Susan Griffin Quotes

As someone who grew up in tough circumstances, I know that being on public assistance is not a spot that anyone wants to be in.

Don't say it's because of benefits, because our benefits are good.

I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No. No.

Welfare is monetary methadone.

Welfare makes you dependent upon someone to take care of you.

Programs like food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and job retraining help Americans get back on their feet when they are down and out and laid off through no fault of their own.

The issue I highlight in the book is welfare reform.

There are very few people on welfare who like it.

Welfare is hated by those who administer it, mistrusted by those who pay for it and held in contempt by those who receive it.

A third of all the children born today will be on welfare.

Most Americans get that there is a need for a safety net in our country, and we support that safety net.

My parents divorced, my brothers and I ended up living with my mother, and we were living with the choice of heating or eating. My mum was working, but she needed financial support to make ends meet. I had to have free school dinners and free school uniforms.

It's not unreasonable to ask folks to stay clean in order to receive federal assistance.

There was an old Woman who lived in a shoe She had so many children Her government subsidy check came to $4,892.

You know where nice people end up? On welfare.

I'm not living off of any taxpayer money. If I am - if it's food stamps, it's a temporary resource.

Welfare is ... the victim of national compassion fatigue.

I come from a family of eight on public assistance, my parents were separated. My mother struggled, my father struggled.

Taxpayers' and 'people on benefits' are not two separate and distinct groups of people.

We must have a welfare system that we can afford, which will mean giving greater attention to directing the welfare program toward its primary purposes and its intended beneficiaries.

At its core, government welfare is predicated on a false compassion.

Society is responsible for its social organization, and if it can't provide the wherewithal for men to be gainfully employed then it should pay the penalty and give them welfare.

There is much in American society which I admire, but I have long held the view that the absence of an effective safety net in that country means that too many needy citizens fall by the wayside. That is not the path that Australia will tread. Nor do we want the burdens of nanny state paternalism that now weigh down many economies in Europe.

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.

In 1978, '79, if you were unemployed, you didn't have an phone, you didn't have a big-screen TV, you didn't have air-conditioned house, and you weren't guaranteed to be eating three meals a day. You had welfare, you had unemployment, but you didn't have the kind of government support system/safety nets that exist today. So that's a difference. But today the economic circumstances really no different.