There was a great series(I can’t remember if it was the NY Times or the WPost) that TV picked up on about a tiny town in Alabama where almost everybody lived off of disability social security payments, which have become the de facto “welfare” system in the US. Alabama being a state where almost all white voters, like these folks, support MAGA.gilgamesh wrote: ↑02 Oct 2026, 02:53Ironically most of the people I currently know who sit around doing f*ck all but collecting Government checks are Trump supporters.Tony1244 wrote: ↑01 Oct 2026, 16:37I'm sure it's exaggerated, but I'm also sure it exists. I haven't recently researched the Reagan/Fox claim, but my statement was a blanket statement about having the right attitude. Of course, good people use welfare in tough times.giacomino wrote: ↑01 Oct 2026, 14:21
I would agree if that were a big problem in the US, but it is also greatly exaggerted by the Fox News/Social Media keyboard warriors. When I lived in Georgia welfare was $225 a month for a family of four. Food stamps was about the same. Who in Atlanta was living on $450 a month, including immigrants? Likely few to nobody. A vast majority work. The welfare queens using their food-stamp money to buy Vodka is right out of the Reagan era of BS. I have no idea if that is true in Europe. My father-in-law in Spain gripes all the time about immigrants getting free health care and too much in the way of benefits in Spain, so maybe it is an issue here for poor immigrants. I am an immigrant on public health care, but I also pay income taxes/VAT taxes to help fund it
Trump supporters who will bitch about immigrants taking jobs away from U.S. citizens even though these U.S. citizens haven't worked nor tried to work in quite some time.
People have trouble looking in the mirror and seeing themselves sometimes.
They would crowd the local post office on the day the government checks were due to arrive. The story was about a guy with fairly limited education in his mid-30s who lived with his wife in a trailer with his parents. His parents and his wife were collecting Social Security disability checks for bad backs, and the story is about this guy trying to get technical school training and a job to avoid having to go on disability payments, which usually means permanent welfare and permanently limiting your chance of improving your lot in life.
. He was clearly conflicted. In the end, he says “eff it,” says he can’t work because of a bad back and joins the rest of his family getting Social Security disability payments for life. Not an immigrant, just a hick who knows the system