A Philadelphia woman was in the news this week for throwing her son a six-figure Black Panther themed prom party, according to the Associated Press:
Prosecutors say that Shuler applied for benefits, describing herself as disabled and unable to work, but continued working — including operating a restaurant — costing the government more than $36,000.
Shuler threw a $25,000 Dubai-themed prom party for her son last year. This year, she threw a “Black Panther”-themed prom send-off with an actual panther for neighborhood kids. She said the party cost was in the six figures.
Defense attorney Tariq el Shabazz told WPVI-TV Shuler suffered a stroke, was in rehab and couldn’t do anything for two-plus years.
Welfare fraud is a huge problem that is hardly ever talked about. The checks and balances on people applying for welfare is staggeringly weak. And apparently the punishments for getting caught aren’t severe enough given how many people lie about their welfare benefits. A bigger post to come on this soon.
For now, I leave you with this telling graph:
Caption and source from https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/24592/1/dp07029.pdf “Respondents’ mean share of answer “claiming government benefits to which you are not entitled is never justifiable”. Means only reported if a minimum of 100 observations in an age-cohort-combination.”
This is not a good trend. Essentially we as a society are becoming more okay with benefit fraud. There are a lot of reasons this could be the case, which I’ll expound upon in my later post. As for Ms Shulder, I hope she enjoyed the prom party that we all paid for.
