The double-standard of making the poor prove they’re worthy of government benefits

[davidthegnome]

69. Hmm.

You do realize, that for a family of three, welfare/TANF might pay as much as 900something? That is, or was, the maximum allowable benefit in Alaska (a generously paying state - based on a family of three) a couple years ago. Some families might get a few hundred dollars in food stamp benefits every month - and some of them might use some of that money to buy things like soda and chips. Some of them also live in low income housing or have some kind of rental assistance program - some of them.

There are plenty of poor people, also, who do not get this kind of assistance at all. Not health insurance, not food stamps, not low income housing, not TANF - nothing. Often they are individuals who are poor and determined to be "able" to work. Some of them suffer from mental health disorders, some of them are former veterans - a lot of them are young and single.

If, for instance, you consider the cost of living, in regards to a young person working full time for the minimum wage here in Maine: 7.50 an hour. At forty hours a week, that's roughly 1200 dollars before taxes - and probably closer to eight or nine hundred after, unless you are also paying for employee health insurance and other things, in which case it goes a good bit lower.

So, let's be generous and say 900, no health insurance benefits through work. Rent up here in Maine tends to be less expensive than in other areas - but it has gone up in the last decade or two. If you are lucky, you might find a small house or apartment for five hundred a month - for rent alone. Then, living here in Maine, with our cold winters (especially in the north) you have heating bills that vary quite a bit, but, typically, for one person... a bare minimum of 100 bucks a month (likely similar expenses with any type of heat - though likely to be much more in colder months). Electricity, if someone is very, very conservative, might cost 50 or 60.

Now let's keep being generous - and say you don't have a car, so you can walk to work, I once knew a man who walked ten miles either way. You save on the car payment, car insurance, gas, etc... but your expenses are already at at least 650 for rent, heat and electric. With the remaining two hundred and fifty, you get to consider how you're going to feed yourself, how you might buy clothes, or medication that you may need - or anything else. Then there's always the strong possibility that something will go wrong, and you'll have to find more money... somehow, just to survive.

You see, the expenses, in relation to the income whether through work or through social safety programs... it does not compute. It is highly unlikely that you are going to get by as a single, low income person on your own - it becomes far more unlikely when you add a spouse and/or children into the mix. This is indeed why we have food stamps, TANF - and so on. However, it does not enable one to live above the poverty level, it does not help one thrive - it may - may - enable one to survive for the brief period of time during which they can receive benefits. The restrictions, means testing and other things are the result of years of angry contempt from people who really don't understand this system - don't know the people it helps - and have never been in that kind of situation themselves.

It is not simply that these means testing programs are insulting and unacceptable from a moral and even ethical point of view (they are) but that they are wasteful. Very, very, very few cases of welfare fraud have ever been proven. You have some things that are in a somewhat more gray area, but TANF does not pay enough to buy expensive street drugs. Food stamps and/or TANF do not pay enough to regularly dine on lobster or filet mignon - you might get to buy that once a month or so, if you're damned careful and have other income on top of that assistance... but this is not a matter of people living well above their means and screwing the tax payers to do so.

You will end up spending more money than you will save by administering drug tests, investigating supposed fraud and abuse - and you will have eager legions of resentful, gleeful cheerleaders who have wanted these kinds of things to happen for years.

What little assistance the poor in this Country receive as a result of social programs is pathetically little indeed if you consider the cost of living almost anywhere in America. On top of being impoverished and desperate enough to apply for state/federal aid and go through the required process... now we must subject poor people to drug testing and place more precise, specific limits on how they can use what pathetically little we give them.

These accounts of "spa treatments", "buying lobster", and other things... I would ask... so what? Are these same people not members of the human race? Isn't it a fact that other people, particularly the wealthy - spend enormous amounts of money on organic food, lobster, night club outings, private yachts and jets and so on and so forth?

There is no reasonable way to justify what little assistance the poor in this Country do receive. Further, there is no way to justify the kind of contempt for the poor that ends up creating these so called means testing programs and robbing people of what little sustenance they have.

Look at the numbers. Just once - look at them. You will see that the working poor, the unemployed, the disabled, and so on... they are not getting enough to do all this shit they are being accused of. They are, in many cases, not getting enough to survive without further help from family or friends or local communities. Some years ago, I did apply for and receive food stamp benefits - back when it was still paper money. For myself, my fiance - and two children... and we had a very, very pathetic income. I remember being routinely mocked by several people for shopping at a discount grocery store with it - and buying what they called "junk food" such as sandwich meat, peanut butter, juices that were supposedly filled with sugar - and so on and so forth.

"Usually such accounting reports (not "newspaper reports" or "reports from the white privilege zone&quot justify these laws, however tangentially. "

No. They don't. You are talking about a very, very tiny group of people who have done things that are questionable - and some, even fewer, who might have done something illegal. If would be beyond ignorant and well into the realm of malicious and cruel to implement these programs against all of the poor, based on the actions of a few.

Do some research - I have done mine, I have had little else to do during my current unemployment. The numbers do not add up. Go state by state, consider the average wage of workers in the service industry and various other industries. You will find that it's nothing short of miraculous that many of these people manage to survive, despite being frequently scapegoated, hated, and viewed with contempt and disdain by members of society who do not share their poverty and discomfort.

Over 47 million Americans in poverty.... many without homes, many without health insurance, many without food stamps, or TANF, or any other kind of assistance. When poor people get these things, I thank the Universe, and my heart gives a little cheer for them... and if I had the power, I would give them much, much more. A chance for a real life, with hope, with real prospects for a decent future and decent life for anyone who wanted it. They are working for it already. Whether stay at home parents or regular work force members. Whether individuals or families.

I don't apply for (and do not currently receive) any form of state or federal assistance because I don't need it. I am poor - but my family lets me live with them and feeds me, so I am not as badly off as millions of other Americans who are barely surviving, and even not surviving. I would prefer to let that money go to people who are more desperate than I am, who are more in need.

Even so - too many of them do not get that needed assistance, largely thanks to a common, societal misunderstanding/ignorance of what life is like for the poor and working poor.