When will the government start to give to the elderly who are at poverty level? Or how about the single person without family? They need help too? Yes feed the children but not with money. Give them education to grow food. Give them guidance to learn to cook. Unfortunately many will use the money for toys, fast food and non essential products. Sorry state this country is in.

I can't believe how many mean, small-minded people there are in this forum. This is about reducing CHILD poverty.

No mo po
 

no mo po.

Or lay on your back making babies.

Give a man a fish he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish he will eat for life.

Yea, and that’s why it’s far less expensive than it’s being implied by some news organizations.

The reason people aren’t taking low-paying jobs is because they’re low paying. If you read the papers and pay attention to more than just Fox News, you’ll find out that lots of well-known companies are raising their lower end pay scales which has largely eliminated their inability to attract new employees. The economic law of supply and demand is working!

Yes, it is. However, just how do you do that? We all know (although some are too far left to admit it) that direct payments to the parent(s) tend to go to alcohol, lotto, cigarettes and drugs. Massive amounts of money are spent to help the kids , but it never reaches them.
I don't know the solution, but I think a big step would be to ditch these EBT cards and go back to food stamps, in fact stamps for everything, no cash at all. The landlord gets paid directly, there are stamps only good for school supplies and school lunches, stamps for bus transportation, perhaps a direct payment to an ISP and cell (local use only) provider. Make welfare much less tolerable, a subsistence living like it was in the thirties when people would do ANYTHING to "get off the dole". We have made these handouts a lifestyle that millions are enjoying at the expense of others.
Then, make getting a job, job training, or more education a condition of welfare payments. Provide daycare, preferable by grouping moms into a unit that rotates taking care of the kids with the above self "improvement" categories
Lastly, since you can't stop the recipients from trying to sell their stamps for cash (to get beer, cigarettes and lotto tickets), make it a class B felony to BUY these stamps (punishable by 10-25 in state prison).
At least it would be a start.

To a certain degree, you are correct. But at the same time, it is pricing some classes of employees out of the market. Who in their right mind is going to take a chance on a 17 year old looking for work when you have to pay $15/hr? At that rate of pay, you bring some more retirees and stay at home moms with work experience back into the job market. As someone who employed 50+ people, I'd take a 60 year old with experience over a 17 year old any day.
The "lower end" jobs were never really intended to be a career, nor a salary with which you could support a family. I just don't know how kids will get the work experience they need with this new pay structure, not to mention it will make automation , which traditionally was more expensive than a minimum wage worker, much more attractive.

What about the people realizing they make more staying home collecting from the govt than doing actual work?

Yes, because we sure don’t want to help children do we? THIS is what our government should be doing instead of making wealthy people get more wealthy by tax cuts to the rich.

Don't forget folks, the Government does not run a business to make money, they spend money, and where does that money come from, wait for it........ YOU!!

Amen!

Should be ZERO.

Straight out of the far left play book since 1932, page 1

Why? Do you wish to make personal responsibility illegal?

Lets just make it $25,000 per year so no body with kids (that they chose to have) have to work. Hope you have cash saved to pay your taxes.

An overly broad brush
 

That is a sweeping statement that I would love to see you support with actual evidence, you know proof that would stand up in court. It must be scary and depressing to live in a world where everyone is out to rip you off, neglect their families and never do honest work unless forced. Most of the poor I have known were hard working, honest and loving people. Not being equipped to be financially successful in life does not make you a bad person. Not caring about anyone but yourself does, in my opinion.
People complain when their favorite eatery limits service because they can’t get help for minimum wage or less. But the same people seem to be unwilling to support the people at the bottom of the economic ladder that have to do the best to support their families.
Come on. We are all in this together, and no one is getting out of this alive. We need the woman scrubbing dishes in the restaurant kitchen or mowing the grass as much as the Doctors or entrepreneurs if the system is going to work. Try to make the system work for everyone.

I did see some loving Christian concern in these replies, increase your tipping so workers can afford child care and the government won't have to cover your tips.

If you want to get into details lbj's Great society started the welfare state, and we have the exact same percentage of poor today as we did 50 plus years ago. Look it up use any statistics you want it's the truth. Giving money away does not help the poor.
However maybe if you give them an additional education and skills to get a better job that might help. I'm not talking about the unfortunate who are sick or do not have proper psychological brains to work.

Yeah, yours and mine and everyone else's money.

According to my calculations if a person has 10 kids under 5 that amounts to $3000 a month or $36,000 a year. Isn’t being dependent on the government GREAT !

Actually it will be us tax payers who will be giving them the money

I'm confused. How can paying someone money they never put into the system be far less expensive than returning some of the money they did put into the system? If the parents of Dick and Jane aren't paying taxes into the system then the entire $600 "tax credit" is coming out of my pocket. Sure, it's less expensive for Dick and Jane's parents but it's more expensive for me and the rest of the tax-paying citizens.

In your mind do you see a lot of people sitting at home with no income because they made a choice to go hungry rather than taking a low-paying job? In my mind I see an economic decision to take unemployment plus a $7.50/hour (based on a 40 hour week) Federal paycheck to sit at home rather than taking a $10/hour job.

A lot of well-known companies have been forced to raise their lower-end pay scales because they are competing against the Federal Government. Together, the State and Federal Governments are paying people more to stay home and so the companies have to increase wages to compete successfully. But it isn't quite a fair fight since the Federal Government has bottomless pockets - they don't have to earn a profit to pay for the wages, the Fed Govt just writes checks.

Thanks for the correction. Good reason to send all the children to the US and then the family will follow and be paid lots of money for all your children. Send them to school and get 2 free meals a day. Free health care, lodging, etc. Children can be a good business.

This isn't about the children, it is about the money and votes.

I REALLY DO NOT think so!!!!
Believe it when you see it! WELFARE all over again and it’ll be PAID for by YOU!!

Better to give it to our citizens, who have struggled through the pandemic, and didn't benefit from the big business/1%er's 2017 tax break, than to send our tax dollars to other countries!

To reiterate post #54----"Straight out of the far left play book since 1932, page 1"

How about those "citizens" work to earn what they get, rather than suck off the government teat. And speaking about business and the "1%ers", who do you think is going to hire all these new workers at $15/hr???? Welfare recipients????

So to quote Margaret Thatcher, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of OTHER people's money"

While I have a visceral reaction against giving away money like this, and while I am skeptical of this “child hunger” argument (given that I’ve seen plenty of overweight poor children, but I’ve NEVER seen a kid on the sidewalk in this country starving to death), there are a lot of people in this country who my Uncle Johnny used to call “pitiful poor.” (He grew up poor in southern Virginia without running water or a toilet, so “pitiful poor” was below that.) That sort of poverty doesn’t mean you can’t be happy or smile or laugh, but it grinds you down, and it hurts to not be able to buy anything or afford a little birthday present for your child.

The fact is, while plenty of this money will be used to by drugs, liquor, etc., nearly all of it will be used to BUY THINGS. When poor people who haven’t had enough money to buy things get a lot more, they buy a lot more. They spend it all. That means more things have to be made or cooked or whatever, and that means people have to be hired to make all this. Essentially, we the people are giving money to poor people so they will help grow the economy by consuming more. It sort of balances out, though it’s perhaps not a very efficient way of doing things.

One interesting point is that if the minimum wage were double what it is now, all those people earning minimum wages would have a lot more to spend without it having to come from the government. This would incentivise people to take jobs and work, and they might actually be paying taxes instead of receiving much more back as “refunds” than they ever pay in federal income tax. Business owners would have to charge more to cover the extra cost of the wages, yes, but that’s how it works. You and I would have to pay a little more to buy things. Maybe that pizza would cost a dollar more! But would you rather support people through fair wages or through government handouts? Also, if businesses were required to provide health insurance to workers, then yes, prices would go up, but the need for Medicaid would go down a lot. As it is, American taxpayers are subsidising all these businesses that pay so little that full-time workers still qualify for Medicaid, free lunches in school, big tax rebates, etc.

How dare those kids by being born.

This money is NOT just for poor!

That’s one way to address the labor shortage, encourage folks to make more babies. And it’s redefining poor. MFJ with income up to $150K.

Or maybe they would just be replaced by a machine

The Florida Department of Corrections employs about 24,000 people and has an annual budget of more than $2 billion — less than 1% of the overall state budget. It costs the state about $22,000 a year for each inmate in custody.

Source: What you need to know about Florida's prisons - Florida Trend | Feature

See post #10

So you want us to be communist China now???

The USA birthrate is already below the replacement rate of those dying.

Yes, they gave billions to the rich.

Just Wow!
 

Some of these comments are disgusting. I'm sure some of these distasteful comments would have a change of mind should someone in your family need financial help. Not everyone was born with a silver spoon or had the opportunity to go to college to better themselves. Think before you speak, because things can change in a blink of an eye. From a friend's experience, some businesses don't want to hire anyone over 60, so after losing their job of 40 years and not their fault, how is one suppose to feed and cloth their children in the meantime. If you can be anything be Kind.

Communism
 

Another step into communism. Freedom and the American way disappearing one step at a time. In 3 years and 4 months I hope America is still a recognizable entity.

Welfare by any name
 

If it works properly???? When has any program run by the government worked properly? It will be mismanaged, the undeserving will get a large portion of the money and crooked politians will get most of the rest. Just the way it is. Oh and it will never go away just get bigger as more crooks figure out how to get their share.

Maybe some of us find YOUR comment disgusting and distasteful. Most of us weren't born with "a silver spoon in their mouths", we worked long and hard to get where we are, and as such, have little tolerance for those that laze on their couch, watch Oprah, spit out multiple babies by multiple fathers while smoking crack, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes and checking their lotto tickets all on our dime. I do feel sorry for your friend, if that statement was indeed true, but how does someone who worked 40 years and therefor 60+ have "children to support" (yes, I know it is possible, but unlikely). Much of the anti-handout commentary on here is more directed at those that make a permanent living off our tax dollar and defraud the system, and not aimed at those who worked, want to work, but were temporary victims of COVID. So maybe YOU should think before YOU speak.