understaffed “fraud unit” may need to trail someone to prove that they have a job if they’re not supposed to have one.

The question is, could these people do some job, any job, with whatever their limitations are? Yes, they could stuff envelopes or something, maybe. In this economy, with the job market like it is, the person is going to make more with disability then they are if they get a crappy job with crappy hours or no hours (for which they’ll need several jobs to make ends meet). They really are better off with disability, Section 8, food stamps, whatever else they get. It’s not right but it’s true.

I know people, as we probably all do, who could get a job if they had to, but instead they sleep late, go to bed late, smoke, become super-obese, drink, whatever, on our dime. Proving otherwise is the almost impossible part. Trust me when I tell you.

Of course I’m not saying all people on DIsability are like that. However, there are some. Quantifying that number would be almost impossible because they all have medical documentation saying they’re unable to work.

@Darth_Algar I see your point, but I don’t think anything can be done. The system creates that situation, because of the rules in the system, and low wages. People getting money under false disability is one thing, but getting money because you don’t earn enough to live is different.

Even a situation like Social Security, where let’s say the person worked and supported themselves their whole life, if they take SS early they don’t get the whole amount if they work too much. When I worked at Bloomingdales we had an employee who only worked part of the year so she could collect her whole SS benefit. I don’t think anyone would say she was gaming, because it was her entitlement to the SS money, but you can see how the rules create an environment not to work.

My guess is most people on public assistance want to work and make more money.

Easily the biggest moochers, dollar-wise, in the U.S. economy are at the opposite of “poor” economically. Many would class them as spiritually poor.

@JLeslie

Nice post, but it had nothing to do with my point at all.

It is foolish to assume all welfare redients are moochers but it is equally foolish to assume none are. Generational welfare is real and it teaches some how to game the system. It is very difficult to take a job that forfeits your welfare and leaves you with less than you got in welfare but the potential for higher earning is only there with a job. We’ve been trying to break this cycle for many decades with little progress. We’ll never make any progress with one side claiming it’s all legitimate and the other claiming none of it is. Unfortunately we live in a time where reasonable solutions gain no support but asinine all or nothing responses win the day. That’s unfortunate.

Interesting. Where do illegals/“refugees” fit in this equation? Just saying…..

@dabbler and @Jaxk both have valid points, and from opposite ends of a political spectrum, I would imagine.

In the first place, as @dabbler alluded, the “biggest moochers” in terms of dollars received per entity are many corporate interests who have little or no interest in “free markets”, but are very interested in rent-seeking (i.e., “captive markets”). For an example of that you can look at the recent fights over the Ex-Im Bank (Export – Import), where corporations such as Boeing, to name one, receive federal loan guarantees – subsidies, in other words – to help finance their exporting business. It’s not as if Boeing can’t compete on world markets in aerospace, but this kind of loan guarantee is touted as being “good for workers”, and while it is certainly good for Boeing workers (and better for Boeing itself) to the extent that it adds to tax burdens (and considering the number of corporations that line up for this, and the amounts we’re talking about, it does add up), it’s not so good for “all workers”. But “all workers” have a lot less interest in protesting this than Boeing (and others) have in promoting it.

“Obamacare” is another example, where health insurers are assured that all citizens are required to buy their services, whether they want them or not. So “the market” is guaranteed – by law! Not many providers of goods and services have a market that “has to buy” their services. (You might think “food providers”, but unlike health care, you can still grow your own food if you really want to.)

As to @Jaxk‘s point, even if the gross amounts paid to individuals are barely above subsistence levels, and few people who “need” this kind of relief are getting rich from it, it teaches a culture of dependency, it discourages risk-taking and lifestyle changes that people have to accept when they decide to train for careers where they have to sell their skills in the marketplace, and may have to change residences to go where the work is, as well as someday change careers because the low-skill jobs that some stay in are some of the first to be automated and out-sourced.

”This is the image that sparked the discussion,.”

It says “5 Truths You CANNOT Disagree With”, but I not only disagree with them, but I think people who say them are being clods.

^ totally agree.

@Zaku Absolutely.

I’ve come to the realization that my best friend of 38 years is in fact a clod.

sad face

Okay, fine. You can certainly disagree with them all you want. They’re still true, whether you like them or not.

@CWOTUS Exactly! They belong with the others truths like the sun rises in the East and sets in the West and death and taxes etc.

They’re truISMS at best, and more like Steven Colbert’s “truthiness” – crap that sounds true and clever, especially to people who are already inclined to agree with you.