Just wondering.

[Nolan]

What percentage of people on welfare today grew up in welfare households?

[ContrarianLemming]

Although I can't answer the specific question, I do know most people on welfare don't stay on it for more then a year. The myth of the welfare queen living off welfare is reagan era propaganda

[Nolan]

Can I get a source for that?

[ContrarianLemming]

Can I get a source for that?

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-welfarequeen.htm

The site is Steve Kangas's Liberal FAQ. It's quite good for debating with conservatives and dispell a lot of myths, of course the author is bourgeoisie as hell.
It's still a good read http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/LiberalFAQ.htm

[ed miliband]

I had two uncles (both died pretty young, and fairly tragically) who spent their whole life on the dole (in Ireland, actually). My dad says it was fairly common, especially in the more rural towns, for people to live on welfare and make a bit of money on the side from farmwork, building work, etc. My grandfather actually got grassed on by people who assumed he was on the dole and working at the same time. In my uncles' cases they were on the dole because they didn't want to work, and spending x amount of time in the pub was more appealing. Obviously it was near impossible to survive on it, though.

[Nolan]

Bump

[Desperado]

In the UK there are many long-term unemployed, often ignored as action tends to focus more on those made unemployed more recently. It's not profitable enough for capitalism to re-educate them and low-skilled jobs available have pitifully meagre pay not much higher than the welfare.

[mikelepore]

Even if it were true that there were permanent "welfare queens", they wouldn't be performing any disservice to others. The capitalist class decides to make a certain number of jobs available. If there are 300 million people who want jobs, and the capitalist class decides to hire 260 million workers, then 40 million somewhere will have to be unemployed. If one of those alleged welfare queens suddenly got ambitious and took a job, then one more unemployed person would have to be generated somewhere else. If a thousand "lazy bums" suddenly ceased to be lazy and took a thousand jobs, then an additional thousand "ambitious" workers somewhere else would have to be laid off. As long as capitalism exists, you should express your sincere thanks to the "welfare queen" for making it possible for you to have a job.