More whites than blacks on welfare despite myth - 39% of recipients are white, 37% are African American - Brief Article
Jet, Nov 14, 1994
There are 14 million welfare recipients in America. And despite what most people think, the majority are not Black.

The truth is, about 39 percent of parents on welfare are White, 37 percent Black, 18 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian, Native American or another race.



"My bet is that most people, if forced to name a typical welfare recipient, would talk about a Black woman, whose mother received AFDC (Aid to Families For Dependent Children) before her and whose children will receive AFDC," says Univ. of Michigan economist Greg Duncan in USA Today. Duncan told the paper that the stereotype "just does not do justice to reality."

COPYRIGHT 1994 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Firstly,this article is outdated,by a decade and a half.

More importantly,there is little logical correlation between the thread title and the content of the article.The thread title tells us that most blacks are not on welfare,the article tells us that whites,as a proportion of all welfare recipients,surpass their black counterparts by 2%.

Given that Blacks constituted about 11% of the populace at the relevant time,they are more than 3 times more likely to be on welfare.Bear in mind that whites constituted 80% of the populace and only constitute 39% of the welfare recipients.

So,if anything,the article actually puts blacks in a bad light because our uptake of welfare is grossly disproportionate to our composition of the general population.

i know only 25% of blacks are on welfare now though. so it has dropped since 1994.

i believe the real question is what percentage of AA are on welfare or dangerously close to the poverty line

I was watching nightline and most of the polygamists in Utah and Texas are the ones using most of the welfare money. Good for them I guess.

25% are on welfare now. i dont know how many are dangerously close the poverty line though.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with being on welfare. If a person thinks they need the assistence of the government to survive and the government agrees with them, then so be it. Personally I'd rather have my tax dollars handed over to the government being spent on welfare recipients than a bunch of bomb costing millions of dollars a piece and being fired off in useless wars like they were regular ol rifle ammunition.

i see nothing wrong with welfare that much except that i hate seeing people not doing anything to make their lives better. if you are trying, but having got there yet, welfare is for you. if you just sitting home doing crap, the government should just take back their money and make you work, lol.

@poster

Is the myth destroyed?? I think the perception is still there just like the perception that Blacks are the greatest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action. It is well know that other minority groups benefited more from Affirmative Action but the perception (or your word myth) is still there.

No article will take a perception (myth) away. It will take more than that.

SORRY IN ADVANCE FOR THE LONG REPLY, ITS SORT OF A RANT MORE THAN ANY THING,

Heres the problem I see over here in my city in North Carolina. I can't really speak for other places but, here in my city we have people like me, when I was in college I got assistance with child care so I could go to school, when I was unemployed, my daughter got a check until her father was made to pay child support, however when I got a job, I had to give it up and was glad to do it. I was the first to call over there to let them know, I have a job now, I no longer need your help. Yes had my daughter when I was 19. Yes I made the mistake of thinking that the man I was with for 4 years would stick around and not abandon me. But my child is no mistake. I'm now married with a son and another on the way. I see nothing wrong in being on "welfare" if you need it. Heres my problem, I see girls 16, 15, 18, hell even 27 not doing any thing with themselves. They keep popping out children, the assistance they get they use on themselves in stead of the kids. Honey if your baby doesn't have diapers and formula, you shouldn't be rocking those $120-$200 micro braids you got done at the local African braiding shop. Go to school, do something! Hell here in NC they will pay for you to go to school! I took those resources and ran with them! Things happen and you get in to situations you didn't plan for, but if you are getting a check to get your hair and nails done and keep up your worthless "baby daddy" as they call it, then i have a problem with that. WHY? Because you are taking away from those that really need help and making it hard for them.

Heres another problem I have, If you are able to afford a 2008 Honda accord, what the hell are you doing at the food banks and the Christmas give aways designed for the less fortunate?

Another thing, these people are my friends and neighbors so I wont call them out, but they work out of town, for a few months of work they make and save around $40 to $50,000. tell me why after coming home, the "wife" goes to the local social service to apply for food stamps? Why is it that hispanics can easily cheat the system when a needy African American or white family has to bend over backwards to receive assistance??

Just my rant, nothing personal.

You

girl22:

More whites than blacks on welfare despite myth - 39% of recipients are white, 37% are African American - Brief Article
Jet, Nov 14, 1994
There are 14 million welfare recipients in America. And despite what most people think, the majority are not Black.

The truth is, about 39 percent of parents on welfare are White, 37 percent Black, 18 percent Hispanic and 6 percent Asian, Native American or another race.



"My bet is that most people, if forced to name a typical welfare recipient, would talk about a Black woman, whose mother received AFDC (Aid to Families For Dependent Children) before her and whose children will receive AFDC," says Univ. of Michigan economist Greg Duncan in USA Today. Duncan told the paper that the stereotype "just does not do justice to reality."

COPYRIGHT 1994 Johnson Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group

Your argument is flawed in a sense. True, there may be more whites than blacks on welfare, but you have to also consider the fact that blacks only make up 12.8% of America's population whereas whites make up 80.1% of the population. The population of America is 304.5million, therefore there are about 244million whites and about 39million blacks. If there are 14million people on welfare as you say and 39% are white, while 37% are black, it means there are about 5.5million whites on welfare and 5.2million blacks. This in turn means that about 2% of white Americans are on welfare while 13% of black Americans are on welfare . Of course, I'm only woring with the figures you have provided so my argument is flawed in the sense that there are even more black people on welfare now (which is just sad). I also think you misunderstand your post, you are referring to the proportion of people on welfare as 37% in 1994 and are now saying 25% of blacks are on welfare and you seem to think this is a good think when it really is not, in fact going by my calculations that would mean that the percentage of blacks on welfare has increased by 12% from 13% to 25% which is pathetic.

That said however, I don't think the media treats black Americans fairly in the sense that while a higher percentage of them as a whole are on welfare programmes as opposed to whites (the ideal thing to do would be to carry out investigations that go towards understanding the root cause of this problem, rather than portraying all black Americans as welfare beneficiaries on the news), they are not the majority on the welfare programmes (based on your figures of course) if you get my drift. God help us all.

@girl22,hero AND OTHER AAS
while you are here defending your fellow aa s,ill suggest you listen to your fellow aa rapper "the game"boasting in his new album about wearing conflict diamonds from angola, before going on about how africans or nigerians look down on you ppl i think many supposedly public aa figures need a whole lot of education, note you need to check the figures of how much african americans in the united states have spent so far on stuffs that they really dont need or can conviniently do without, its in the region of 700billion dollars, incredible isnt it

Ms_Molina:

SORRY IN ADVANCE FOR THE LONG REPLY, ITS SORT OF A RANT MORE THAN ANY THING,

Heres the problem I see over here in my city in North Carolina. I can't really speak for other places but, here in my city we have people like me, when I was in college I got assistance with child care so I could go to school, when I was unemployed, my daughter got a check until her father was made to pay child support, however when I got a job, I had to give it up and was glad to do it. I was the first to call over there to let them know, I have a job now, I no longer need your help. Yes had my daughter when I was 19. Yes I made the mistake of thinking that the man I was with for 4 years would stick around and not abandon me. But my child is no mistake. I'm now married with a son and another on the way. I see nothing wrong in being on "welfare" if you need it. Heres my problem, I see girls 16, 15, 18, hell even 27 not doing any thing with themselves. They keep popping out children, the assistance they get they use on themselves in stead of the kids. Honey if your baby doesn't have diapers and formula, you shouldn't be rocking those $120-$200 micro braids you got done at the local African braiding shop. Go to school, do something! Hell here in NC they will pay for you to go to school! I took those resources and ran with them! Things happen and you get in to situations you didn't plan for, but if you are getting a check to get your hair and nails done and keep up your worthless "baby daddy" as they call it, then i have a problem with that. WHY? Because you are taking away from those that really need help and making it hard for them.

Heres another problem I have, If you are able to afford a 2008 Honda accord, what the hell are you doing at the food banks and the Christmas give aways designed for the less fortunate?

Another thing, these people are my friends and neighbors so I wont call them out, but they work out of town, for a few months of work they make and save around $40 to $50,000. tell me why after coming home, the "wife" goes to the local social service to apply for food stamps? Why is it that hispanics can easily cheat the system when a needy African American or white family has to bend over backwards to receive assistance??

Just my rant, nothing personal.

mmmmmmmm