I am wondering if anyone knows how to obtain information about mormon's use of the public welfare system to pay for their baby births. I am so tired of the ultra conservative position that most mormons take, but when it comes to this item, they remain ominously silent. Any ideas? I think it could make for a great article to be passed on to some of our more liberal news organizations.

But then a significant portion of married YBU students are on welfare because how else can they support a student-husband and five brats and build up the kingdom ASAP as commanded by the Lard?

And at the same time they blame welfare abuse on racial minorities...

Yes, it's this hypocrisy that gets me. They justify it by saying "well, when WE get out of school, we'll be making a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes, so the government will come out ahead." Really? If you have 5 kids, you have to make a hellofalot of money before you really pay any taxes after child tax credit and all your exemptions. It would take almost a lifetime to make up what the government paid for your deliveries, WIC, foodstamps, etc. while you were in school. But they all vote Republican, and it's everybody else, especially those black people who are taking advantage of the entitlements.

We were young, clueless TBMs when we got married. Got preggers right off and realized we had no way to have a child so hubby joined the military. We had 2 kids in the military and then got out and used the GI Bill to go to BYU and WAITED during that time because we once again had no way to pay for a pregnancy and delivery. As soon as hubby graduated and got a job with insurance, we got pregnant with the third. So there is 15 months between our first two children and over 5 years between the second and third. But at BYU everyone just assumed we had some kind of fertility problem because we didn't have a kid while we were there. It was still irresponsible for us to have had any children when we had so little to give them, but at least we could have them without Medicaid. But don't tell those BYU students that they are part of Romney's 47%. No, they're the chosen ones.

Yeah, I wouldn't say my family or my wife's family is racist (like on a day to day basis), but when it comes to assumptions about welfare, they all suddenly focus on black people, and don't even realize that the things they are "blaming" them for, and the things that they are also participating in.

It is a weird cognitive dissonance.

I actually support all of those programs, and have less problems with the people participating in them, than I have with the people running them (some are run very well, but others are run very poorly)

In our ward we have many students because of Southern Illinois University. The married students are all (and I am not exaggerating) on WIC and the mothers and children are receiving medicaid from IL. This is how they get care for their children and prenatal/delivery services. The husbands have insurance through the university. About 20% of them receive some support from the ward (storehouse assistance or cash assistance).

Although there would not be any official stats, as the welfare programs can't ask about religion, I used to work for the welfare office in Rexburg Idaho (BYU-Idaho). The office is very busy at the first of each term with those applying for Medicaid and food stamps.

I was surprised when I was talking to a friend that I went to college with. DW and I never even thought of applying for welfare programs when I was at college, but later found out many of them were on assistance.

I used to take pride in that LDSSS adoptions required the adopting families to pay for the delivery. In the past 10 years I have seen that change dramatically.

One of the earliest signs of trouble for us in the Morg was that we got married young and resisted the pressure to have children. We made too much money to qualify for state assistance but needed both of us working to make ends meet. Things I have heard included "Have children now, money will come later" and "You should use Medicaid and WIC. They are great programs!"

We married young and didn't want to end up like my parents, who needed assistance for the last six years I lived with them.

Isn't it against the law to ask about religious affiliation or discriminate based on that?
I realise they consider that fact in polyg families anymore. I'm suprised the morg wants their members seek help from the government instead of getting help from within. Ole Briggy proably turns over in his grave (Oh, Wait! He DID command his casket to be made wide enough so he could comfortably turn, according to Cannon's book.

We lived in Athens, GA for several years and that seemed to be the standard setup. For the longest time we wondered how students (UGA) were able to afford tuition, living expenses and having baby after baby while we were struggling so much to afford school and we were both working full time to make ends meet.

As time went on we discovered that just about everyone in our ward was getting WIC, Medicaid and food from the bishop's storehouse--they were able to have as many kids as they wanted for free and were completely taken care of. They justified it by saying, "In the temple we covenanted to multiply and replenish the earth, so we're doing that, whatever it takes."

Okay but what about not taking advantage of government programs that were designed for people who actually NEED them? I understand we all fall on hard times, job loss, inability to work etc...but if you are capable of attending classes for your MASTER's degree and are also highly intelligent, you should be contributing instead of taking resources that were intended for other less capable people who actually cannot work or care for their children otherwise. At some point it's just selfish.

I was actually told by several people in the ward that I should quit my job so that we could qualify for benefits..."it's the only way." I never felt right about that and didn't do it.

A young woman whose husband was a BYzoobie told me that BYU has a counselor who helps the young marries access government services so they can start their families before they finish their education.

She had two children while her hubby was finishing this BA.

I don't live near many college-aged mormons so I don't know too much about those having babies in college and using gov't services to pay for them. However, I do know lots of 20-something's who are living in our area and are roughly the same age as my husband and I are. We have 1 child and pretty decent health insurance through my husband's employer. Still, with the economy we haven't seen any pay increases and my hours were even cut back at the end of last year. However, there are 3 other mormons that my husband works with and I'm pretty sure they pay their tithing. These 3 also have or are expecting 4-5 children each. None of them has hit 30 yet and it's mindboggling to me how they can make it work especially since their wives don't work at all. We slimmed down our budget a lot to make it work and we only have 1 child so I can't imagine how they make it work.

My husband grew up the oldest of 6 and he'll honestly tell you that his parents probably could only afford the first 2, possibly 3. His dad was an employee of the mormon church (something to do with upkeep of the church buildings though I'm sure they don't have them anymore) and his mom has the manager at the local Krystle. When the mormon church announced that employees could no longer take their children to work (don't know if it was due to a law or liability on their part) his mom quit so they were raising children on the meager pay that the church paid his dad. He'll be the first to say that he doesn't want any more than he could afford. He grew up eating nothing but hotdogs, mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. He still has foot problems from wearing shoes that were way too small for him and there was never any extra money for things like baseball, etc. It's sad that so many think that the quantity of children is more important than their quality of life.

used some sort of welfare when they were young and having lots of babies. Each of those kids got a $50k gift from Dad to buy a house too.

In his next breath he rants about how that proves nobody should get state aid. Then he goes on about how the fines for hiring illegals are so low that one can't resist doing it.

No exmo in my extended family as ever accepted any state aid, even if they qualified because of some silly rules. Family always helps.

Having been the senior worker in our local welfare office, I can attest that Mormons were just ask likely as anybody else to apply for Cash Assistance, Food Stamps and Medicaid (especially), and thought nothing of popping out one baby after another while using tax-payer supported benefits. Futhermore, we also supported fundamentalist families (who came up from Mexico), giving them cash assistance, and the rest. They registered their children as "citizens born outside the US" with the State Dept., and were therefore able to obtain all benefits. What a rip off!

It simply makes sense from a corporate viewpoint to use resources outside the corporation. Of course they'd encourage use of government welfare. That way, ChurchCo doesn't have to provide it all. You can't build award-winning upscale malls and maintain respectable game preserves without sound fiscal policy.

My sister's little family (4 kids) is on all the assistance they can get. My mom is so happy for her because, "That kind of aid(we were talking about WIC specifically) wasn't available when I had you two, and look at what a help it is, I wish I could have gotten that too!"
Thing is, I was born in '78 and my sister in '80. WIC was available beginning in '72, and food stamps were always available, I remember the stigma some of my classmates were under for being "welfare kids".
I even remember seeing WIC on milk prices on childhood shopping trips.

I'm not sure why my mother is lying. It is most likely that she knew absolutely nothing about assistance and thinks someone came to poor people to offer it to them. That's what happens in hospitals these days, they will sign you right up before you're discharged.
Thanks for the grinding poverty mom. I wonder if my childhood diet of mormon filler recipes has anything to do with the fact that I am 4 inches shorter than my expected height, and my sister one inch even shorter than that?

ETA:I don't know why Grits replied to me, that has nothing to do with anything I posted about.

The current system works for some and for others not. For example, my daughter has worked since she was 15. She is now 27 and is in Veterinary school. For the first time in her life she is not working.She is going to school full time, studying to be a doctor and helping profs with research. Even during her undergraduate studies, she worked both on campus and off. Because she is a student, she can not get help or state aid. She has been a contributing member of the community all her life and will do so when her studies are complete. Right now, it would be so nice if she could get food stamps to help feed herself while in school.

Young married LDS college students don't generally get cash welfare...but they bank on Food Stamps and Medicaid.

I don't want to say how I know this, but I'd say 90% of the babies born to LDS Married students in Utah are born on Medicaid and those children remain on Medicaid for 4, 5, 6+ years until dad graduates and gets a job earning too much for Medicaid.

I venture to say the children of LDS students might make up the largest demographic of Medicaid recipients in the State...if that were one of the demographics we measured.

I'm pretty sure this information is anonymous on purpose.

But you can gather some anecdotal evidence, and if enough of it aligns it could show you a trend.

So my extended family & my wife's extended family all have financial problems, and are all uber-conservative.

The only government aid my parents accepted during my childhood was receiving more money in their tax return than they paid in taxes. While they qualified for many programs, they wouldn't accept food stamps, or any other form of aid but tax returns. But, by the time we kids were going to college, they were very happy that FAFSA provided money for our college education.

My sisters, however, have used unemployment benefits, Medicaid, & CHIP and pretty much every government program... yet still maintain that such programs are evil, but justify using them because they are "bleeding the beast" to get some of all the hard working conservative money back.

On my wife's side, everyone has used every government program they could possibly qualify for. They navigate them quite skillfully. But, they also claim that there is too much government, and all those programs are evil. Even the SIL that is worst off financially still joins in the chorus of how bad these socialist programs are (and I simply think that she doesn't see the hypocrisy). That same SIL has 4 children, & the last 3 were all during extreme poverty when all of us who were helping them financially begged them not to have more children.

...also the neighbors I've known who were TBM conservatives and were using government aid were in similar states of cognitive dissonance, claiming that the government should get out of their affairs, and that the 47% takers were ruining society, yet still accepting government aid.


Disclaimer: I am socially liberal, and fiscally conservative- so my views tend to be biased in that direction

I don't think anyone would really want to have a baby on Medicaid. It may be free, but you pay for it in other ways, by getting lower-quality health care. I was on Medicaid for my first baby and was required to go to Mountain View Hospital in Payson - the same one where the married woman gave up her baby for adoption without telling the father. It's a very poor quality hospital.
Now I'm using the VA system for medical care instead of Medicaid. So my second baby was also paid for by the government. Do you all like to judge veterans who take advantage of government services for their medical needs, too?
There's nothing wrong with someone using WIC. It's not a system that can be easily abused. They get vouchers for certain types of healthy food, and it has to be the generic store brand. For example, in a month you get 6 gallons of milk, 1 lb of beans, 3 cans of tuna, 36 oz of low-sugar breakfast cereal, 1 carton of medium eggs, 1 lb of cheese, 1 loaf of whole wheat bread, and $10 worth of fresh fruits and vegetables. Total cost is around $50-$60 a month, and only low-income women who are pregnant or have children under age 5 are eligible.
I have seen food stamps misused, since I worked at a gas station and had people use their EBT card to buy overpriced sodas, chips, and candy all the time. That can't happen with WIC.
I've never even applied for food stamps, but I don't feel bad for being on WIC. If the government didn't take so long processing my husband's immigration, I wouldn't be using WIC right now.

We're talking about including Medicaid in your long term family planning and popping out kid after kid, on purpose, because God wants you to, when there's nearly zero income other than student loans and PELL grants coming into the home.

They want to be on Medicaid. They pre-Meditate it. They plan on it. "Have babies on Medicaid" is on their to-do list.

I think if you can't physically, emotionally or financially support a child, you shouldn't have them. It is harmful of the mormon church to encourage young adults to have kids they can't afford. Evidently they have stopped saying this from the pulpit all the time, but it's still a big part ofthe culture.

Of course there are exceptions to the rule, accidents happen (50% of pregnancies in the U.S. are accidental). But there's a big difference between planning on starting a family after you have a steady job and assuming the government will provide.

It is reminiscent (sp) of the "bleeding the beast" policy of the polygamists (no Utah LDS would admit that). The government is evil and wrong, so why not get as much money as you can?

So I support programs like WIC and financial assistance - but it would be nice to have more of a conversation about this nationally. But if eventually someone graduates from school and puts lots of money back (as a doctor, lawyer or dentist) into the country through taxes....I don't know.

Part of the reason this happens as well is that women can't work outside the home. Being a SAH wife while your husband is in school is a little ridiculous, and they can't have a career (because they have to be a homemaker). So better to start kids while he's in school so that they have lots of kids early and stay married, pay tithing and are so busy they never start really thinking about their lives or what they really want.

Yeah, the church policy of "get married young, and have kids immediately, before you have education, maturity, or financial stability" needs to change ASAP. Sadly, that's also one of the easiest proofs against the church, so when it's gone it will be 1 less thing to shake people into seeing reality.

My parents dutifully obeyed that counsel, and it screwed up their marriage.

Most of my friends followed that same path, and it screwed up most of their lives too.

I postponed a little bit (I waited until I graduated and had a job for 1 year before I got married and then immediately had kids), and just that small postponement has been excellent for me (though another 3 to 8 years would have been better).

My TBM brother used to brag that every one of his (many) grandkids was on some kind of public program at birth. He'd say that right before going off on one of his rants about the evils of big government.

Interesting thread, I feel compelled to add something.

My wife's family, like has been mentioned by some of you, is very conservative. They are also very much like the Beverly Hillbillies. Utah county stock.

They all have used various forms of government aid.

They all whine about the use of government aid by other people.

I am happy to pay taxes to help those who are in need, but there sure is alot of stupidity amongst Mormons that creates the need. You've mentioned most of it...kids get married young, have kids while in college, on government assistance, etc.

My wife's sister's kid got married recently. He is 18 and she is 18. They were actually still in High School. She was several months along when they got married. Both are overweight, have no ambition, and lived with the groom's mother until she got sick of them. Now they live with the bride's parents. Lord, I look at them and think of all the other stuff I've seen from this family, I read their facebook posts everyday, ranting against the government, Obama, etc. I honestly don't understand people. I mean that. I am a smart guy and this type of behavior is off my charts...

You are preachin to the choir here.... I get really worked up about this topic!
Isn't it just so convenient for them to maintain this ultra conservative position politically while they are actually benefitting from the liberal party....?!
Here's what I know/have experienced with this issue:
1) I am currently in a state with very few LDS. However, in my grad school CLASS, there were three of us LDS families. I was the only female in grad school - of course. The other two had the husbands in while the wives stayed at home. Both have the entire time had state medical aid, food stamps, and WIC. Even though their husband's are 'students', they still qualify because the wives stay home and don't work and they have children. Both of the other 2 families specifically had another baby during school because the state was paying for it and I know this because one of them actually said it. Plus, they qualify for additional $$ in food stamps when they have another child. In fact, there was an LDS family in the class ahead of me, and they also had another child right before the husband graduated so the state would pay for it too.

We had absolutely no idea this was going on, until we were invited for dinner over at one of their houses in my first year and they dropped this little tidbit in casual conversation. We were like, "what?!". We were pretty incredulous becasue we didn't think someone who was getting financial aid would qualify for welfare benefits.... They assured us that 'all young LDS families in grad school do this'.
So, there ya go. What a bunch of freakin hypocrites!

I'm kind of afraid to post this. I had two kids while I was in school, pressure to start a family young is high. I didn't make the connection between medicaid and welfare. We got pregnant and then had to scramble to figure out how to pay for it. My wife and I both worked part time and were both in school. We had a second born in my last semester. We found out about WIC and used that. We were automatically signed up for food stamps when we applied for WIC, and that surprised me. Using food stamps is using welfare. WIC is a program to help babies. I never thought about WIC and medicaid being a welfare program. I never used the food stamps they gave us because that felt like I was accepting welfare. As I think about it now it's kind of funny how you learn to compartmentalize things like that. We were offered food from the bishops store house, and when we didn't take it we started getting surprise envelopes left on our door with money. Obviously the bishop new how much money we weren't making. I guess I could justify myself because I did work as hard as I could right? Kids early made it so I had to work full time my last year and a half and school full time.

I think that the programs are a good fit for young couples who are trying to get education. I also don't think those young couples should be forced to not have children.

...BUT I think that encouraging them to reproduce like rabbits, or planning to do it then to shrewdly get as much from the government as possible is unwise.

It also removes the love from having babies. It is a responsibility, or strategically it's a good time, etc... rather than "I want to have another child"

I think I've posted this before, but when I was in grad school at the U, I rode the bus to school and work everyday.

One day I was sitting in front of 2 girls that were probably about 21 that were loudly discussing (I had headphones in and could still hear them) their plans to start having babies ASAP and which office to go to and apply for all the aid they could get, and how they had to have all of their kids during school for the most 'help'.

I had never even heard of this before and was appalled that they would actually PLAN to do this

If we don't like the way things are get rid of the idiots that passed all of these stupid so called Welfare laws. Most of these young couples are just following what is being handed out to them. If you don't like all of these FREE hand-outs vote these idiots out of office. Its called get out and VOTE!!

I think it is a minority of people that just want to abolish these programs.

I think the umbrage is focused on the fact that people are trying to get as much as possible and take advantage of the system.

It's like when someone sets out a bunch of pizzas, and the first guy in line takes 10 slices. It's not that you didn't want a pizza party, but you just didn't want people to be D-bags at the party and take so much that the last 5 people in line each get 1 bread stick because there is nothing left.

so it's one thing to want to help young people get educated, and to help them out financially, even if that involves having kids.

It's another to try to have a record number of offspring while being financially supported by others.

So you're saying it's not the fault of the people that are purposefully putting themselves into situations where they can't support themselves and can qualify for assistance, but that it's the fault of the people that have made that assistance available?