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This Is Hell!

1343: Public assistance, state surveillance / Spencer Headworth

This Is Hell!

This Is Hell!

News

4.9937 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2021

⏱️ 66 minutes

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Summary

Sociologist Spencer Headworth on his book "Policing Welfare: Punitive Adversarialism in Public Assistance" from University of Chicago Press. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo88749892.html

Transcript

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0:00.0

Back and around, back and around.

0:02.0

Back and around.

0:04.2

That sounds like the guy who is the star of

0:07.8

Music man, which is horrible. I'm going to the side, place on your leave.

0:15.0

Make a lot to the side.

0:17.0

Take a turn.

0:20.0

You're welcome Neil.

0:24.2

You're welcome in.

0:40.0

This is hell, I see. This is hell, I see.

0:45.0

Money is the root of all evil and capitalism is all about money, so you do the math.

0:50.0

This is hell if you are or you become poor you may need assistance in most

0:59.2

countries that's about all that is necessary you're poor and you want help so you get it. But there's a lot

1:05.5

more to it here in the US. Not only do you have to go through an application process where

1:09.6

you get the feeling that the financial assistance is coming directly out of the

1:13.2

pocket of the administrator you happen to be speaking with. But there's also a

1:17.3

qualification process where everything you write down must be and stay 110% accurate or you might lose whatever small amount of help you actually do get.

1:27.7

And it is a small amount but for those ravaged by poverty it can be a key to survival as it was once for me. Then to get the help

1:36.5

you need you must waive all of your privacy rights and open yourself up to state

1:40.7

surveillance. Surveillance that can lead to accusations of

1:43.4

welfare fraud, which can actually lead to criminal charges. Fraud

1:48.1

investigators can look into the most intimate aspects of a recipient's life in a quest to find the most petty transgressions that

1:56.6

may vary from information shared with welfare so the investigator can joyously catch someone

...

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