war on poverty

Germany Fights Population Drop

"There is perhaps nowhere better than the German countryside to see the dawning impact of Europe’s plunge in fertility rates over the decades, a problem that has frightening implications for the economy and the psyche of the Continent. In some areas, there are now abundant overgrown yards, boarded-up windows and concerns about sewage systems too empty to work properly. The work force is rapidly graying, and assembly lines are being redesigned to minimize bending and lifting. Raising fertility levels in Germany has not proved easy, even while spending $265 billion a year on family subsidies." Continue reading →

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The USDA Is Pushing Food Stamps Like a Drug Dealer at a Grade School

"Last year the USDA targeted Spanish speaking citizens (and non-citizens) with a radio 'novela' – which was basically a soap opera outlining how the lives of the characters improved as soon as they went on SNAP. In many locations, outreach programs are taking place – people don’t even have to go down to the benefits office to sign up. They can find out if they are eligible right in the grocery store parking lot. The USDA is spending an additional THREE MILLION DOLLARS not on providing food, but on providing outreach to convince people to accept benefits that folks never realized they 'needed'." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe USDA Is Pushing Food Stamps Like a Drug Dealer at a Grade School

Fox News Follows California Beach Bum Living Off Food Stamps For Years

"Meet Jason Greenslate. You don’t know him but you help buy him his food. With no job and no plans to get one, Jason picks up a cool $200 a month on his EBT card courtesy of ‘we the people’. How many more Jasons are there out there?" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFox News Follows California Beach Bum Living Off Food Stamps For Years

Let’s stop wrecking lives over a bag of weed

"For 29 years, I have defended clients facing marijuana charges in the District. At every initial appearance, without fail, the judge admonishes the defendant either to stay in school or to hold down a job. But most employers in this town will not hire entry-level workers who do not have a police clearance. What crime is increasingly tripping up those looking for work? Possession of marijuana. In 1995, police in the District arrested about 1,850 people for having pot. By 2011, the number had skyrocketed to more than 6,000. There are twice as many marijuana arrests in the District as there are students graduating from D.C. high schools each year." Continue reading →

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40% Of US Workers Now Earn Less Than 1968 CPI-Adjusted Minimum Wage

"40.28% of all workers make less than $20,000 a year in America today. So that means that more than 40 percent of all U.S. workers actually make less than what a full-time minimum wage worker made back in 1968. That is how far we have fallen. Good paying full-time jobs are disappearing, and they are being replaced by low paying part-time jobs. So far this year, 76.7 percent of the jobs that have been 'created' in the U.S. economy have been part-time jobs. That would be depressing enough, but what makes it worse is that wages for many of these low paying jobs have actually been declining over the past decade even as the cost of living keeps going up." Continue reading →

Continue Reading40% Of US Workers Now Earn Less Than 1968 CPI-Adjusted Minimum Wage

Walter Williams: Black Self-Sabotage

"The poverty rate among blacks is 36 percent. Most black poverty is found in female-headed households. Among black married couples it has been in single digits since 1994 and is about 8 percent today. The black illegitimacy rate is 75 percent, and in some cities, it's 90 percent. But if that's a legacy of slavery, it must have skipped several generations, because in the 1940s, unwed births hovered around 14 percent. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation's population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, the black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities, it's 22 times that of whites." Continue reading →

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‘Asset forfeiture’ laws designed to strip criminals of assets target innocent homeowners

"Over the last two decades, forfeitures have evolved into a booming business for police agencies across the country, from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to small-town sheriff’s offices. In 2000, officials racked up $500 million in forfeitures. By 2012, that amount rose to $4.2 billion, an eightfold increase. Often the victims are minorities like Bing without the financial resources or legal know-how to protect their assets. And prosecutors typically prevail. Of nearly 2,000 cases filed against Philadelphia houses from 2008 through 2012, records show that only 30 ended with a judge rejecting the attempt to seize the property." Continue reading →

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San Francisco still has a seedy heart

"The Tenderloin is a large turd – often a literal one – floating in the crystal punchbowl that is San Francisco. So why is it still here? Because the city wants it to be here. For decades, the Tenderloin has been carefully protected by the city and various non-profit organizations. It’s not that these officials, social workers, homeless advocates and low-cost housing activists want to maintain a zone of misrule, crime and filth in the heart of the city: it’s simply an inescapable consequence of their laudable commitment to defend society’s most vulnerable members. The result is, in effect, a protected urban wildlife zone, a Bottle City of Squalor." Continue reading →

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The Sad Unemployment Picture Now Compared to the 1982 Recession Recovery

"The chart below via John Taylor shows the change in the employment-to-population ratio—the percentage of working age population that is actually working--now compared with the end of the 1982 recession. The current increase in jobs is not enough to employ a greater fraction of the working population. Blame it on growing regulations businesses are forced to deal with, minimum wage laws and the confusion and unknown costs associated with Obamacare." Continue reading →

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NYC welfare food is shipped in barrels to the Dominican Republic – then sold on the black market

"New Yorkers on welfare are buying food with their benefit cards and shipping it in blue barrels to poor relatives in the Caribbean. But not everyone is giving the taxpayer-funded fare to starving children abroad. The Post last week found two people hawking barrels of American products for a profit on the streets of Santiago. 'It’s a really easy way to make money, and it doesn’t cost me anything,' a seller named Maria-Teresa said Friday. She said her sister has Bronx grocers ring up bogus $250 transactions with her EBT card. In exchange, the stores hand her $200 cash and pocket the rest. No goods are exchanged." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNYC welfare food is shipped in barrels to the Dominican Republic – then sold on the black market