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who idon't generally pay attention to his articles
some things he covered seem to be ok with some seem to be quite dubious in
many respects
but here is gone to jackson kentucky
and the appalachians
and he writes parents here in appalachian hale country
okay this is what poverty sometimes looks like america parents here in
appalachian hill
pulling their children out of literacy classes
mom and dad sphere of kids learn to read they're less likely to qualify for a
monthly check
having an intellectual disability now how nicholas kristoff
knows this
is unclear
there's no data to support this claim
there's not even i think an explicit
there's one
mentioned of this
by a guy who runs of literacy program
saying the kids get taken out of the program because the parents are going to
lose the cheque according to this
one person
now maybe it's true maybe it's not
but we've seen already this happened back in the nineties
charlie pierce wrote a great story on this of the same situation
where people were addicted to their hats are scary disability check for decades
it so they would feed them drugs to make them crazy
so they would appear to have some type of mental problem so they keep getting
these checks
and then based on the
hearsay testimony of this one person that we know nothing about
who's a painful for liberal to admit that conservatives have a point when
they suggest
that america's safety net can sometimes untangle people insole crushing
dependency
our poverty for other programs do rescue many people
but other times they backfire
really
really you mean that we don't have the age anti-poverty program outer that
makes people uh...
free easy give people the capacity eat food
and support their kids and provide health care for them
that doesn't have some marginal quality of
either frog or disincentives or of the money doesn't get to the people on time
you believe there isn't a perfect policy out there
well wait i'm gonna keep reading so that nicolas can present it to us
he goes on to say some people here
don't join the military traditional escape route for poor rural americans
because it is easier to rely on food stamps
and dissipate a disability payments
police ***
there are some poor kid
who say
i don't want to go to died in the military and kill people
fortunately hiking heat uh... because i've got food stamps
and disability payments
why
get get these kids to voluntarily joined the military because we give them some
meager option in which two ee
is that the argument from this liberal whose heart is broken
well why don't we just get rid of food stamps a disability payments
angolan grab orchids only and construct them into military service it so we
would
while this guy's really taking the easy out
of these some young people
did did christoph actually talk to one of these young people
unalloyed mago goes on like this
yellows
going to join the military because i have no food
no money to eat and then of course i got first and so i didn't have to do it
and nicholas kristoff to put them into
anti-poverty programs also discourage marriage
in means-tested program like s_s_i_
a woman raising a child may receive a bigger check if your she refrain from
marrying that hard-working guy she likes
yeah she may also refrain from marrying that guy who peter
or that drunk guys
or that guy she doesn't like
so i guess the idea is that like you know
she's not accepting her punishment for having a child
so instead of a marginally coming up with a fix
based on data as to how you would uh... change that disincentive slightly
he just says the real problem is
she's discourage from marry macbeth
just like that can use this card from going into killing people
and getting shot at
uh...
what are we gonna think of next
people being discouraged from going into a coal mine that maybe uh...
is unsafe working conditions
more than one point to her two children across america full eight percent of all
local income children
are now enrolled an s_s_ eyes disabled at an annual cost of more than nine
billion dollars
that's almost the same amount of money that probably goes to fund but big bird
what's the point here
nine billion dollars i think they
people spend to a multiple of that on christmas decorations
he's kids may never recover two thousand nine study found that nearly two-thirds
of these children make the transition at age eighteen
and s_s_i_ for the adult disabled
they may never hold a job in their entire lives are condemned to a life a
party on the dole that's the outcome of the program intended to fight property
or maybe it actually helps disabled people
nitrates bears in capital letters to make a real big point here in this tiny
paragraph
three quarters of the way through is uh... peace there's no doubt that some
families with seriously disabled children
receive a lifeline from s_s_i_
but the bottom line is we shouldn't try to fight poverty with a program that
sometimes graduated
there's no anecdotes there's no data but this guy knows the bottom line in the
bottom bond has nothing to do with some families it's just a general principle
there's a danger in trying to firm conclusions about an issue
fighting poverty
i'm no expert on domestic poverty
but allow
to write updates about how disability insurance for kids is hurting poor
people
i'm no expert
on poverty
i'm not interviewed
an expert on domestic poverty for this piece
i have not looked up any data points
on domestic poverty for this piece
but i'm still gonna write it
because i didn't bright in capital letters the word bearers
but for me
parenthetical of very wealthy new york times
uh... writer
a tentative lesson
yes tentative
it's tentative but you know what let's put it in english right about here
from the field
is that while we need safety nets the focus should be instead on the creating
opportunity and still more difficult on creating an environment that leads
people to seize opportunities
there's a tiana opportunity up in the appalachians
why you could go and um... maybe stand guard at a poll sludge as they uh... rip
apart mountaintops important ways in into the ground
or maybe you could be an asthma inhaler distributor
freddie goes i stabbed along with save the children
to the mobile home of britney hurley
this really is in nineteen enabling speaks quickly with a strong hill acts
and so at times i had trouble understanding
she says that she was *** by a family member when she was twelve and then
another family member then introduced her to narcotics
she became an addict and mostly to prescription pain killers that are
widely traffic to your
she wants aspire to be a doctor butter addictions rebel as nature got a kick
out of high school at sixteen she became engaged to a boyfriend and soon had his
baby
i'm sure he was a hardworking man and a
could support the family and what not but
she decided to live in sin without it
save the children trains community members to make a our home visits to
at-risk moms
i'd miss her early in helping their true the skills they need the world's
toughest job parent
these visits begin in pregnancy continue uh... i don't know what
okay so save the children is uh...
doing good work in the appalachians
so what we should do is cut disability
is exit isn't
i would suggest that america's a type operating zara total failure
on the contrary to being eight total failure
they're making a significant difference
nearly all the homes an appalachian hill country now have electricity and running
water
and people aren't starving
well maybe if we cut their electricity and running water
did go join the military
so they could take a shower
of american families living in poverty today eight out of ten have air
conditioning
and a majority have a washing machine and dryer
nearly all have microwave ovens
while they have almost a thousand dollars worth of assets assuming they
bought all this stuff new
i don't know what the point of that is of the say like look
they're fine
i hope that the budget negotiations in washington may offer such ants
to take money from s_s_i_ and invest in early childhood initiatives instead
well here's an idea
maybe if we continue to find s_s_i_
less people will go into the military and that will save money on the military
and we can use that
to invest in early childhood initiatives
now i'm no expert on anything but i'm going to pontificate here
look there are no magic wands and helping people as hard
one woman and that in a station mccormick
told me that are five hundred dollar car just broken down and she had to walk two
miles each way to a job at a pizza restaurant restaurant
that's going to get harder 'cause she's pregnant with twins due in april
some point miss mccormick won't be able to hold that job anymore then she'll
have trouble paying the bills
she is rented a washer and dryer but she's behind payments
and that may soon be hauled back
i get to discontinue notice on the electric she added but you get amounts
to pay a
life is alike that for her
roller coaster partly over-all making you see
the making news is that
we don't know what our circumstances but the only thing we can tell here
something that she didn't purposely breaker car was to get pregnant
so she's paying for her sins
this is just discussed it
and how an editor at the new york times doesn't say that nicholas kristoff
hey you realize you come off as the world's biggest deepak
writings
i'll tell you hand that would really make a list of somebody should be doing
is writing his next piece about
uh...
toward actions against editors that we should
out