[Debunked] Cheesing Welfare ($75k/year)

[henrygeorge]

Coworker just sent me what looks like a chain email. It boasts some large claims that can be had with welfare. Yes, it's riddled with ethical issues. Nevertheless, I'd like to discuss it with friends.

How to get $75k in benefits for you and your girlfriend. Follow these proven steps.
1. Don't get married to her.
2. Use your mom's address to get mail sent to.
3. The guy buys a house.
4. Guy rents out house to his girl girlfriend who has 2 of his kids.
5. Section 8 will pay 900 a month for a 3 bedroom home.
6. Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare so guy doesn't have to pay out the butt for family insurance.
7. Girlfriend gets to go to college for free being a single mother
8. Girlfriend gets 600 a month for food stamps
9. Girlfriend gets free cell phone
10. Girlfriend get free utilities.
11. Guy moves into home but uses moms house to get mail sent to.
12. Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims one kid on taxes. Now you both get to claim head of house hold at $1800 credit.
13. Girlfriend gets disability for being "crazy" or having a "bad back" at $1800 a month and never has to work again.

21600 disability + 10800 housing + 6000 obamacare + 6000 food + 4800 utilities + 6000 pell grant spending money+ 12000 pell grant tuition money+ 8800 tax benefit for being a single mother = 75,000 a year in benefits

Matt's broke this down fairly well in a subsequent post:

So here's the things that seem off to me:

• Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare so guy doesn't have to pay out the butt for family insurance (he could sign up for the ACA regardless of this - where's the $6K bonus?)
• Girlfriend gets to go to college for free being a single mother (it lists a 6K pell and a 12K pell.. what is the 12K pell?)
• Girlfriend gets 600 a month for food stamps - the maximum for a family of 3 would be $511, so rounding up, but more importantly:
• Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims one kid on taxes. Now you both get to claim head of house hold at $1800 credit. How can she be claiming for Section 8 3 person home if she only claims 1 dependent, and wouldn't that also make the food stamps drop down to a 2 person home?
• Guy moves into home but uses moms house to get mail sent to. While the entire thing sounds illegal, this would be the proof of it to me.

So, overall, yeah people can claim some money from the government, but that has always been the case, and if you are going to break the law to do so why not just:

Fraudulently steal other peoples tax refunds. You can earn much more than $75K per year, and its also not legal?

EDIT TO ADD

SSI Disability is one of the hardest ones to get, and it is based upon earnings, so the mother must have earned something reasonable for some time to qualify for the $1800(not impossible, but worth considering).

Wouldn't 'being crazy' be a cause of concern regarding social services and guardianship of the children?

 

[MarkD]

As a taxpayer supporting people who do this kind of crap, this thread makes me burn...

 

[Matt]

I'm not really an expert at many of these topics, but the impression this gives me is that the numbers are inflated in order to foster some sort of political agenda.

 

[Matt]

As a taxpayer supporting people who do this kind of crap, this thread makes me burn...

Yeah, I think that's the point of it. Maybe we can dive into the facts and see?

 

[MarkD]

Yeah, I think that's the point of it. Maybe we can dive into the facts and see?

I'm biting my tongue and watching this thread. What 'facts' would you like to explore?

 

[Matt]

So here's the things that seem off to me:

• Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare so guy doesn't have to pay out the butt for family insurance (he could sign up for the ACA regardless of this - where's the $6K bonus?)
• Girlfriend gets to go to college for free being a single mother (it lists a 6K pell and a 12K pell.. what is the 12K pell?)
• Girlfriend gets 600 a month for food stamps - the maximum for a family of 3 would be $511, so rounding up, but more importantly:
• Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims one kid on taxes. Now you both get to claim head of house hold at $1800 credit. How can she be claiming for Section 8 3 person home if she only claims 1 dependent, and wouldn't that also make the food stamps drop down to a 2 person home?
• Guy moves into home but uses moms house to get mail sent to. While the entire thing sounds illegal, this would be the proof of it to me.

So, overall, yeah people can claim some money from the government, but that has always been the case, and if you are going to break the law to do so why not just:

Fraudulently steal other peoples tax refunds. You can earn much more than $75K per year, and its also not legal?

EDIT TO ADD

SSI Disability is one of the hardest ones to get, and it is based upon earnings, so the mother must have earned something reasonable for some time to qualify for the $1800(not impossible, but worth considering).

Wouldn't 'being crazy' be a cause of concern regarding social services and guardianship of the children?

 

[InstinctX]

The Healthcare exchange insurance number seems high -- you get tax subsidy / credit to help pay insurance premium from the exchange. However, a person's / family's eligibility based on income also factors into whether you can obtain insurance through the exchange -- you might only qualify for Medicaid program offered for your state. Medicaid offers bare bones...and many providers don't take Medicaid.

 

[henrygeorge]

Thanks for the breakdown. Surely it skimped out on the details for a reason.

 

[Matt]

Thanks for the breakdown. Surely it skimped out on the details for a reason.

Some I don't know about - like the Pell - I looked around and it seems that there are some sort of subsidies available in the form of scholarships, but I didn't see a govt Pell - that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Big picture, yeah people can game the system. I wrote about this today. We all 'game' the system in some ways.. not approving this at all, but if we are going to point the finger at this crazy scheme then we should consider what we benefit from ourselves also.

 

[smittytabb]

OK, so it seems like a predictable rant from someone on the right trying to gather support to decrease entitlements. No one gets all worked up when @Free-quent Flyer suggests he got a free education. Why is that?

 

[Free-quent Flyer]

I second most of what Matt said, a lot of this is "it can be profitable to break the law." Couple more concrete problems:

"Don't get married to her". Marriage offers many legal protections, including with respect to child custody and inheritance. There's nothing wrong with keeping legally separate households, but it's not a hack, it's an important decision that has serious consequences.

"Section 8 will pay 900 a month for a 3 bedroom home." Section 8 housing vouchers are preposterously hard to qualify for, and there are very long waiting lists everywhere in the country. Even once mom qualifies, dad then has to pay thousands of dollars to have the house inspected, then (tens?) of thousands more to repair any defects the inspector finds (Section 8 properties have to be inspected and certified as eligible), and he has to pay someone to file his now-much-more-complicated taxes as a landlord (there are some great threads here about landlording tax issues). I would call this a wash or a loss for the first several years of the scheme at least.

"Girlfriend signs up for Obamacare". I don't know how this is even a hack (or a "cheese?"). We now have a somewhat complicated, somewhat universal healthcare system in the United States called popularly known as "Obamacare." Using it isn't a hack. You're SUPPOSED to use it!

"Girlfriend gets free cell phone". Why would someone who can afford a house want his girlfriend to use a crappy Nokia with 100 free minutes a month? I would say this would be a net quality-of-life negative.

"Girlfriend gets to go to college for free 'for being a single mother'". Yes, in-state tuition at community colleges in the United States is extremely affordable. But you can't get tuition benefits if you're failing, so mom would presumably actually be going to class, learning valuable(?) life skills, maybe meeting a new guy so she can dump this jerk who won't propose (kidding!).

"Girlfriend claims one kid and guy claims one kid on taxes. Now you both get to claim head of house hold at $1800 credit" False. Insanely false. The Child Tax Credit is under most circumstances not refundable (source: https://www.hrblock.com/free-tax-tips-calculators/tax-help-articles/Credits/Child-Tax-Credit.html?action=ga&aid=27129&out=vm). Mom isn't working (remember?) so she doesn't have any earned income, and she only has two kids, so there is no tax benefit for her claiming a dependent on her taxes (@Matt correct me if I'm wrong). Also magically in the final calculation this $1800 benefit (false) turns into a $8800 benefit (hallucination).

Final word: we have a haphazard social safety net in the United States that is defined, above all else, by the extreme demands it places on the time and attention of recipients. This is an intentional decision by the conservative party in the united states, in the belief that there is a vast pool of "undeserving poor" taking advantage of society's largesse. That is false, and it is a belief that is extremely destructive to the quality of life of our poor and the health of our democracy.

 

[Mountain Trader]

You can find these fact-deprived rants all over the internet. Folks convinced the world would be ok if we could just get those folks over there to stop living off our hard work.

I especially love the ones who rail at how harmful the deficits will be to our children and grandchildren. Here's a tip on how to respond: Ask them if the problem is so bad that we need to raise taxes to cut down those deficits. "Well, I didn't say that".

 

[smittytabb]

There is also a habit of "othering" many use to separate themselves from those who are perceived as less worthy. You see it a lot to describe people on welfare and you also see it a lot on this forum when people describe customers and CSR at WM. If someone is "one of us" we give them a pass. If someone is in one of these "othered" categories, it is wrong or at least suspect.

 

[Matt]

Mom isn't working (remember?) so she doesn't have any earned income, and she only has two kids, so there is no tax benefit for her claiming a dependent on her taxes

I believe that the disability could be counted as income for certain benefits, but not the child tax credit. She might be eligible for the EITC for one child... but again, qualifying for disability is really not easy.... we should also remember that there is a 5 month exclusion period.

I did a little Pro Bono work in Manhattan with homeless people trying to get a start again, and it was taking them years to be properly qualified, and once they were disability reduced other benefits.

The more I think about the OP the more ludicrous it sounds. It's just a case of stringing together theoretical benefits to create a frankenstein monster that simply wouldn't work.

 

[jmw]

The Healthcare exchange insurance number seems high -- you get tax subsidy / credit to help pay insurance premium from the exchange. However, a person's / family's eligibility based on income also factors into whether you can obtain insurance through the exchange -- you might only qualify for Medicaid program offered for your state. Medicaid offers bare bones...and many providers don't take Medicaid.

Correct.

The Obamacare policies have narrow networks as well, so most of the better providers won't take Obamacare as well even if your income is high enough to avoid Medicaid. Depending on where you live, it may be almost as bad as Medicaid.

You can get an off-exchange policy with wide networks and out-of-network coverage for a little bit more money, but that will disqualify you from getting any subsidy.

 

[smittytabb]

It is ludicrous. And don't even get me started about the Girlfriend gets disability for being "crazy" piece. People with mental health issues have a hard enough time getting good care, regardless of their financial and insurance status. Getting disability for that? And using the term "crazy" is yet another offensive term suggesting that it is easy to game that. Ridiculous. That type of email taken seriously just shows that people need to be reminded to fact check.

 

[MickiSue]

Thanks for the breakdown. Surely it skimped out on the details for a reason.

Because the details would show that the entire email is nonsense.

The part that is really head-smackingly stupid about chain emails like this is that they are so easily proven false, yet so many people, because they reinforce their beliefs, take them at face value. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate that familiarity with a line of thinking leads people to conclude that it is factual. It's the entire reason behind the way that propaganda is dispersed...small, easily understood packets of false or only partially true information, said over and over, in different ways and by different sourses.

Do yourself a favor, and bookmark snopes.com, and get good at googling claims. For instance, in reference to this email, you might google: "Section 8 housing availability" or "(your state)criteria single parent education grants" etc.

I have gotten similar, nonsensical emails in the past. My solution has been to research the information, write it in a response, along with links to my sources, and then hit "reply all."

That way, maybe someone who got the false information will realize it's just lies.

 

[TheAmericanTravelProject]

As a social worker who works with families living in poverty, homelessness, with various mental health and medical conditions...this is laughable. All of the points that others made refuting this are spot on.

I have had families with very legit medical conditions who are denied SSI over and over. It's not a simple "hack" to just play "crazy" and get $1800 a month (so preposterous).

I could go on for way too long about how this is so wrong......from first hand knowledge being in the field for almost 20 years.

 

[Jamie]

I agree with all the people who have said that this series of "hacks" is ridiculous, but I have to say that I enjoyed reading the responses with details on why each point is ridiculous. I know enough to be suspicious of any of these chain emails designed to get partisans all frothy, but it is sometimes fun or useful to actually delve into how exactly the chain mail is wrong.

 

[InstinctX]

I hope this is a "chain" email and not just a forward from a friend claiming to be a chain email, when a friend is actually contemplating it!!!

The disability "I'm crazy" may have repercussions for a parent & losing custody of their children -- if the state agency decides the children are safer in foster care.

 

[henrygeorge]

Far right simpleton coworker forwarded it. I knew the claims were exaggerated, but I didn't just want to leave it at that if he brought it up later.

@wasser @Panache, the dislikes really aren't necessary. I'm not advocating this whatsoever. I wanted more information from everyone else to disprove it. I didn't take a stance in the OP as I wanted to promote neutral discussion.

 

[Jamie]

Far right simpleton coworker forwarded it. I knew the claims were exaggerated, but I didn't just want to leave it at that if he brought it up later.

@wasser @Panache, the dislikes really aren't necessary. I'm not advocating this whatsoever. I wanted more information from everyone else to disprove it. I didn't take a stance in the OP as I wanted to promote neutral discussion.

I have to say, I wish there were a button for "this is interesting information, but I don't like what it's telling me" or something like that. When there is bad news about an MS venue possibly closing, I always want to give it a thumbs down, but then I remember that is not really what the thumbs down is supposed to mean.

 

[Sesq]

I have to say, I wish there were a button for "this is interesting information, but I don't like what it's telling me" or something like that. When there is bad news about an MS venue possibly closing, I always want to give it a thumbs down, but then I remember that is not really what the thumbs down is supposed to mean.

Perhaps a "bollocks" button.

 

[Jamie]

Perhaps a "bollocks" button.

or an "oh s*$t, thanks for the warning" button

 

[MarkD]

Far right simpleton coworker forwarded it. I knew the claims were exaggerated, but I didn't just want to leave it at that if he brought it up later.

@wasser @Panache, the dislikes really aren't necessary. I'm not advocating this whatsoever. I wanted more information from everyone else to disprove it. I didn't take a stance in the OP as I wanted to promote neutral discussion.

I love that they give the post a dislike (@kristian too) and then never comment. If you dislike the post (which is your right to do), at least tell us why. There may be some interesting discussion involved.

 

[Matt]

I have to say, I wish there were a button for "this is interesting information, but I don't like what it's telling me" or something like that. When there is bad news about an MS venue possibly closing, I always want to give it a thumbs down, but then I remember that is not really what the thumbs down is supposed to mean.

Well I don't know what the thumbs down button is supposed to really mean either... but I do have the ability to add more buttons..



The rainbow is a personal favorite.

 

[wasser]

I love that they give the post a dislike (@kristian too) and then never comment. If you dislike the post (which is your right to do), at least tell us why. There may be some interesting discussion involved.

I only comment in L2 because I don't want my comments/online presence to be preserved in perpetuity by google.

 

[henrygeorge]

I only comment in L2 because I don't want my comments/online presence to be preserved in perpetuity by google.

Could you PM your reason for the dislike in that case?

 

[Matt]

Could you PM your reason for the dislike in that case?

I really do like the dislike button if it gets people talking about stuff that matters. I think people get irked when they receive a dislike, and it provides an opportunity to really dive into how people feel about things.

Of course, that requires both sides to play.. but when they do I think it is a powerful tool.

 

[henrygeorge]

I really do like the dislike button if it gets people talking about stuff that matters. I think people get irked when they receive a dislike, and it provides an opportunity to really dive into how people feel about things.

Of course, that requires both sides to play.. but when they do I think it is a powerful tool.

Agreed. I don't get irked by the dislike; I get irked when a dislike isn't followed up with a post, as my last 3 dislikes have been offered up.

I've reserved dislikes for noob posts that show poor stewardship, and then follow with a post on how to properly handle a situation.

 

[InstinctX]

The rainbow is a personal favorite.

Mine too...was bummed when it was no longer available. I didn't know what it means to give / receive a rainbow ... I interpreted it as a "smile," "thank you for brightening my day"

 

[TheBOSman]

If it was possible to get $75k in benefits, there would be a heck of a lot more people doing this as described, considering the median USA income is $32,140 for those 25+, and median household income is $52,250. But hey, nobody should ever let facts get in the way of a good polemic .

 

[Jamie]

Mine too...was bummed when it was no longer available. I didn't know what it means to give / receive a rainbow ... I interpreted it as a "smile," "thank you for brightening my day"

What does the rainbow say when you hover over it? i.e. the big smile says "funny" and the i says "informative"
I guess that the thumbs down isn't such a big deal, since we aren't being judged here based on our metrics. So, I guess, go ahead dislike something... and then get the discussion going on why.

 

[InstinctX]

Far right simpleton coworker forwarded it. I knew the claims were exaggerated, but I didn't just want to leave it at that if he brought it up later.

I didn't take a stance in the OP as I wanted to promote neutral discussion.

Even though you just copied and pasted from the chain email, can you update the OP with the collective feedback that others have shared?

Use @Matt's format (https://saverocity.com/forum/threads/cheesing-welfare-75k-year.170142/#post-237183)

 

[johnny cash]

Well I don't know what the thumbs down button is supposed to really mean either... but I do have the ability to add more buttons..

View attachment 1642

The rainbow is a personal favorite.

You need to a sad face. This is a very sorry topic.