welfare student scam

Abby is a single mom who took advantage of a government sponsored study program for welfare recipients in order to get an education – but admits that being a welfare student is a bit of scam whichever way you look at it.

"One of the ways our government tries to help disadvantaged welfare recipients is to get them enrolled in some course," confides Abby. “Ostensibly, the theory is that once a person has an education they become employable, but the scheme is often just a cunning way to reduce unemployment figures and safeguard the careers of college and university staff; and a lot of welfare students are just wasting time on these courses.”

The advantage of studying when you're on welfare," says Abby, "is that you don't have to worry about supporting yourself. Also, you can choose your subject and it does not have to be related to any particular job. You can study ancient Greek if you want to."

"Also, you don't have to worry about guaranteed employment at the end of the course as most other people do," says Abby. "If you don't get a job at the end of the course then you are not going to be destitute -- you are still receiving welfare."

“The other advantage is that people who work full-time during the day and study part-time at night have a really bad time,” says Abby. “Their relationships suffer. Their health suffers. Inevitably, too, both their work and study suffers.

"The worst possible scenario for these people," says Abby, "is that they end up losing everything and having to apply for welfare. Ironic, isn't it?"

"As a welfare recipient," says Abby, "you have everything to gain by studying and nothing much to lose. If you score a good job, then you can pay your debt off. If you don’t, then the debt will just sit there and will get written off when you die!"

“Thanks taxpayers!”


Read more by Abby on this issue:

waitressing and student debt

menial first jobs

swing to communism to create jobs?

Cheryl is concerned about the rise of welfare and nanny states in response to the global financial crisis and massive immigration and unemployment, and believes that there will ultimately be a swing to communism in order to create jobs for all.

"For all its faults, communism had one good point," says Cheryl. “It's mantra was no work, no food - and that should be our mantra, too."

"Germany was the first of the European nations to crack down on welfare - forcing people to work for less than regular wages - and good for them," says Cheryl. "Forced labor might stick in the craw of native Germans but it is a measure that will surely stop a lot of freeloading immigrants and refugees from wanting to live in Germany."

"In time the rest of the EU and the rest of the western world will have to follow Germany's lead," says Cheryl, "because the welfare cash cow is drying up. Given the choice of forced work in the cities for low wages or return to the land and fend for themselves, I'd expect a lot of people - including the refugees -- will decide they are better off being peasants than slum dwellers."

"I believe welfare - except for the genuinely needy - should be abolished because it attracts freeloaders from other countries and promotes a 'soft', dependent population," says Cheryl. "Responsibility should be sheeted home to families to take care of their own - making people think twice before having a third, fourth or fifth child, and far more encouragement and facilitation should he given to unemployed people to start their own businesses, to create their own jobs, even if it is just street entertainment or car washing."

"There may be very few regular jobs these days, but there is always something that people can do if given a hard enough incentive -- such as no more welfare," explains Cheryl. "Give these people the use of a block of land with a few chickens and a real cow - rather than a cash cow - and force them to take care of themselves!"

Read more from Cheryl on this subject:

the welfare cash cow

immigrants and cash cows

treated like thieves by welfare officer

When the small business run by Minette and her husband folded, they spent four months looking for employment and, after many job rejections and mounting debts, they asked the welfare office for financial assistance -- as was their right to do -- but never expected to be humiliated and treated like thieves.

"Honestly, we were treated like thieves trying to gain unlawful benefits or something," says Minette. "We had to expose every aspect of our private lives to a supercilious clerk who, at another time in history, would have made a great concentration camp guard, and when she saw that we had quite a bit of equity in our home she enquired why we were seeking benefits when we could sell our home and support ourselves."

"When we protested, she pointed out that selling up would allow us to move to an area with higher employment prospects," explains Minette. "We sat there stunned and wondered about all the tax we had paid over the years to protect us from this very situation."

"Why should we sell our home? We weren't expecting to be unemployed forever," cries Minette. "Every industry goes though seasonal slumps and if we couldn't find employment in the areas of our expertise then we needed help finding alternative employment. That help, and financial assistance, was why we turned to the welfare office in the first place and we couldn't believe how unhelpful and rude the social security clerk was!"

"Were they running a racket or something? Was the game to target the more well-off unemployed, brow beat them, encourage them to sell their homes at a loss and either buy them up themselves or get a cut from the agent or purchaser?"

"Sure, we'd heard horrible stories about the welfare office," says Minette, "but that sort of stuff only happened to the deadbeats, the drug addicts and the serial single moms didn't it? Wrong, it happens to decent people like us, too."

"So, what is the alternative to accepting welfare?" asks Minette. "Sure, we could have sold our home at a loss and used the money to rent a place and pay for expenses while waiting for a suitable job to materialize -- but eventually we would have been forced into a career change, having to re-train and do all of that stuff -- and in the meantime we would have lost our home and eroded our finances to such an extent that it might be years before we built up enough to pay a deposit on another home."

"I know that a lot of people are so turned off welfare and being treated like a social pariah that they resort to pawn shops and loan sharks, run up huge credit card debts, redraw from their mortgages until the debt is worth more than the asset or beg loans from family members," says Minette. "Some even think that prostitution and crime are better alternatives than going to the welfare office for assistance."

"And this is the sort of reckless behavior that our government encourages by making welfare benefits so hard and humiliating to get, and by turning all welfare recipients into thieving social pariahs."

"Proposals to cut payments and bring in a system of food, gas and clothing vouchers is just another draconian idea designed to abuse the unemployed -- and the sick, disabled and elderly," says Minette. "Sure, they say it is to prevent abuse of the system, but in countries where food stamps are used their recipients only exchange them at half face value for drugs -- and the point I'm making is this: why should the majority of genuine unemployed people looking for work be penalized by the minority of those abusing the system?"

"We both found good jobs eventually," says Minette, "but our experience with the social security system -- which is a total misnomer -- will live in our memories forever as the most humiliating experience of our lives and never again will we be so naive as to believe that the taxes we pay are any sort of insurance for us and that our government cares."

"The government, as far as we are concerned, is a big fat thief," says Minette. "It takes our money and pretends it's using it for social services, but when you need to tap into those social services you're given a kick in the guts."

"Frankly, we have less respect for the government than we have for the guys who regularly raid our neighborhood for items of value they can sell to support themselves," says Minette, "and we've now found a clever accountant who has arranged our finances and assets in such a way that we hardly pay any tax and can draw on our own funds should we ever get into trouble again."

"And that, guys, is the best alternative to welfare should you be in a position to do it," laughs Minette. "If we had known these 'tricks' when we had our business maybe we could have remained afloat, but we were young and naive and thought we knew it all, you know how it is."

beating up the underclass

Valda believes that the welfare system will never be scrapped because governments and society in general benefit from having an underclass of dependant and docile citizens to beat up.

"Think about it," says Valda, "if you removed welfare you will create a desperate underclass of people and this will not only threaten the security of the nation but the jobs of everyone else."

"In theory, if you forced everyone off welfare it may be much easier to exploit them -- desperate people will work under any conditions for any pay -- but their desperation will lower wages for other workers and those currently employed won't like that, will they?"

"By keeping an underclass of dependant and docile citizens on welfare, the government effectively uses them as scapegoats," says Valda, "and their vilification and ill treatment serves as a threat to low paid workers not to risk losing their jobs and joining the underclass by asking for more pay."

"Also, it suits business to have a pool of docile unemployed people on welfare because it provides them with a ready reserve of workers should existing staff get too uppity in their wage demands and need to be sacked," says Valda. "And, during holidays and prolonged sickness, when regular staff are off work, employers have no trouble finding short-term replacement staff."

"We all know someone -- or have been there ourselves -- to know how badly you are treated by government officials and society in general when you lose your job and are forced on to welfare," says Valda. "For me, It was an abominable experience, and it struck me as terribly cruel that I was persecuted for something beyond my control."

"Nobody's job is 100% secure and we are all at risk of becoming unemployed if not sick or even too old to work," says Valda. "And what are we paying exorbitant taxes for if not for social security when we need it?"

"I survived for seven months on benefits before I found another job," says Valda, "and in that time I was forced into various draconian schemes deliberately designed to thwart me from looking for a job and to drain every drop of my self-esteem. It was as if they didn't want me to find work and wanted to keep me as a dependent underclass citizen so that they could benefit from my unemployment."

"Regularly reporting to the welfare office with evidence that I was looking for work was like visiting a parole officer for committing a criminal offence," sighs Valda. "The whole experience was degrading and intended to be so. And, except for one person who went out of her way to be kind, all of the people employed at the welfare office were petty, mean, sub-human little tyrants who wouldn't last a day in the real world with real work."

"My new job didn't pay very well," says Valda, "but I was so glad to get out of the welfare system that I accepted it happily. And isn't this just another facet of the cycle of perpetual slavery and welfare that our system promotes?"

"As I see it, the system exists because there are not enough jobs to go around and maybe that's because those who do have jobs are being paid a lot more than they are worth (such as the welfare clerks) or doing the work of two people (as many of my high-paid friends are)," says Valda. "And, as more or us lose our jobs and are forced to take lower paid jobs after a humiliating period on welfare, wages across the board are going to reflect this change."

"I've never heard of anyone coming off welfare getting a higher paid job than they had before, have you?" asks Valda. "It stands to reason, then, that everyone in a job, especially a highly paid one, should thank the welfare underclass for their good fortune."

"So, don't blame the people receiving benefits and don't vilify them," says Valda. "Most of us got there because we lost our jobs and the pittance we receive is hardly worth the additional humiliation we suffer -- and you or a loved one may be next."

"During the seven months I was on welfare, it seemed to me that helping me get back into the workforce was never the intention of the officials I saw," says Valda. "On the contrary, their intention seemed to be to humiliate me and keep me in the system forever."

"Because I knew that the longer I stayed unemployed the harder it would be for me to get out of the system, I had to drop my standards to absolute rock bottom to get a job, " says Valda. "This really surprised the welfare officials managing me. I guess they thought I'd be turning up for my regular humiliation sessions with them forever!"

"With people like that depending on the unemployed for the existence of their jobs," says Valda, "you get to understand who the real parasites are and why the welfare system will never be scrapped."

"If you don't have the intestinal fortitude to overcome the harassment and claw your way out of the system you will remain with the welfare underclass forever," says Valda. "It's a terrible fate and the type of people who succumb to it are often the sweetest of people, gentle and kind, trusting and naive, who have no natural defences against vilification and mistreatment."

global welfare heaven

Cassidy, 22, is a university student receiving all the government financial help she can get her hands on. She's in welfare heaven and believes welfare is not only a social good but also that there should be more of it!

"Western capitalist countries are unlikely to abolish welfare because, like the ancient slave system before it, welfare is the means by which economies thrive and the wealthy get wealthier," says Cassidy. "It may seem crazy that giving away money is good for the economy but compared with the cost of providing jobs and opportunities for everybody it is an incredibly cheap way to manage the masses. Right?"

"Welfare is an industry providing jobs for thousands of people," says Cassidy. "For every person on welfare, there is at least one person in some sort of government employment managing him or her. The ancient slave masters cracking the whip - or the workhouse wardens withholding the soup - are now the case managers, counselors, psychologists, employment agents, housing agents, immigration agents, lawyers, private detectives, etc that owe their comfortable livelihoods to the welfare system."

"Abolish welfare and there will be twice as many people out of work and starving," laughs Cassidy. "The government isn't stupid - it knows what it's doing."

"Welfare payments are so paltry, deliberately so, that every penny given gets put back into the local economy immediately," says Cassidy. "Capitalism is fired by consumerism, and the more people consuming local goods and services the healthier the economy."

"It is no coincidence that there are more supermarkets and super-malls in welfare towns than in up-market areas," says Cassidy. "The grocery giants and the cheap chain stores practically live off welfare. The poor, disabled, aged and the unemployed have nowhere else to go but the malls - and they have nothing else they can spend their welfare checks on than the cheap food, clothes and home-wares they find at their local mall."

"Abolish welfare and whole towns built around malls will become ghost towns, thousands of mall workers will lose their jobs and the grocery and chain store giants will go out of business," laughs Cassidy, "and a whole lot of government employees would be out of work, too."

"Welfare, in cahoots with religion, is a powerful way to control the masses and prevent them from revolting," says Cassidy. "It is far cheaper to give the poor, disabled, aged and the unemployed a pittance to cover their basic expenses than to employ a police force or an army big enough to keep them from ransacking the homes of the rich or otherwise disturbing the peace."

"Abolish welfare and the heads of the rich will roll, just like they did in the French Revolution!"

"Finally, welfare is not only a clever economic strategy but it's also a dastardly clever social strategy," says Cassidy. "No civilization, ancient or modern, has ever provided 100% employment and opportunity for everyone - the young, the old, the sick, the feeble-minded and the disabled - nor has there ever been an attempt to achieve what most economists would consider such an impossible aim. Even the communist countries maintained a social barrier between the upper and the lower classes."

"There are two ugly facts relevant to all economies from ancient to modern times, says Cassidy. "One, is that jobs are finite - more people equates to less paying jobs and where there is no slavery there is unemployment or underemployment - and two, is that without an underclass there would be no upper class."

"Abolish welfare and there would be no underclass for the middle and upper classes to look down upon, boss around, abuse and bully and no easy scapegoats to blame for society's ills!"

"Frankly, I intend to stay at university for as long as I can - doing one course after another - and taking as much welfare as I can," says Cassidy. "Sure, I won't get rich and I'll have to put up with all the welfare-bashers cursing me for being a sponge - and eventually, I suppose, I'll have to join the slaving masses - but right now I'm basking in welfare heaven and I know that the government not only loves people like me but needs them, too."

creating a female underclass

Anthea is an aged pensioner, without family, and is thus welfare dependent herself, but she cannot understand why so many young women with children -- single, divorced or widowed -- are not given the appropriate government help they need to become independent and end up, instead, becoming welfare pariahs.

"Is it because our whole social fabric has disintegrated? Is it because families are breaking down and can no longer be relied upon to help their women when - through sickness, unemployment, old age, divorce, death of spouse, unexpected pregnancy or domestic violence - they are unable to take care of themselves and need help? Or is it a deliberate government policy to create a female underclass?"

"If the whole purpose of the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s was to free women from dependence on men," asks Anthea, "then why are so many women with children now on welfare?"

"There always has been, and always will be, vulnerable women," says Anthea, "it goes with our gender. But women are more vulnerable now than ever before because the welfare system has made them scapegoats."

"For instance," explains Anthea, "in every welfare state around the world, single mothers are treated like pariahs and so are the unemployed. Already, I am noticing that aged pensioners are being targeted, too. Very soon the western world will have more elderly people than taxpayers can afford to support - and the effect this is going to have on old people is frightening - especially female aged pensioners, like me, because of our longevity."

The feeling in the community is that most welfare recipients are lazy spongers who won't take care of themselves, and that their families should be taking responsibility for them - not the taxpayers. Anthea can appreciate this argument.

"I took care of my parents before they died and paid for all of their expenses," says Anthea, "and the only reason I’ve fallen into welfare is because I never married and had children. And, yet, even if I had married and had children, my children would now be in the generation that believes it’s the state’s responsibility to care for the elderly, not the children’s."

Anthea believes that families stopped taking responsibility for their own at about the same time as the age old tradition of women snaring themselves a husband as a lifetime meal ticket started to die out in the 1960s.

"The majority of women since the 1960s have spread their wings and rebelled against all of the old constraints," explains Anthea, "and many men have applauded female liberation as it freed them, too. But there are still traditional women - no doubt influenced by their families and the men they love - who continue to believe that the natural order rests upon male domination and as such they are happy to remain inferior to their men, and dependent upon them."

"These natural order type marriages are successful," explains Anthea, "as long as the husband remains living and capable of supporting his wife and family. When the husband dies or becomes disabled, his wife and children often end up dependent upon welfare."

There are other women, though, who do not see themselves as inferior to men and yet still expect their men folk to look after them!

"These women," says Anthea, "are responsible for the high incidence of divorce, and a lot of them end up depending on welfare, too. Modern marriage is supposedly based upon interdependence - two working people contributing towards the home and supporting each other - but while some men are willing to support their wives while the children are young, there are others who expect their wives to carry on working after childbirth."

When the inevitable clash about housework and childcare arises, Anthea sees the woman always coming off second best to the man.

Typically, Anthea hears the argument: "What use is women's liberation when all it means is that I have the dubious honor of working a full day outside the home, only to come home and work a full evening shift performing traditional mothering and housewifely duties while my partner is out with the boys, tinkering with his toys or nodding off in front of the television."

"These women are exhausted and angry," says Anthea. "When divorce arrives, some women carry on working without the additional burden of a partner to pick up and clean up after, but others go the welfare route and become scapegoats."

Anthea believes that many estranged mothers go the welfare route for the same reason that many widows with children choose the welfare route rather than face the working grind.

"The responsibility of raising children on their own is enormous," says Anthea. "Not every mother is capable of juggling work and family. They have a need to be taken care of, a need not to worry about where the next penny is coming from, a need to feel secure, a need to have time to take care of themselves and their children."

"There is also a great deal of disillusionment with work, a realization that it cannot give them the fulfillment they crave," explains Anthea. "This is especially true when the work they have been doing is of a menial nature."

And then, there are the unmarried mothers who just can't take care of themselves. Most are emotionally immature, they lack drive, they have no aims and they are considered unemployable.

"They are children raising children," sighs Anthea.

Welfare exists to take care of those who cannot take care of themselves - it is a safety net to protect vulnerable women from the streets - and while some women take advantage of it because they won't take care of themselves, Anthea believes it is pointless differentiating between the two.

"In a civilized society we take care of everyone," says Anthea. "Taxpayers get to support corporate welfare recipients as well as welfare women, so does it really matter?"

"What does matter," says Anthea, "is that it should matter to the women who choose the welfare route because it carries a stigma that disempowers them further than they are already. It makes them an underclass - they become scapegoats for all the welfare-bashers in our society."

For this reason - not because she ever resented her tax money going to support these women and their children - Anthea feels that welfare is a double-edged sword.

Anthea believes that these women need supportive jobs, appropriate training and social support - not welfare - but all too often the type of help they get lands them in terrible jobs, trains them with useless skills and alienates them from mainstream society.

"I’ve not had children myself," explains Anthea, "but I would imagine that bringing a child into the world is a supreme achievement, and raising that child involves a supreme sacrifice. Maybe a future solution for the dilemma of welfare mothers is to elevate motherhood to a supreme status."

"Hitler had some dreadful ideas, but he may have been ahead of his time with the baby farms and treating all mothers as goddesses."

This article first appeared as welfare scapegoats

parasitic societies

Ainsley moved with her policeman husband to a small country town last year, and she has figured out that the few people who do have jobs in the town -- including her husband -- earn their income, in one way or another, from the government (ie the taypapers) and she is shocked that the whole town runs on welfare.

"The town has a population of 650," says Ainsley, "and of these an astronomical 612 people are on some sort of government welfare benefit."

"Of the remaining 38 people, 9 are employed directly by the government - including my husband," says Ainsley, "and the remaining 29 are either shopkeepers or self-employed."

"The whole town runs on welfare," sighs Ainsley. "There are no jobs for those who want to work -- the shops and the small businesses are family-run and don't need extra staff."

"When the welfare checks come in, 612 people go out and buy what they need, and the shopkeepers and the small business men and women rake in the money."

"It's a good thing I have two children to keep me busy," laughs Ainsley, "because there's no opportunity here for me to get a part-time job to keep me occupied."

"The population is overwhelmingly very young and very old," says Ainsley. "Most of the working age people have moved to the city to find work -- but from what I've heard a lot of them just end up jobless and on the streets."

"I feel very uncomfortable living in this sort of environment and I can't wait for my husband to get a transfer back to the city."

"Country towns sound romantic," sighs Ainsley, "but they're not."

"I'm accustomed to suburban life where most people work and the only welfare recipients you are likely to meet are the aged pensioners."

"I just can't get accustomed to healthy grown men and women living on welfare, having nothing to do all day. It doesn't make sense and it certainly isn't fair."

"The one good thing about this town is that the crime rate is very low," says Ainsley. "The only trouble my husband has to deal with is alcohol related -- and that, in itself, is related to the men having nothing better to do than drink themselves silly."

"I wish I could come up with some idea to provide employment for the town so that the young men and women don't have to leave," says Ainsley, "but this drift to the city -- and whole towns becoming dependent upon welfare -- has been going on since welfare was introduced."

"I had no idea of the reality of the situation until I came here and saw it for myself."

"The economics of the situation sounds crazy but it seems to work," says Ainsley, "and I'm beginning to wonder whether the government actually promotes welfare dependency in order to provide jobs for the elite."

"In other words, rather than the welfare recipients being the parasites -- it's the other way around -- we're the parasites, feeding off them!"

"Twenty-nine people in this town live directly off welfare checks supporting 612 people -- and 9 people, including my husband, live off salaries paid from taxation."

"Altogether, 38 people is this town pay tax," says Ainsley.

"I doubt whether the tax paid by these 38 people actually covers the welfare checks supporting 612 people," explains Ainsley, "but when you take into consideration that the working and welfare ratio in the city is reversed, it all balances out."

"If the 612 people in this town living on welfare moved elsewhere," says Ainsley, "38 people, including my husband, would be out of work."

"If the millions of people in this country living on welfare moved elsewhere," adds Ainsley, "thousands of people would be out of work!"

"It's scary to accept that our country runs on welfare -- that a certain percentage of people are deliberately denied jobs and a future in order to ensure that the elite prosper," says Ainsley, "but that's the conclusion I've come to."

"I feel uncomfortable living in this environment because I am part of the elite," says Ainsley. "And this is crazy because my husband is just a policeman -- not a doctor or a lawyer."

"It's easy to get a swelled head when you've got a job or a business and you live in a country town like this."

"There are some very big fish here in this small country town," laughs Ainsley, "but they're not just big fish, they're big parasite fish, and that's nothing to be proud of, is it?"

Ainsley's story first appeared as we're all welfare parasites