a Trump vs Clinton United States Presidential Election in 2016

Who do you vote into the office of USA President?


  • Total voters
    48
What are the actual numbers, and has this been historically true for decades, or is it more recent due to the economic downturn?[DOUBLEPOST=1471537001,1471536402][/DOUBLEPOST]

There's a big difference between generational poverty and situational poverty. Why 5 years? Is that just a convenient break point? Isn't being unemployed for 5 years a terrific tragedy? What is the percentage for, say, 6 months, or one year?

Given that there are about 100 million americans receiving some form of assistance (though not necessarily just SNAP and TANF) does this indicate that we have some 25 million americans who've been receiving welfare for over 5 years?

That nearly 10% of the US is receiving welfare benefits for over 5 years?
The USDA Food and Nutrition Service reports that as of September 2014, there were around 46.5 million individual food stamp recipients (22.7 million households) receiving an average benefit of $123.74 each (around $257 per household).
To be eligible, a household has to earn a gross income amount that's less than 130% of the poverty level, or a net income amount (gross income minus deductions) that's less than 100% of the poverty level for their family size.
This means, a single person can be eligible for food stamps if his or her gross monthly income is under $1,265 ($15,180 per year), and a family of four can be eligible if they gross less than $2,584 per month ($31,008 per year). The applicant also can't be a wealthy person who simply doesn't have a steady income source. So, if the applicant has thousands of dollars sitting in the bank, for instance, they won't apply as cash assets are considered as well.

7. Louisiana
• Number of food stamp recipients: 868,192
• Percentage of the state's population on food stamps: 18.67%
• Total cost of just these benefits alone (That is, how much do just the money on those EBT cards cost the state): Around $107.4 million
• Cost of benefits alone per capita in this state: $23.10
6. Tennessee
• Number of food stamp recipients: Just over 1.28 million
• Percentage of the state's population on food stamps: 19.58%
• Total cost of just these benefits alone (That is, how much do just the money on those EBT cards cost the state?): Around $158.7 million
• Cost of benefits alone per capita in this state: $24.23
5. Oregon
• Number of food stamp recipients: 791,222
• Percentage of the state's population on food stamps: 19.93%
• Total cost of just these benefits alone (That is, how much do just the money on those EBT cards cost the state?): Around $98 million
• Cost of benefits alone per capita in this state: $24.66 per person
4. West Virginia
• Number of food stamp recipients: 369,249
• Percentage of the state's population on food stamps: 19.96%
• Total cost of just these benefits alone (That is, how much do just the money on those EBT cards cost the state?): Around $45.7 million
• Cost of benefits alone per capita in this state: $24.69 per person
3. New Mexico
• Number of food stamp recipients: 448,328
• Percentage of the state's population on food stamps: 21.5%
• Total cost of just these benefits alone (That is, how much do just the money on those EBT cards cost the state?): Around $55.5 million
• Cost of benefits alone per capita in this state: $26.60 per person
2. Mississippi
• Number of food stamp recipients: 650,911
• Percentage of the state's population on food stamps: 21.74%
• Total cost of just these benefits alone (That is, how much do just the money on those EBT cards cost the state?): Around $80.5 million
• Estimated cost of benefits alone per capita in this state: $26.90 per person
1. District of Columbia
• Number of food stamp recipients: 144,768
• Percentage of the state's population on food stamps: 21.97%
• Total cost of just these benefits alone (That is, how much do just the money on those EBT cards cost the state?): Around $18 million
• Estimated cost of benefits alone per capita in this state: $27.19 per person

http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/29SNAPcurrPP.pdf

http://www.cheatsheet.com/personal-...stats-about-public-assistance.html/?a=viewall
 
"What are the actual numbers?" - http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/29SNAPcurrPP.pdf - THESE ARE LITERALLY THE NUMBERS. The most recent numbers from a credible source for how many people, per state, are receiving SNAP benefits.

The problem with other numbers is that there are 134 different programs loosely termed under 'welfare', many of them situational, and others, like Medicaid and Social Security / Disability, that may or may not be applicable.

On average, 20% of Americans receive some sort of public assistance program every month. But that includes retirees on Social Security, people on disability, and people receiving Medicaid, not just people on food stamps and getting TANF payments.

"Forty-three percent of people had been receiving benefits for 37 to 48 months. Roughly 30% had been on welfare for a year or less.
Some programs had more long-term participants than others. Nearly half of people receiving housing benefits had been getting them for three years or longer. In contrast, cash assistance was a short-term form of help for most, with just 10% of people receiving benefits for three years or more."

But is that 10% of the US, or 10% of people receiving assistance? The wording suggests the latter, which means that if you take the 20% of the original number, then take 10% of that, that means that 2% of the US population gets cash benefits for 3 years or more.
 
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"What are the actual numbers?" - http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/pd/29SNAPcurrPP.pdf - THESE ARE LITERALLY THE NUMBERS. The most recent numbers from a credible source for how many people, per state, are receiving SNAP benefits.

The problem with other numbers is that there are 134 different programs loosely termed under 'welfare', many of them situational, and others, like Medicaid and Social Security / Disability, that may or may not be applicable.
Ah, you are responding to my question about Dave's post? I suppose I need to go through each of those state's governance to figure out which are considered run by which party.

That question was not directed towards your post, but the remaining questions were. I'm not sure why this is confusing, I'm using quotes and it seems clear to me which post I'm talking about when I'm asking questions, but perhaps it isn't clear to you. I wonder if the forum theme has something to do about that, or perhaps you have quotations turned off?

Anyway, sorry for the confusion.
 
To Dave's point, here's a neat infographic of which party controls each state's government:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/red-blue/

I haven't looked further to see if this proves or disproves his point that republican governance leads to more welfare and democratic leads to less.
There's also the issue of welfare per capita vs welfare in general. For example, California has over 4 million people on SNAP. That's way more than Alabama's 800,000. But Alabama has a population of 4.8 million, and California a population of just under 40 million. So per capita, that's 1 in 9 Californians on SNAP and 1 in 6 Alabamans.
 
There's also the issue of welfare per capita vs welfare in general. For example, California has over 4 million people on SNAP. That's way more than Alabama's 800,000. But Alabama has a population of 4.8 million, and California a population of just under 40 million. So per capita, that's 1 in 9 Californians on SNAP and 1 in 6 Alabamans.
It's hard to compare states this way, though, as you then should be looking as well at income per capita, or perhaps even better GDP. California has a GDP of 2.44 trillion, while Alabama has a GDP of 197 billion. Thus the per capita GDP of california is $61k vs alabama at $41k.
 
Actually you can ignore that, it could be attributed to leadership in some cases, though California with its coastline facing Asia is an outlier.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
This might just be my opinion, but the poverty in the former CSA states is heavily generational, dating all the way back to the civil war. The north had manufacturing jobs and other unskilled labor in droves to somewhat absorb a new underclass, but the agrarian south did not. The percentage of black americans on federal assistance in the southern states is much, much higher than the percentage of white americans, but until the 60s, these states were pretty much solid democrat strongholds because they were butthurt over reconstruction for a hundred years. Democrat senators and governors fought tooth and nail against desegregation, with Eisenhower (R) using troops to enforce desegregation, a move even Kennedy and LBJ didn't support. Then LBJ came up with the "Great Society" as a way to, and I quote, "have those niggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years." Everything got flipped after that.
 
This might just be my opinion, but the poverty in the former CSA states is heavily generational, dating all the way back to the civil war. The north had manufacturing jobs and other unskilled labor in droves to somewhat absorb a new underclass, but the agrarian south did not. The percentage of black americans on federal assistance in the southern states is much, much higher than the percentage of white americans, but until the 60s, these states were pretty much solid democrat strongholds because they were butthurt over reconstruction for a hundred years. Democrat senators and governors fought tooth and nail against desegregation, with Eisenhower (R) using troops to enforce desegregation, a move even Kennedy and LBJ didn't support. Then LBJ came up with the "Great Society" as a way to, and I quote, "have those niggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years." Everything got flipped after that.
At which point you have Nixon and the GOP's Southern Strategy. "From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that...but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats." To Quote Lee Atwater:
Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
 

GasBandit

Staff member
At which point you have Nixon and the GOP's Southern Strategy. "From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don't need any more than that...but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats." To Quote Lee Atwater:
The point I was making, however, is that the disproportionately high levels of generational poverty requiring federal assistance in these red states has an origin in Democrat party politics, and the Democrat party then turned it into locking the minority vote by compassionately pretending to help the situation they themselves created and perpetuate. I wouldn't be claiming there aren't racists in the Republican rank and file, that's plain to see.
 
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It is a shame that hundreds of years from now the one thing that will come to define the USA in the history books is how poorly we handled the issue of slavery and racism.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
It is a shame that hundreds of years from now the one thing that will come to define the USA in the history books is how poorly we handled the issue of slavery and racism.
I sincerely doubt that will be the one thing that will define the USA.
 

Dave

Staff member
Apparently I missed that I was commenting on page 18 when I thought I was still on page 17. I'm a tad late to the party.
 
It is a shame that hundreds of years from now the one thing that will come to define the USA in the history books is how poorly we handled the issue of slavery and racism.
Right now I almost believe it'll be more about how we had this outpouring of compassion and sympathy from the rest of the world after 9/11, but we basically just took a big, steaming dump on all of it.

--Patrick
 
It is a shame that hundreds of years from now the one thing that will come to define the USA in the history books is how poorly we handled the issue of slavery and racism.

You don't know that. We haven't even gotten to the Trump presidency yet, I'm sure that'll leave tons of stuff for what remains of humanity to learn from.
 
You don't know that. We haven't even gotten to the Trump presidency yet, I'm sure that'll leave tons of stuff for what remains of humanity to learn from.
We don't only remember Nero, either. He's just pretty much the "...and that's where the downfall really began" point of no return type thing :p
 
We don't only remember Nero, either. He's just pretty much the "...and that's where the downfall really began" point of no return type thing :p
Just want to point out that the Roman empire lasted hundreds of years after Nero's reign.

Nero was the last of the Caesars, though. But he wasn't the beginning of their downfall, either. Tiberius was their Trump.

(Not that I'm accusing Trump of having babies suck his cock, though some future historian probably will)
 
Just want to point out that the Roman empire lasted hundreds of years after Nero's reign.

Nero was the last of the Caesars, though. But he wasn't the beginning of their downfall, either. Tiberius was their Trump.

(Not that I'm accusing Trump of having babies suck his cock, though some future historian probably will)
True, though Tiberius still managed to also do some good. Caligula really screwed the pooch - probably literally. Then Claudius sort of got things back on track, then Nero came and fucked it all up. Which lead to the fall of the "high" Empire. Sure, the Romans lasted another 300 years, ut they never achieved the same greatness. Clinton was Tiberius - Glass-Steagall started the whole mess. Dubyah was Caligula - invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama's Claudius - a stumbling buffoon who had some good ideas but couldn't get anything done. Trump'll be Nero - watching everything burn down and hastening it along.
 
True, though Tiberius still managed to also do some good. Caligula really screwed the pooch - probably literally. Then Claudius sort of got things back on track, then Nero came and fucked it all up. Which lead to the fall of the "high" Empire. Sure, the Romans lasted another 300 years, ut they never achieved the same greatness. Clinton was Tiberius - Glass-Steagall started the whole mess. Dubyah was Caligula - invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama's Claudius - a stumbling buffoon who had some good ideas but couldn't get anything done. Trump'll be Nero - watching everything burn down and hastening it along.
Rome only survived 80 years of Christianity.
 
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