by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The claim is often made that it is primarily African-Americans and then Hispanics who are the main recipients of food stamps and welfare in the USA but statistics show an entirely different picture.
According to sources Caucasian-Americas are the largest group of food stamp recipients with 36%, with African-Americans 22% and Hispanics at 10%. While it has not been said the other 32% I should assume are Native Americans on the Reservations (and elsewhere).
It is always easy to accuse this or that minority groups of being the main recipient of welfare without first taking a real close look.
The figures quoted are, in fact, from the USDA, who administer the Food Stamps program and thus, I should think, they are reliable.
Thus, it would appear that there are more, what some would call, trailer trash, white trash and rednecks on the food stamps than others. And it is those selfsame folks that are the ones that blame minorities. The same we can see here on a daily basis in EU countries when it comes to the Romani People. And we could see that in Britain when the Caribbean people, and the Ugandan Asians, arrived.
They take our jobs, it was said, our homes, our welfare. The fact is that the Blacks and Asians that came to the UK did the jobs that British whites were no longer prepared to do. And we got the same complaint when the Ugandan Asians, the Patels and their kind, took over the corner shops. They are taking over, was the scream. But it was the Asian shopkeeper who were prepared to flaunt the law on Sunday trading and then broke the back of the law and Sunday trading was made official because the English people wanted to buy not just a newspaper on a Sunday but milk, eggs, and even booze. The Patels and others provided that service, and still they were being ranted against.
The accusation that certain minorities are the largest welfare recipients is also being made all over Europe and here the target group is almost invariably the Romani-Gypsy community that is being thus slated.
In some cases it may be true that the Romani People, especially in Eastern Europe, though not just there, receive welfare payments to a large extent but this has a number of reasons.
Amongst some of them, I am the first to admit that, it is laziness and not wanting to work (for an employer) while in the great majority of cases it is due to the lack of jobs and to the lack of education on the side of the Romani.
Racism too plays a great part in the matter of Romani People, especially in Eastern Europe, not being able to get anywhere and thus having to rely on welfare and charity.
It is true, as I have already said, that some choose that route; others on the other hand are in that predicament for other reasons. But, I am sure, that if we look at percentage in general that there probably are more – in numbers – of non-minorities on welfare than the minorities.
If, on the other hand, one would look at numbers of this or that group out of their overall numbers then, probably, one might find that the number is quite high. For, when one sees the figures from the USDA one would have to also compute that with the numbers that they represent as a community in the country.
The other question that has to be asked, as far as I would say, is as to why are there a proportionally high number of minority families, whether Injuns or Black or Hispanics on food stamps and other welfare or dependent on charity handouts in the USA. And the same must be asked also where this is the case with similar or other minorities in other countries.
Judge not lest though be judged, it goes in the Book and many people really need to take a closer look at that before they keep going on while, at the same time, claiming to be Christian.
Just some food for thought...
© 2012
