Our financial system is crumbling this week.

[planet planet]

The Real Poverty Trap

Now, as it happens the best available research suggests that the programs Ryan most wants to slash — Medicaid and food stamps — don’t even have large negative effects on work effort. There is, however, some international evidence that generous welfare states have an incentive effect: America has by far the weakest safety net in the advanced world, and sure enough, the American poor work much more than their counterparts abroad:

[haltz]

Now, as it happens the best available research suggests that the programs Ryan most wants to slash — Medicaid and food stamps — don’t even have large negative effects on work effort.

Can you even imagine someone having food stamps and some health services and saying, "I'm good. I don't need a job." It's completely ludicrous.

[IMADreamer]

I was just telling someone the other day. You know I should just quit working so I can barely scrape buy on food stamps and not do any of the things I like to do. Yep that's what I should do.

[Mary1966]

I am on SSI and Social Security Disability because of my bipolar disorder and I would love to have a job. But when I have tried to work, the stress has caused me to have episodes where I end up in a psychiatric ward. I am on food stamps as well, and they are a necessity for me. Why anyone would think that I would choose to live on benefits over having a job? I can't do the things that most people do, I don't have a house or a car, I don't have the freedom to go on vacations or buy nice things. Pulling the safety net out from under me is not going to make me try to work at McDonalds, it's just going to make me homeless.

[IMADreamer]

Hey Mary and just smack me if I sound like an idiot here, but have you thought about making crafts and selling online or anything like that? It's completely none of my business, but I had a friend who was in a similar situation as you and she used some really simple crafts for a little extra money and she said it really helped her escape from the stresses of her disorder.

[haltz]

put me down for one hand turkey.

[planet planet]

put me down for one hand turkey.

Doily over here, preferably one that could double as a potholder.

[sighyoung]

put me down for one hand turkey.

Doily over here, preferably one that could double as a potholder.

Go to Etsy, Mary, for ideas about crafts shaped like private parts.

[haltz]

A doily with a nipple isn't the same unless it comes from the heart.

[Mary1966]

Hey Mary and just smack me if I sound like an idiot here, but have you thought about making crafts and selling online or anything like that? It's completely none of my business, but I had a friend who was in a similar situation as you and she used some really simple crafts for a little extra money and she said it really helped her escape from the stresses of her disorder.

I'm not artistically inclined. The only thing I have thought about recently is becoming a peer counselor--someone with a mental illness who counsels other people with mental illnesses, but you have to have been in recovery for a year to take the training, and I am still symptomatic with my current episode. I haven't worked since 2004 and I don't know if I could handle the stress of a job. That's why I prefer volunteer positions, they seem to be OK.