Why Is California Penalizing Poor Women for Wanting to Be Parents?

[DebJ]

125. Thanks for the information, first of all.........

This is generally what I have been telling people that I thought was how the Federal Program is SUPPOSED
to work. However, it is actually administered by the state. If the state doesn't follow up, then what? I told
my friend (and everyone who suspects abuse of a system) that they should report it, and if they didn't report
it, then THEY are the problem.

It does say this at your link:

Are There Exceptions to the Work Rule for Single Parents?:
If you have children under 6 and you are unable to find adequate child care, the state cannot penalize you for not meeting the work requirement.

Therefore, having another baby every few years insures there are children under 6 in the home.

It also says in MOST cases benefits are limited to 60 months. From my son's experience with social support systems, there are a lot of 'if, ands or buts', and also a lot of people working in social services who have insufficient knowledge of how programs work/what the rules are (my son has spent a lot of time educating them....just last week, by pointing to a poster over their heads at their desk that said the contrary of what they had just said.... I'm not knocking the dedicated people that work in social services for peanuts pay, they get insufficient support and not enough pay to stay long enough to learn how to navigate the mess social services is).

If I had time I'd look for a government link instead of About.com, but currently we are in the midst of a huge family problem with my aged parents including a major interstate move, sale of a home, and pending death of my Mom, and I'm mostly running back and forth between 3 different states half of each week for months now. Otherwise I look stuff up myself.

I called one of my reps in Congress to ask them if there was a federal limit on the number of children for whom additional funds would be paid, but that was last year during the shut down, and for the first time in my life, no one got back to me on a call to a Congress person. And I've been too busy to follow up.

DU should be, I think most would agree, a place where people can post their understandings of issues or ask questions and get excellent and linked responses, such as just happened with you sending me the link. That's why I've been here for most of the last 10.5 years.

So while I really do appreciate your link to information, I really don't understand your need for the comment at the end. What was your purpose in making this comment? What goal did you hope to achieve, and why? These types of comments make me sad. There is much, much less activity on DU then I used to see here, and it is this type of comment that will drive people away.

Posting the information I have been given by others and citing it as such isn't evidence that I am 'invested in' perpetuating myths. If I was a troll of some type I wouldn't have been invited by Dem HQ here to introduce Ted Kennedy when he was here for Obama's primary run. If everyone had the same information on every issue and the same opinion, there wouldn't be much need for discussion.

Again, your link is appreciated, and that's the type of back-and-forth information that has made DU a great source of information and help and unity over my decade here. THAT'S what this place is for.