rssToday in Class-Baiting
Thursday, October 07, 2010 at 11:21 am
- 63 Comments
Steve Benen flags some disturbing news out of South Carolina:
South Carolina’s more than 236,000 unemployed workers could have to take a drug test in order to receive jobless benefits, according to a proposal by Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley on Tuesday. [...] Haley said testing the unemployed was one of several steps in ensuring the newly restructured Department of Employment and Workforce — now a cabinet agency — only pays benefits to those who have earned them. “We will make sure, above all, that there will be no … benefits if they do not pass a drug test,” Haley said.
It is a bad idea, though not an original one; Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested the same this summer. In other class-baiting news, check this out from Newt Gingrich, perpetual almost-candidate for president:
[Gingrich] is advising Republican candidates on November’s ballots to frame the choice for voters between Democrats as “the party of food stamps” while selling the GOP as “the party of paychecks” [...] He told reporters later that Republicans can campaign as the party of opportunity. “Most Americans would like to get a paycheck,” Gingrich said. “Most Americans would not like to be forced to have food stamps handed out by liberal Democrats.”
Where to start? Haley makes the classic mistake of thinking of unemployment benefits as welfare, rather than insurance. But they don’t call it “unemployment insurance” for nothing. Recipients need to have been working, and need to be looking for work — and workers pay into the system to ensure they have some income safety in case they lose their job. The program is federally administered, of course, but so is, say, flood insurance. Consider Haley arguing that South Carolina residents whose homes were damaged by a hurricane should have to pee in a cup before getting payments to help rebuild. As for Gingrich, he seems to conflate food insecurity with joblessness. Most SNAP recipients do actually work. They just don’t make enough to feed their families. And surely no SNAP recipient would prefer bigger benefits to a better-paying job.
Both Haley and Gingrich, in their class-baiting, also forget one of the fundamental reasons the United States makes access to these programs easy: Children are primary beneficiaries of unemployment insurance and food stamps. Both programs exist not just to reward the lazy adults (as horrible a stereotype in contemporary American politics as there is), but to keep kids out of abject poverty.
And those programs aren’t doing enough. The Economic Policy Institute, for one, notes the child poverty rate has soared through the recession. One in five children still lives in poverty. And in no state is the child poverty rate lower than one in ten.
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63 Comments
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[...] point of unemployment insurance isn’t to reward people for good behavior. As Annie Lowrey* notes, it’s insurance. Our employers pay into it, and none of us agreed to drug tests as part of [...]
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Comment posted October 7, 2010 @ 3:41 pm
The tests will detect any hint of taco sauce in the blood steam.
Comment posted October 7, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
As someone in SC who was unemployed for 9 months, I agree, this is ridiculous. Haley seems to think that good, upstanding citizens never lose their jobs. And besides, SC already bars people who lost their jobs for cause (such as drug-related problems) from collecting unemployment.
On an unrelated note, I would just like to say it's nice to see another LowREy around. There aren't too many of us!
Comment posted October 7, 2010 @ 3:43 pm
Thank you for reporting on this, very important.
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Comment posted October 7, 2010 @ 4:25 pm
It may be a very bad idea indeed, however, don't expect to make any headway taking that side of the argument.
There was once a time when we looked upon those having a hard time of it with compassion and a recognition that it could well be us.
Now, those still fortunate enough to be working have been taught to despise the unfortunate as leeches and blood suckers who are draining their income in taxes.
The nation is gripped in fear and looking for any scapegoat the right wing will authorize, in this case, the recipient of public assistance.
It's part of their pattern. The working poor have been set against the unemployed, the black against the chicano, the Christian against the Muslim, the liberal against the conservative, and while we all squabble over imagined threats by people they've taught us to hate, we're being robbed blind by them, aided by a government where speech is equated with money and soul-less corporate entities empowered with the rights of citizens.
Comment posted October 7, 2010 @ 4:50 pm
It's not as bad an idea as you think,if your from the Great lakes region and people are resentful of being on welfare or begging for Unemployment extensions,or living off relatives because you couldn't get either.And Food stamps go directly to Wal-mart and other approved stores,and housing vouchers to approved banks properties.You have no rights about where or how you live on Welfare and it is a trap,that DNC pushes because it easier and cheaper than fighting for labor rights.Job training by select Bank owned companies for low paying wages,which they over train number to keep those wages low.That being said GOP is also on the scam as well.We need a labor Party in this country that can side step Social Issues and leaving it up to each Region and work for workers(not just Union).Both parties have screwed the middle class.
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Comment posted October 7, 2010 @ 6:25 pm
“There was once a time when we looked upon those having a hard time of it with compassion and a recognition that it could well be us.”
1933?
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