A commenter posted something in an old post on food stamps that I think is worth sharing:
Clearly a large number of the critics of the food stamp program have never actually lived in conditions which necessitate the program.I'm a 19 year old full time college student and my mother and brother rely on the food stamp program. Without this program, they would literally not be able to afford food.
A little background:
My mother is mentally ill and cognitively impaired. She suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, severe depression, and minor brain damage caused by incorrectly administered Electroconvulsive therapy.
My brother is 16, and my parents share joint custody of him. They switch off every two weeks.
Between child support and social security, my mother recieves $10,000 per year to live off of. After paying rent, the cost of which is mitigated through a great program known as Section-8, and her bills(power/phone/HEAT), she is left with a marginal amount of money for her own use. I'm currently living at home for the summer. This month she has $20 to split between gas for her car, which is extremely fuel inefficient, and whatever else may arise. In the winter she often lets bills pile up in favor of paying for heat, as Vermont winters are frigid.
She receives a base of $75 per person in food stamps. She receives around $38 per month for my brother, as he spends half his time at her house, the full $75 for herself, and a small amount($20?) for me, as I'm only at home during college vacations. That comes out to $133 per month in food stamps. She has $20 in discretionary spending this month.
To the critics of this program: try growing up in that household and then get back to me. As another insight as to why the poor purchase food that is unhealthy: unhealthy food tends to taste better than healthy food. Potato chips vs celery. When you have no pleasures in your life, no luxuries, you're damn well going to pick the food that tastes better.
I also have a major criticism of this program. So long as I live at my mom's house while I'm not at college, I cannot feasibly get a job. If I were to get a job, my mother would loose her food stamps because there would be a "provider" in the household. I'm exploring alternate possibilities, but without a job, I don't even know if I'll be able to afford to continue my college education. I'm literally playing it by ear right now - there is no better option. I'll know whether or not I'll return to college in a few weeks, when I get my new financial aid letter.
How are the poor supposed to rise from poverty if they can't afford an education?
I think this illuminates several aspects of the debate over food stamps:
1) The poor really are not living lives of joyous leisure on their frantabulously lavish benefits.
2) People who are cognitively disabled--mentally ill or retarded--need more supervision and help from the government, not less.
3) As I've said before, I think the non-cognitively-disabled poor need more wage top-ups and less government decisions about what they should spend their money on.
4) The system is set up so that poor people face ludicrously high marginal tax rates--they can literally exceed 100%, as benefit loss outweighs the additional income. People with fabulously expensive and disabling diseases who can't hold down a regular job are barred from doing any work at all, lest they lose their Medicaid, disability, and food stamps. They also cannot have any assets. Surely preventing people from cheating the government does not actually require forcing people with obviously debilitating chronic conditions to have less discretionary money per month than most middle class kids get in allowance.
This is one of the reasons I'm so gung-ho on a negative income tax to replace most benefits--it doesn't have this ugly feature of sudden benefit loss, but it also doesn't require us to subsidize a hundred middle class people for every poor person we help. It won't work for people who are disabled, of course, who would need a separate system. But for most poor people, and for the rest of us, I think it would be a vast improvement.
5) His point about potato chips versus celery point was made by Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier:
The miner’s family spend only tenpence a week on green vegetables and tenpence half-penny on milk (remember that one of them is a child less than three years old), and nothing on fruit; but they spend one and nine on sugar (about eight pounds of sugar, that is) and a shilling on tea. The half-crown spent on meat might represent a small joint and the materials for a stew; probably as often as not it would represent four or five tins of bully beef. The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and margarine, corned beef, sugared tea, and potatoes—an appalling diet. Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn’t. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don’t want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit ‘tasty’. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let’s have three pennorth of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and we’ll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are at the P.A.C. level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don’t nourish you to any extent, but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery that has got to be constantly palliated, and especially with tea, the English-man’s opium. A cup of tea or even an aspirin is much better as a temporary stimulant than a crust of brown bread.
I have nothing to add.
Yep, if our primary government goal was not to transfer wealth from younger, poorer, people, to richer, much older, people, helping people outlined in your post could be more of a priority.
Another thing I'd note is that unless the father of the child is disabled himself, the child support payments appear to be inadequate.
I have nothing to add.
I do. You don't need a college education to rise from poverty. I have no objection to poor people becoming college educated, just to the idea that it's somehow essential.
What Will said. I would further say that I will feel free to criticize welfare programs despite my middle class upbringing. This "you don't need welfare so you can't criticize it" attitude is bunk.
On a side note, why is the food stamp program run by the Dept. of Agriculture, rather than HHS? Am I being too cynical to think that the primary beneficiaries are supposed to be farmers (and Ag bureaucrats), rather than the poor recipients?
I do. You don't need a college education to rise from poverty. I have no objection to poor people becoming college educated, just to the idea that it's somehow essential.
It's an interesting gamble. We all know the statistics about college and earnings. Yes, he could probably go to work right now, and at least support his family in a basic manner. But if he and his family go through four very lean years, he'll be in a position to provide them with a much higher standard of living.
I wonder if the poster rented a room from his/her mother, whether that would get around the 'provider' clause? Money payment might also be a problem, but what if the rent was paid 'in-kind', such as labor?
Are there no workhouses? Cannot the poor sell their organs or service the organs of others for money? Why is this commenter using a computer when there are dumpsters filled with metal cans, day-old produce and nutritious rodents?
Pet theory of mine is that means testing is a big part of the collapse of the American family... this would seem to back it up. If the father can't provide more value than the benefits lost if he were to contribute income to the house, everyone is better off if he isn't around.
So you're "so gung-ho on a negative income tax"?
I can help. Send me an ATM card that I can use to draw funds from your bank account. I promise I'll use it to implement only the negative income tax you are so gung ho about. You can trust me.
Odds are, you see through this con job when I propose it. Do you think it any more honest when it comes from politician types?
A warm and empathetic reflection yours is. Not to comment and take anything away from it but 3 points:
1. In times past, the Church used to provide assistance and still does. The described level of support is better than what the Church could regularly provide. Without taxes having been taken more money might be available of course but there is also an issue of equity in support among a population that government would seem better at providing. This is not so much for equity per se as for what might be considered a First Amendment right.
2. "minor brain damage caused by incorrectly administered Electroconvulsive therapy"
The evidence is that there is much more perception of minor cognitve damage than there is neuopsych testing to demonstrate it. This only matters here in that you are making this a pivot point in promoting a negative income tax for those 'not cognitively impaired.' The bright line you posit is not easy to find. A further difficulty in theory vs. practice is that there is already a lot of fraud in the EITC (earned income tax credit). Maybe we need to deal with that before we go further in this direction.
3. The prohibition on a 'breadwinner living in the house' is directed at the gainfully employed boy friend and not a son visiting from college (at least in my theoretical world).
The thing that would be best, if the commenter could afford the deposits, would be to rent a room somewhere. More realistically, to get a job in the black or grey economy, then move out.
You cannot argue with the need of the family in the original post. At the same time, I live outside a city where food stamp abuse was and probably still is common.
I once read a libertarian approach to providing government services that essentially a negative income tax for many. I will see if I can find it and post it.
I think we should view charity for what it is: charity and not burden it with rule that may seem like they are designed to prevent abuse but also are just another form of social engineering.
"My mother is mentally ill and cognitively impaired. She suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder, severe depression, and minor brain damage"
"This month she has $20 to split between gas for her car"
Is it safe for her to drive? Surely this does not support the poor argument about food stamps at all as the mother is disabled. Ideally inability to hold a job due to disability would be handled entirely different from that due to (insert pet reason here).
Also once there is "provider" in the household why should government assistance continue? If the provider is too poor to "provide" then benefits would be made available. If the issue is the provide is no longer actually too poor to get benefits then you have an problem with the level where these benefits become available, not that providers should support parents etc. Do we really expect millionaires spouses to be provided benefits?
If $20 is really all the disposable income available then when you damn well should be picking the cheapest food possible to survive so you can get yourself out of this situation.
I just can never believe things are as desperate as this story makes out. If life was truly that miserable then working during my college vacations and saving the money would help, also at 16 stay at the other parents and save part time minimum wage earnings. Although you may not like the situation, it must be preferable to the alternatives else (presuming rationality which the mother alone is excused from) why no action to change it? Though college is an excellent start.
The problem here is not poverty. The problem is mental illness and the breakdown of the family.
My father came to this country with a couple hundred bucks and took not a dime in welfare. Due to a career change I had a couple four-figure W2s myself. I was not living in squalor and depression, seeking solace in greasy food and cigarettes, rotting away.
Mostly I was sitting on the internet, playing cards (profitably), and hanging out with my friends in front of the PS2. It was a life of rock climbing trips and grilling in the back yard. It wasn't all that bad and I sometimes even miss it. A couple good nights at the poker table, some insider knowledge of all-you-can-eat buffets and college events with free food went a long way.
It was a joyous life of leisure. Why? Because I was a mid-20's man in reasonable mental and physical health from a good family.
Similarly, my family's income was probably not far off the equivalent of 10k/yr and Section 8 when I was a kid. While it was financially trying, it wasn't original poster's experience - and for the same reason: Two parents, good physical and mental health, from good homes.
Grad students and welfare recipients get about the same amount of money. The outcomes are quite different.
Give that mentally ill single mother forty grand a year and unfortunately her situation wouldn't improve all that much, because the root of her problem isn't her finances but her mental health and her household situation.
Instead of a separate system, the cognitively impaired could have a higher base income where taxes = zero.
For example, assume we establish a flat tax of 20% of all income above 20,000... And a negative 20% tax on all income below 20,000....
Folks with no income would get $4k per year.
Folks making 40k would pay $4k in taxes.
You could raise the income level by, say, $10k for each kid in the house. That's a $2,000 per child tax credit for every family in America.
You could also add $10k or $20k for certain certifiable conditions.
Alas... Rent-seeking would ensue... Maybe you're right about the need for a separate system. I just hope that the other system won't discourage work by the impaired. There are many jobs out there that can be done by mentally and physically impaired.
"But if he and his family go through four very lean years, he'll be in a position to provide them with a much higher standard of living."
Evidence should accompany that. "Much higher" "will be" These are strong formulations of something that can be shown or not with data.
I challenge this because I suspect that, on average, a plumber without a college degree will earn more at 25 than an English major.
"But if he and his family go through four very lean years, he'll be in a position to provide them with a much higher standard of living."
Evidence should accompany that. "Much higher" "will be" These are strong formulations of something that can be shown or not with data.
I challenge this because I suspect that, on average, a plumber without a college degree will earn more at 25 than an English major.
For those looking for a link to Megan's original post about food stamps that this comment comes from
Now you know why she didn't provide the link in the first place.-->http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/01/why_not_food_stamps.php
It begins as follows
I challenge this because I suspect that, on average, a plumber without a college degree will earn more at 25 than an English major.
I like how you picked a very strong trade for your side of the argument and a very weak degree for my side. Classy.
I was assuming a degree like Engineering or Accounting.
Say, brad, is your undertanding of the language such that you believe the statement....
"1) The poor don't need more food. Obesity is a problem for the poor in America; except for people who are too screwed up to get food stamps (because they don't have an address), food insufficiency is not."
.....is synonymous with the statement....
"There are no poor people in the U.S. who need more food".....
...or is synonymous wih the statement....
"food stamps are uneeded by the poor to obtain sufficient calories."?
If this is the case, I suggest further study.
By the way, Democrats overwhelmingly passed a bill today which will do a helluva lot more to help rich farmers than it will to help the poor woman whose story Megan reprinted. Hell, I might support 25 billion a year to aid the mentally ill, instead of helping some guy who looks over his beet field from the porch of his 7000 square foot home.
Also, although I really would support more aid to the disabled, I think a healthy college student ought to be ashamed that he or she can't come up with a couple grand a year to help his or her mentally ill mother, in order to replace the food stamps, while helping out at home. I know dozens of people who obtained college degrees while working full time.
Will-
"I think a healthy college student ought to be ashamed that he or she can't come up with a couple grand a year to help his or her mentally ill mother, in order to replace the food stamps, while helping out at home."
Why should he, when the effect of that may just be that the $2000 he worked for is offset by a $2000 loss in government benefits? Better to move out and earn on his own, or just not earn, under the current system. Welcome to the world of perverse welfare incentives.
My mom has a similar problem, where she's trying to get rid of assets and keep her income down so that she can continue to get health care coverage--she can't get insurance due to the pre-existing condition of Type 1 diabetes (the kind that isn't caused by obesity, for you morons who want to play the "it's your own fault" card.) Fortunately once I start practicing in a BigLaw firm money won't be so much of an issue for our family. That's what happens when you have an effective >100% marginal tax rate.
JBA spews the following:
I just can never believe things are as desperate as this story makes out.
Fuck you. This is life for millions of people in George Bush's America. I hope you're proud of yourself. "Why I simply can't believe it!" Can somebody please hit this pathetic subhuman slime in the head with a hammer? Seriously, just go fuck yourself and die.
Alright, I feel slightly better now.
Also fuck Will Allen, who despite reading a true life testimonial from an actual poor person struggling to afford basic needs on the most meager government assistance can say, with a detachment that would be enviable if it wasn't so fucking subhuman, "Another thing I'd note is that unless the father of the child is disabled himself, the child support payments appear to be inadequate."
Well how very nice of you to think so Will. You're a fucking generous prince aren't you? God forbid the wealthy shoulder a higher tax burden so the governement can provide necessary services to a starving person. Why don't we just go after that dead beat father. Or maybe we can blame the incompetent courts for not assessing a higher support payment. Anything, so long as it doesn't affect me personally. I would tell you that you should feel ashamed of yourself if I thought you understood the concept. Monster.
"This is life for millions of people in George Bush's America."
and Clinton's. Don't try to claim things were better back then. They would not have been for this particular family.
I also don't get why the son can't send his Mom a couple thousand a year from his work. Just give it to her in the form of cash and the government won't know. Duh. Or buy her groceries with the money.
In my personal experience, the people I knew on foodstamps were white trash meth freaks. And I don't get the healthy young men shootin' hoops and drinkin' 40's on a weekday. (black and white BTW - we're a post racial nation now.) Maybe they work nights. My brother is not gainfully employed but he also doesn't look for work. He made a choice to not have a normal life. He prefers to have lots of leisure time and the luxury of not having to be punctual to having a normal income. So he lives below the poverty line. We can't force him to apply for jobs. So I guess we need to have the government tax people who do work to pay for his life choices. We don't give him money, but do pay him if he works at our house. Next door neighbor was on SS because she was an alcoholic. She lost her car, so she would pay for a taxi to take her to the liquor store. But she's mentally deficient, so pay up.
I have no problem with helping these people actually - many have legitimate problems like that in the original anecdote. But let's not try to be blind either.
Hey, Dr. JimCooper? Right back at ya'. God forbid that a healthy man actually provide enough calories for his children. Just how stupid are you? We know you are entirely dishonest, given there is no evidence that this person is starving. Why does being stupid and dishonest so often go together? Finally, you have absolutely no idea of my degree of generosity, instead idiotically presuming to know things about which you are entirely ignorant. Congratulations! You've hit the trifecta; stupid, dishonest, and presumptuous, all in one post!!!
drjimcooper: Also fuck Will Allen, who despite reading a true life testimonial from an actual poor person struggling to afford basic needs on the most meager government assistance can say, with a detachment that would be enviable if it wasn't so fucking subhuman, "Another thing I'd note is that unless the father of the child is disabled himself, the child support payments appear to be inadequate."
A couple years ago I had a string of four-figure W2s, and no government assistance.
Just so we make this clear, does this mean you'll be deferring to my expertise on poverty from this point onwards?
Actually, I have another thing to add, in the form of differing with Orwell, of all things. You see, I've actually been in danger of starving, as in actually not being able to obtain enough calories to sustain life. My ration for several weeks consisted of saltine crackers and some sardines. Guess what? At no time, and especially not in the last couple weeks, when the hunger gnawed at me constantly like an attacking animal, did I ever say, "Ya' know, I'd sooner starve than eat these few miserable saltine crackers and this foul sardine!" It instead took every ounce of courage I had not to gobble those crackers and sardines in their entirety, and thus use up my dwindling rations. People who are really starving have little energy for romantic suppositions about what is worse than a death by starvation, and given Orwell had very difficult times in his life, I'm a little surprised he would write such nonsense.
None of this should be taken as opposition to the food stamp program, of course, and as I already indicated, I'd support more aid to the disabled.
I wasn't ashamed of that post, Brad; I just pulled the comment from the app interface rather than the web page, so I didn't post a link. I stand by my assertion: what the poor in America most need is not food.
The reason that a poor college student can't provide for his mother is the way the benefits are structured. If he is legally living with her, she'll lose not only cash, but Medicaid, and probably a bunch of other services like home heating assistance; I assume the same is true of family income, which may be why she's getting low child support payments. For someone with a really expensive and uninsurable condition, this means they have to keep their income very low, even if they could work a little more--I know someone with a debilitating and probably fatal lung condition who cannot work at all because of this, even though she would like to do piecework as able. She also could not get legally married, because her boyfriend was a freelancer who buys his own health insurance, and the marriage would have rendered both of them instantly broke and without healthcare. This is not a good system.
Omigod. It's like stepping into the middle of a Privileged Pride parade round here, as a bunch of smug rich twats queue up to slam people less fortunate. I hope none of you ever has to live in the world you wish for.
For someone with a really expensive and uninsurable condition, this means they have to keep their income very low, even if they could work a little more--I know someone with a debilitating and probably fatal lung condition who cannot work at all because of this, even though she would like to do piecework as able. She also could not get legally married, because her boyfriend was a freelancer who buys his own health insurance, and the marriage would have rendered both of them instantly broke and without healthcare. This is not a good system.
That's a free market system. Choke on Libertarianism.
Er..no, that's a world of warped incentives and bizarre institutional rigidities enforced by a seemingly benevolent government. Free markets have nothing to do with the unfortunate outcome described above.
SSI recipient (Clinical Depression, General Anxiety Disorder etc.), California resident (no food stamps), lack proper cooking facilities. So all together I get $954.00 a month, plus medical and dental care. On the other hand, I do live in California. More specifically, in the city of San Diego, the town that hates establishing and maintaining proper infrastructure. (One twin track rail line and two major highways going north. All of whom were cut off by the October fires at one point or another. Our airport is an alternate punchline to the joke.)
Why don't I move some place cheaper? General Anxiety Disorder. The psychiatrists in the crowd should know what that means.
Under Federal law I can have no more than $2,000 in savings, checking, etc. That hasn't changed since SSI was enacted. My monthly income from work etc. cannot exceed $65.00 a month. Which is a drop of $10.00 from the original $75.00 per lunum. (Is there such a word as "lunum"? There is now.)
I make, somehow, more than $65.00 a month the result is, I lose 1 dollar for every 2 dollars I take in. So if my tipjar got $70.00 the month of June this year, my stipend would drop 2 dollars. (I think they round down, but it's been a while.)
No adjustment for inflation, true inflation or official inflation. The $2,000.00 figure was established as the amount a person needs to make it for a minimum of 6 months. Today that $2,000.00 would barely suffice for 2 months plus change. That's without medication. In my case I'd be hard pressed to make two months. This facade of normality I present to you here takes a serious, and seriously pricey, pharmaceutical.
BTW, when I started on SSI the Social Security worker told me that I was supposed to, officially, report all income outside SSI. She then leaned over and said, sotto voce, "Don't you dare, we've got enough to do around here as it is, and it's more trouble than it's worth." When a government bureaucrat tells you to flaunt a rule you know there's something wrong with the system.
What you have here is a failure to anticipate change. The very possibility of change. I suspect the commenter Megan quoted above is constrained by much the same problem I am; the amount you can legally earn outside government aid hasn't risen since the program in question began.
One last thing. When was the last time you spent only $75.00 at the grocery?
There are food pantries at churches and Second Harvest which are falling all over themselves to give away free food to anyone who shows up without any requirement to demonstrate need. Why aren't these folks using them?
We have a country where the charitable impulse is incredibly strong. There are a multitude of programs which provide clothing, food, utility assistance, etc to people in need. There is so much help available that the charities often don't even bother to determine whether the recipient has a real need.
If the scam artists have figured out how to let these charities subsidize their lifestyles, why can't this college student?
On a side note, why is the food stamp program run by the Dept. of Agriculture, rather than HHS? Am I being too cynical to think that the primary beneficiaries are supposed to be farmers (and Ag bureaucrats), rather than the poor recipients?
Posted by Bill Woods
I believe the program evolved from a depression era idea. You could combine food aid to the poor with price stabilization of crops. The latter was probably considered more important originally, so the program was in Ag. Better one department running the program than two.
drjimcooper I dont dispute this is life for millions of people, however this particular story also wasnt told by the mother (or even about a mother who was able to physically work) but the college educated daughter who lives at her mothers.
If the college educated daughter really wanted to improve her mothers situation which is as desperate as $20 a month then she would (presuming she is also able to work) do whatever it to to help her family, dito for the 16 year old.
If not, then I presume rationally it is better to have $20 a month than work and hand her mother the wages. This of course presumes that all her income isn't already going on college fees. In which case I default to the 16 year old.
When there are children picking through trash in the world to maybe, maybe, get enough to eat that day then I cant believe that due to geography we change our need to eat enough that we wouldnt do whatever it takes, IF the situation was actually desperate. You can of course want a situation to be better, that does not mean that actual grinding poverty (which I am defining based on human needs to local comparisons of lifestyle) is your current situation.
That said I'll run to my tool box and look for my hammer ;o)
Megan, any healthy father of two who shouldn't be on a chain gang, in order to receive an education regarding the importance of supporting his children, would figure out a way have at least a hundred bucks worth of groceries somehow appear in his mentally ill ex-wife's kitchen each month, without knowledge of govenment agencies.
This thread is interesting, in that a tale is told of a father essentially abandoning his children, and anger and outrage is directed nearly everywhere else.
There are food pantries at churches and Second Harvest which are falling all over themselves to give away free food to anyone who shows up without any requirement to demonstrate need. Why aren't these folks using them?
We have a country where the charitable impulse is incredibly strong. There are a multitude of programs which provide clothing, food, utility assistance, etc to people in need. There is so much help available that the charities often don't even bother to determine whether the recipient has a real need.
This is probably news to you, but food pantries are struggling. Many private charities, including several I support, have waiting lists.
The real point of Megan's post, which you seem to have completely missed, is that the government programs have incentives baked into them such that getting a low-paying job will cost the family more in lost benefits then in income received. It's a stupid system.
Mr. Gerrib, all one has to do is google "food pantries struggling" and half a million hits show up. Megan doesn't care if her statement is correct or not. It fits her point, so she says it.
I beg your pardon, that comment was regarding the commenter, not Megan.
Susan of Texas: MM did not say anything about food pantries. It was another commenter. I can see why you attributed it to her anyway: it fit your point.
(Note how I attributed your error to mendacity rather than calling it a simple mistake. Remind you of anyone? Hint: the angry trollers of this blog.)
Too hasty. Better luck next time.
Thanks!
Susan of Texas, I'm assuming you didn't actually run your experiment because your numbers are kind of off. Googling "food pantries struggling" with the quote marks yields 1,160 hits, doing it without the quote marks yields almost two and a half million.
Here's the fun part of arguing by google hits though:
faster than light spaceship: 440,000 hits
personal jetpack: 553,000 hits
little green men: 12,300,000 hits
moon landings faked: 757,000 hits
I'm not going to rush out to by my personal jetpack or faster than light spaceship from the little green men or the folk who faked the moon landings, though, despite their enormous returns on a google search.
Not saying your point about food pantries struggling isn't true, just that a google hit argument is never good support except, possibly, when trying to determine the more popular use of a phrase.
If the 19-year-old college student is reading this thread, I wanted to add something.
I was in a similar situation while in college. My single mother was also mentally ill (schizophrenia) and a Social Security recipient.
Every state, IIRC, has a different set of criteria for in-kind welfare such as Food Stamps. I don't see how you holding a summer job would effect her eligibility. Does your mother have a specific case worker or psychiatrist that can help you with this information? Perhaps doing some research on the web?
Also, please speak with the financial aid, on-campus employment, and student housing departments of your college. You should be able to work for the school and stay (for very cheap) on campus during the summer. And look into food pantries for your mother -- although I would disagree with what another posted stated up-thread. Food pantries are being hit hard with decreasing supply and increased demand over the past year. But she should be able to get some help.
BTW, you will get through this. With a college degree, and the lessons you're learning via The School of Hard Knocks, you'll be fine.
What an idiotic argument. Yeah, 'food pantries struggling' is just as plausible as 'Elvis lives'. And 'faster than light spaceship' would always refer to non-fictional items. Lets google a few of these 'food banks' stories:
http://www.cfnews13.com/News/Local/2008/3/30/food_pantries_struggling_to_meet_growing_demand.html
or
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/19/AR2007111900180.html
I could quote a lot more (actually, I can't do the cites, since if I stick in more than three, my post won't go through.)
Anyway, the point Susan was making that rather than tossing off a comment about 'just going to the local food bank', one might want to actually perform a minimal, trivial amount of research first. It took me less than twenty seconds to find and post that first cite and quote.
Dr Zen: Omigod. It's like stepping into the middle of a Privileged Pride parade round here, as a bunch of smug rich twats queue up to slam people less fortunate. I hope none of you ever has to live in the world you wish for.
As my immigrant father used to say, "You were born a citizen of the United States of America. Just how much good more good fortune do you want?"
Will:
Sounds to me like the father has 50% custody. If he's paying any child support on top of that, it's more than his fair share. You could argue that he should be paying more just because welfare should be an absolute last resort, but he's certainly not abandoning his children.
I agree that the system is screwed up if it's portrayed accurately here. Welfare recipients should be required to do some kind of productive work to qualify for benefits, not forbidden to earn any money.
Brandon, his child is living 50% of the time with a mentally ill woman who is unable to work, and who gets by on food stamps and a combined 10k of SSI and child support. I don't give a damn about "fair". Unless this guy has health problems himself, he ought to be making sure some extra groceries magically appear, without knowledge of government agencies, in his ex wife's apartment when his child is living there. That's what a real parent does, "fair" or not.
Megan, many, if not all, of those severe, and obviously counter-productive regulations are the result of pressures by people like you who are opposed to food stamps and welfare in the first place. Reagan's welfare queen didn't exist, just like the voter fraud southern Repubs suddenly feel requires proof of citizenship tests to stamp out. You're pointing to the results of efforts by opponents of these programs to limit them as proof the idea is flawed.
Don't forget the comment you posted was written in disagreement with you, in defense of the food stamp program.
Let’s get educated, shall we? I have worked as a benefits counselor in California.
SSI = $870/mo - $890/mo (no food stamps in California) if you have cooking facilities.
Kinda makes it impractical for a kid to “send his Mom a couple thousand a year” because the person loses the exact amount from their check(s) due to "overpayment". And, we wouldn’t want poor people to be able to cheat and have all that extra money anyway, now would we? Why, it would be just like they were sitting by the pool all day.
However, in their magnificent benevolence, if your Granny sent you a sweater (on a proven non-regular basis), they no longer take the market value of a sweater out of your check (unless it is over a certain dollar amount of about $60.) Isn’t that great?
And then there’s the medical insurance:
That’s the face of poverty/disability in America. I’m sure you “can’t believe it”, because after working in the field for several years, neither can I.
See, we have to worry about poor, disabled people cheating the system.
How else could we afford to let $8 billion in cash go missing in Iraq, then re-award non-bid contracts to Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater without even looking into it?
It's all about priorities (as commenter #1 also stated.)
Harry, I'm all for cheating. I'd be seeing that my mentally ill mother had groceries in her kitchen.
You should be able to work for the school and stay (for very cheap) on campus during the summer.
This is a good point. My own alma matter is listed as a summer hostel. Since they have to keep some of their residence and food service facilities across the summer to accommodate summer-session students, they are quite happy to rent out extra spaces and the rates, last time I saw them, were very reasonable -- perhaps half of what one would pay at a residence hotel. All basic utilities and services were included in the price -- including broadband Internet, local phone, basic cable, twice-weekly linen exchange, and unlimited access to the shared kitchenette areas.
133 a month is MORE than enough money to purchase food for a month for yourself and your kid..... her mother should learn to buy only the necessities and not "name brand" foods. people in america need to learn how to live economically. i don't feel sorry for them. In addition, if she couldn't afford to have her children, she shouldn't have had them in the first place. as for the celery vs. the potato chips. if you cant afford to have "goodies" don't buy them. use the food stamp money to buy bread, milk , eggs...the basic necessities. i don't feel sorry that their life is so depressed. they put themselves in that financial constraint.
As for her daughter, her financial aid award letter will get her through college. that's why i don't feel sorry for anyone in this country. this is the one place in the world where if you have the will to get an education there IS a way to get it. After her education she can pay back her loan...whatever the cost may be. she will have to work hard...but she can do it, if she has the willpower to stay through school.
i don't believe in social programs. only for the PHYSICALLY disabled and soldiers. I am studying in the health care profession right now and if I were to ever open up my own practice, I would never accept medicaid. These people think that health care is a right. it's not. It's a privilege. Sorry folks, if you can't afford it, you can't have it...don't make my hard working dollars pay for it. Earn your own god damn money and leave me alone. Or better yet, don't have kids if you can't afford to take care of them. thanks.
133 a month is MORE than enough money to purchase food for a month for yourself and your kid..... her mother should learn to buy only the necessities and not "name brand" foods. people in america need to learn how to live economically. i don't feel sorry for them. In addition, if she couldn't afford to have her children, she shouldn't have had them in the first place. as for the celery vs. the potato chips. if you cant afford to have "goodies" don't buy them. use the food stamp money to buy bread, milk , eggs...the basic necessities. i don't feel sorry that their life is so depressed. they put themselves in that financial constraint.
As for her daughter, her financial aid award letter will get her through college. that's why i don't feel sorry for anyone in this country. this is the one place in the world where if you have the will to get an education there IS a way to get it. After her education she can pay back her loan...whatever the cost may be. she will have to work hard...but she can do it, if she has the willpower to stay through school.
i don't believe in social programs. only for the PHYSICALLY disabled and soldiers. I am studying in the health care profession right now and if I were to ever open up my own practice, I would never accept medicaid. These people think that health care is a right. it's not. It's a privilege. Sorry folks, if you can't afford it, you can't have it...don't make my hard working dollars pay for it. Earn your own god damn money and leave me alone. Or better yet, don't have kids if you can't afford to take care of them. thanks.
i don't believe in social programs. only for the PHYSICALLY disabled and soldiers. I am studying in the health care profession right now and if I were to ever open up my own practice,
Most people don't go to myopic, selfish, arrogant assholes for health care (not for long anyway after they discover their attitude), so I wouldn't worry too much about the private practice.
BTW - Scientology isn't a "health care profession" anyway.
This the the second post of yours I've been charmed by today (the first being the meditation on race.) Keep up the good work.
ss,
I hope you suffer a nasty blow to the head that screws up your brain and gives you constant auditory hallucinations. It happens, I once knew a lady who got such hallucinations thanks to injuries received in an auto accident.
Why do I wish this upon you? Because I'm a nasty son of a bitch who hates bigots.
Alan, you said "This facade of normality I present to you here takes a serious, and seriously pricey, pharmaceutical."
First of all, best wishes with your situation. Second, another major important topic that gets addressed on occasion here is drug costs, prices, and development. Do you know if your pharmaceutical is seriously pricey because it is still on-patent? If "yes," is it a terribly long wait before it goes off-patent?
Thank you.
Those who are skeptical of these aid programs don't deny that situations like this family exist, nor that they need help. The question instead comes down not to individuals and their anecdotal evidence, but to the total impact of the aid program, and the total population of recipients.
That is, the problem with your first conclusion:
Is that there's not sufficient evidence to make it. You can't draw global conclusions purely from local data. For all we know, this family is the one and only exception to the "frantabulous" lifestyle of the poor.
Secondly, the total impact of the aid. You specifically mention (#4) the ugly effect of many of these programs, which is that they can trap people in poverty by withdrawing more benefits than a raise or promotion will return (the marginal tax rate problem). Literally, these programs discourage these poor people from advancing in their lives and careers, instead holding them steady in an unenviable state.
So when comparing government aid to private charity (delivered via churches, community groups, foundations &c), we have to consider these negative effects, and the presence of some undetermined number of leechers, who do live irresponsibly (e.g. watching cable, betting, &c), and thus are perhaps not-so-worthy of their aid.
The point is, and I'm sorry to say this, but I think this post's reasoning is sloppy. If the government aid v. private charity discussion is ever to be settled in a logical way, it won't be by posts and anecdotes such as this.
I will agree, though, with the conclusion:
Yay, negative income tax! (as a less-harmful alternative to food stamps, welfare and such)
2 Addendums, just to be clear:
Ben W., just looking at the benefit levels in the various states is enough to tell you that being on welfare is not the entree to a life of watching soap operas and eating caviar.
I can't see how Orwell can be considered foolish in this case. His point wasn't that the poor would turn down free healthy food if it was offered to them, it was that when they were spending their own money they would opt for junk food over carrots.
re: I am studying in the health care profession right now and if I were to ever open up my own practice, I would never accept medicaid. These people think that health care is a right. it's not. It's a privilege. Sorry folks, if you can't afford it, you can't have it
Please do not go into healthcare-- you no more belong there than an atheist should become a Baptist minister. You obviously don't give a damn about human beings, you just care about money. If that's the case, I'd suggest getting an MBA and becoming an investment banker. Medicine is definitely not the field for misanthropic greed-heads.
Tom,
My anti-depressant is working to alleviate the depression. However, it's also screwing with my motivation whereto food preparation. One of the lesser know side effects.
It's also available as a generic. However, in some cases even generics can be pricey. Depends on the demand and the cost of manufacturing. Some things cost more to produce, and thus to obtain, than others, no matter how many people are making it.