GQ4/9780521013284.jpg' alt='What States Have The Best Welfare Programs' title='What States Have The Best Welfare Programs' />Muslim Men Can Have 4 Wives on Welfare in Michigan Claim   Michigan government offices provide information in Arabic and allow polygamous Muslim men to apply for public assistance benefits for up to four wives. Examples   Collected via email, September 2. How many wives can a Muslim have on welfare in the state of Michigan This is based on a conservative video currently making the rounds on the internet. I actually called the Michigan Dept. Human Services to check this out and it is true. Have we gone completely nutsTHE CAMELS NOSE IS OFFICIALLY IN THE TENT IN MICHIGAN Muslim men are allowed to have as many as 4 wives. Many Muslims have immigrated into the U. S. And brought their 2 3 or 4 wives with them, but the U. S. does not allow multi marriages, so the man lists one wife as his,and signs the other 2 or 3 up as extended family on welfare and other free Government programs Michigan has the highest population of Muslims in the United States. When President Obama took office the United States paid several millions of dollars to have a large number of Palestinians, All Muslim, immigrated here from PalestineWhy We dont pay for other persons to immigrate here, and Im sure that some of those Muslims moved into Michigan with the large current number of Muslims already established there. So now in Michigan when you call the Public Assistance office you are told to Press 1 for English. Press 2 for Spanish, or Press 3 for Arabic CHECK IT OUT YOURSELF Here is the number 1 8. Every time you add a new language to an American program it requires an additional number of persons fluent in that language to process those persons who refuse to learn English in order to live here at an additional cost to the taxpayer Why are we even allowing persons to immigrate here who cannot provide for themselves and then putting them in our welfare system Press 3 for Arabic This is quite alarming This seems to have happened clandestinely, or as far as I know, because no public announcement or opportunity to vote on this was offered to the American people. Theyre just adopting an official stance, and very likely using tax payer money for it, in various capacities, without public knowledge or approval. The following link takes you into the State of Michigan Public Assistance page, as in Food Stamps etc. You wont have to scroll far before you see the assistance letters options forget thisEnglish, Spanish, and ARABIC When did the ARABIC option sneak into our culture We dont do this for other cultures, except those that speak Spanish Will we soon have to listen to our governmental offices, stores, and other venues offer us the option of pressing 3 for ARABICCheck it out for yourself. Michigan. Govdhs0,1. What States Have The Best Welfare Programs' title='What States Have The Best Welfare Programs' />Low Cost or Free Spay Neuter Programs in the United States Below are programs that provide low cost or free spayneuter for cats, listed by state. Operating within the University of South Floridas College of Behavioral and Community Sciences, Department of Child and Family Studies, the Center works in. HTML When you get to this web site, just click on the FORMS AND PUBLICATIONS button those forms in Arabic are listed as ending in ARPlease inform every red blooded American you know, that this is happening. It is outrageous YOUR AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS AT WORK Origins   Claims of polygamous Muslim families draining welfare benefits in Michigan in particular have been the subject of e mail forwards for several years, but a You. Tube video originally posted on 2. August 2. 01. 4 appears to have catapulted the rumors to new levels. The clip, titled U. S. WELFARE PAYS FOR 4 WIVES PER HUSBAND, is a narrated version of a popular email forward claiming that many Muslim families support up to four wives per household courtesy of the generous United States welfare system. The brief video is amusingly stirring the American outrage pot whilst the text is read in a British accent The circulating up to four wives in Michigan e mail and the video are framed in a manner calculated to drum up anger amidst taxpayers who might not believe immigrants should be catered to in any language other than English or that polygamous households should receive additional benefits to support a lifestyle which U. S. law does not recognize or allow. Its important to note that a number of issues are threaded together in the 4 wives piece. First of all, it is true that some state and municipal government agencies in Michigan such as the state Electronic Benefit Transfer program, whose phone number is listed in the example above provide phone services and printed material in Arabic. However, this phenomenon is hardly surprising, as Michigan is home to a large population of immigrants from Middle Eastern countries over 1. U. S. provide information and services in non English languages other than Spanish e. Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Haitian Creole in areas where significant numbers of speakers of those languages reside. As for the claim about Muslim men claiming public assistance benefits for up to four wives, one must considerthe plausibility of the situation proposed and understand that the circumstances span multiple issues including marriage, immigration, and the range of benefits commonly dubbed welfare in America. While marriage laws have been modified in some states to include same sex couples, plural marriages i. Its common knowledge that many families do engage in polygamous or polyamorous household arrangements, but only one partner can be legally recognized as a spouse in such circumstances. The claims made in the e mail rely on the belief that immigrating to America or claiming asylum is a simple process, with many new entrants flowing across our porous borders each year. However, getting into the United States for the sole purpose of taking up residency here is not so easy, and relatively few who make their way here are afforded the opportunity to permanently reside in the U. S. For starters, sponsoring a spouse for an immigrant visa is a complicated and often lengthy process, one that requires the applying party to have or have access to a specified minimum amount of resources before immigration officials approve the non resident spouses visa application. The process can take months or years, and many lovelorn husbands and wives find their petitions initially rejected. On top of that, U. S. Department of State regulations specifically state that In cases of polygamy, only the first spouse may qualify as a spouse for immigration, so nobody is bringing multiple wives into the United States from far flung lands via immigrant visas. Should a hopeful foreigner be lucky enough to legally emigrate to the U. S. and obtain the necessary visa for a spouse, he or she had to have supplied proof of ability to support that spouse. But if one or both parties should fall upon hard times afterwards, all involved are subject to standard assistance eligibility guidelines to qualify for services such as a SNAP food stamps, Medicaid, or temporary cash assistance. In order to receive these forms of assistance in Michigan, all residents Muslim or not must meet basic eligibility requirements, among which are that they are must be either U. S. citizens or have acceptable alien status. As a representative of the Michigan Department of Human Services told us, although immigrants may bring andor sponsor relatives e. U. S., they cannot claim multiple wives as relatives for that purpose because U. S. law does not recognize plural marriages. The War on Poverty After 5. Years. This week, the U. S. Census Bureau is scheduled to release its annual poverty report. The report will be notable because this year marks the 5. President Lyndon Johnsons War on Poverty. In his January 1. State of the Union address, Johnson proclaimed, This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America. Since that time, U. S. taxpayers have spent over 2. Adjusted for inflation, this spending which does not include Social Security or Medicare is three times the cost of all military wars in U. S. history since the American Revolution. Despite this mountain of spending, progress against poverty, at least as measured by the government, has been minimal. The WelfarePoverty Paradox This week, the Census Bureau will most likely report that the poverty rate last year was about 1. War on Poverty was announced. As Chart 1 shows, according to the Census, there has been no net progress in reducing poverty since the mid to late 1. Since that time, the poverty rate has undulated slowly, falling by two to three percentage points during good economic times and rising by a similar amount when the economy slows. Overall, the trajectory of official poverty for the past 4. The static nature of poverty is especially surprising because as Chart 1 also shows poverty fell dramatically during the period before the War on Poverty began. In 1. 95. 0, the poverty rate was 3. By 1. 96. 5 the first year during which any War on Poverty programs began to operate, the rate had been cut nearly in half to 1. The unchanging poverty rate for the past 4. As Chart 2 shows, means tested welfare spending has soared since the start of the War on Poverty. In fiscal year 2. Americans.  Overall, 1. Americansreceived benefits from at least one of these programs. Federal and state governments spent 9. Again, Social Security and Medicare are not included in the totals. Today, government spends 1. War on Poverty started. But as welfare spending soared, the decline in poverty came to a grinding halt. As Chart 2 shows, the more the government spent, the less progress against poverty was made. How can this paradox be explained How can government spend 9,0. The answer is that it cant. The conundrum of massive anti poverty spending and unchanging poverty rates has a simple explanation. The Census Bureau counts a family as poor if its income falls below specific thresholds,3 but in counting income, the Census omits nearly all of government means tested spending on the poor. In effect, it ignores almost the entire welfare state when it calculates poverty. This neat bureaucratic ploy ensured that welfare programs could grow infinitely while poverty remained unchanged. Living Conditions of the Poor in America5Consumption by Poor Families. Since the Census Bureau dramatically undercounts the actual incomes of the poor, it should be no surprise to find that the U. S. Department of Labor routinely reports that poor families spend 2. If public housing benefits are added to the tally, the ratio of consumption to income rises to 2. In other words, the income figures that the Census Bureau uses to calculate poverty dramatically undercount the economic resources available to lower income households. Amenities. Because the official Census poverty report undercounts welfare income, it fails to provide meaningful information about the actual living conditions of less affluent Americans. All Html Tags List With Examples Pdf. The governments own data show that the actual living conditions of the more than 4. Census Bureau differ greatly from popular conceptions of poverty. Consider these facts taken from various government reports 8Eighty percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, at the beginning of the War on Poverty, only about 1. U. S. population enjoyed air conditioning. Nearly three quarters have a car or truck 3. Nearly two thirds have cable or satellite television. Two thirds have at least one DVD player, and a quarter have two or more. Half have a personal computer one in seven has two or more computers. More than half of poor families with children have a video game system such as an Xbox or Play. Station. Forty three percent have Internet access. Forty percent have a wide screen plasma or LCD TV. A quarter have a digital video recorder system such as a TIVO. Ninety two percent of poor households have a microwave. For decades, the living conditions of the poor have steadily improved. Consumer items that were luxuries or significant purchases for the middle class a few decades ago have become commonplace in poor households. In part, this is caused by a normal downward price trend following the introduction of a new product. Initially, new products tend to be expensive and available only to the affluent. Over time, prices fall sharply, and the product becomes widely prevalent throughout the population, including poor households. This is a general sign of desirable economic progress. Liberals use the declining relative prices of many amenities to argue that even though poor households have air conditioning, computers, cable TV, and wide screen TVs, they still suffer from substantial material deprivation in basic needs such as food and housing. Here again, the data tell a different story. Poverty, Nutrition, and Hunger. Despite impressions to the contrary, most of the poor do not experience undernutrition, hunger, or food shortages. Information on these topics is collected by the household food security survey of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA survey shows that in 2. Ninety six percent of poor parents stated that their children were never hungry at any time during the year because they could not afford food. Some 8. 3 percent of poor families reported that they had enough food to eat. Some 8. 2 percent of poor adults reported that they were never hungry at any time in the prior year due to lack of money to buy food. As a group, Americas poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle class children and in most cases is well above recommended norms. Poor children actually consume more meat than do higher income children and have average protein intakes 1. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished and grow up to be, on average, one inch taller and 1. GIs who stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II. Housing and Poverty. TV newscasts about poverty in America generally depict the poor as homeless or as residing in dilapidated living conditions. While some families do experience such severe conditions, they are far from typical of the population defined as poor by the Census Bureau. The actual housing conditions of poor families are very different. Over the course of a year, only 4 percent of poor persons become temporarily homeless. At a single point in time, one in 7. Only 9. 5 percent of the poor live in mobile homes or trailers 4. Forty two percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three bedroom house with one and a half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio. Only 7 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two thirds have more than two rooms per person. The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Sweden, France, Germany, or the United Kingdom.