Now This Makes Cents!

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Now This Makes Cents!

Posted 7/19/2012 8:21:00 AM

For once, Toronto is ahead of the curve. The city is rolling out the province’s first welfare debit card. Five of the city’s fifteen social assistance offices are the launch pad, with the other offices coming on board in fairly short order.

This will save money on both sides; for the city and for recipients. Twenty-five percent of welfare recipients do not have bank accounts so they can’t opt in to the direct deposit option. Instead they resort to those cheque cashing outlets that have rates bordering on usurious.

These cards work just as a normal debit card works and can be used at ATMs and in stores. The cards also carry the latest in PIN and chip technology.

The cards also decrease the risk of being robbed after cashing that monthly stipend.

Recipients may save up to $200 on those cheque cashing fees and the city could save up to $2.5 million a year by no longer having to print and mail these cheques.

Posted By: John Oakley

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Joe Blow posted on 07/19/2012 12:49 PM
I really like this idea......I also think we should track expenditures this way too. Give them a Visa card with their "limit" and then have the statement go to the Ministry. This way we can track where they spend and are better able to determine limits. If a single mom is paying 60% on baby food and 20% on rent....we should review and bump up her limit. If a single man is paying 20% on liquor and 30% at the nudie bar....maybe we should lower his. We can get the money to the people that REALLY need it. But the Socialists will never go for it...they prefer just throwing the money out a window with the people standing below picking $5 bills out of the air as they drop. Cash should never be given out....there isn't a place where Debit/Credit Card isn't taken.
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1. DrakeS posted on 07/20/2012 04:19 PM
  @Joe Blow Buddy,
  
  This new card system is being put in place because most of the recipients don't have a bank account and can barley do the math. What makes you think they can write up a simple budget??
  
  Your numbers are good for a laugh. This is why we are only allowed the 1 vote - because of goofs like you.
  
  I'll give you a little bone to chew on though - Ontario Works does require regular meetings with a social worker to discuss their progress. I gaurantee you these social workers are the jobs for life union doofuses you always rant about. So if you do want a socialist union to blame - there's one - see 'em boy? now get 'em go get the socalist - attaaaaack!!!!
  
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2. MichaelC_17 posted on 07/21/2012 02:20 PM
  @Joe Blow I also like this idea....Guys like Drake are the reason the right wing nut heads are allowed to exist as they do. Perhaps if free money was handed out to the really needed and not those who choose to party and lay around their parents basement, or the single mother who continues to spread her legs and have more children in order to get a fatter tax payers cheque, then the lazy would be forced to either get a job or take responsibility for their own poor decisions in life.
  
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MichaelC_17 posted on 07/19/2012 02:03 PM
If the single mothers are spending the money on contraseptives then I say keep her on the dole, If its for booze and the movie chanel on her cable, then I say cut the cheques
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1. DrakeS posted on 08/03/2012 07:14 PM
  @MichaelC_17 thanks for keeping it short Mike. I got bored reading the crap upstairs. I agree with you - contraseptives are a good investment. I'll do you one better. Let's invent a time machine and sew your mothers legs shut. There's one less idiot we need.
  
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Burton4Freedom posted on 07/19/2012 03:04 PM
This new way to transfer cash will indeed save money for the City. No longer will recipients be able claim that the entire amount of their cashed cheque was stolen again for the 8th month in a row. But, what about responsibility? Don’t all people want to get off of the dole as every activist on the left tells us? Surely we should setup our welfare system to encourage self-reliance and industry. I would propose that we make it more difficult for people to collect their tax-payer supplied income as a motivation to move into a more satisfying means of support. One example would be to make cheques available at the same office where one has to go to register to fight a parking ticket. The city rightly believes that a large portion of the population will just say the hell with it and pay the ticket. Perhaps the same logic could work with welfare recipients – make picking up their cheques feel like work. Many of them may just think they might as well get a real job since it takes the same effort.
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