Unless you happen to live under a rock, you’ve probably heard about Mitt’s “47%” gaffe. I am a member of that 47% so… I figured that as I’ve not hit my political snark quota this year due to promising not to badmouth any Republican candidate, I’d have some snark time now. 🙂 Here are my “7 perks of being part of the 47%”.
Oh yes… please sponsor me in the Run for Courage and please go love on Brett, my Reece’s Rainbow orphan. Thanks!
**PREREQUISITE WARNING: I am being sarcastic. Leaving me hateful comments and sending me hatemail will result in you being I.P. banned. If you are incapable of being civil or refraining from using my combox as your personal soapbox, you might want to skip this post in favor of something more palatable. — The Management**
Finding new and creative quantities for food purchasing. Our monthly income qualifies us for WIC so every month or so, I go to my local WIC office, tell them how things are going in terms of nutrition/eating for Daniel and for us, and receive checks for 1-3 months depending on how soon they really want to see me. It truthfully is a wonderful program and I am thankful to former president Jimmy Carter for drafting it as a way to prevent women from aborting their babies. (True story — the checks are in the mother’s name so that the excuse of not being able to feed her children is taken off the table.) However, I think the people who come up with the amounts of things need to go visit a supermarket. For “whole grains”, there exists the problem in finding the correct quantities. Loaves of bread are not 16 oz. (the amount specified on the “whole grains” check) — standard size is 20 oz. or more. You also can’t get 16 oz. of anything other than brown rice unless you have a co-op store in your community that has bins where you can measure it. I checked oatmeal canisters today at Target and the smallest available was 18 oz.
Being told how to get my child to eat by someone who has no freaking clue about preemies and texture issues. My current WIC office in northern California is wonderful and all the nutritionists I’ve encountered have been incredibly helpful when I’ve had problems or needed advice. My WIC office in southern California, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. The nutritionist there was a complete nazi (down to the German accent — I’m not kidding) and harangued me at every appointment because my child was underweight. She’d give me pamphlets on shakes and stuff I could give him and remind me that I was the mother and I needed to take control. I wish I could have told her that gavage-feedings were a violation of the Geneva Conventions but that would have been wrong. 🙂 And, you know, actually giving me a referral to a pediatric nutritionist was totally out of the question, right?
Getting to hang out in Department of Health and Human Services buildings. Imagine the foulest and most rank building you’ve ever had the pleasure of stepping into and add three levels of grime, people screaming, children crying, and grumpy bureaucrats. That would be the DPPS in Pomona. Multiply the grime level by three and add in chain smokers and screaming homeless people and you have the DHHS in Sacramento. Every time I’ve been to each building, I’ve wanted to douse myself in bleach upon exiting. Why, pray tell, have I subjected my mysophobic self to such torture? Food stamps and Medi-Cal (California’s iteration of Medicaid). When your income level is below a certain point and you and/or your kid are medically fragile, Medi-Cal is kind of required. When your husband is between parishes and your savings is depleted, food stamps look incredibly good.
Hearing about how you must be incredibly lazy because you’re applying for public assistance after you’ve compiled enough paperwork to put together a volume of Harry Potter. I mean, it’s so easy to apply for and it’s not like they require all of the following: birth certificates for every member of the family, marriage certificate, social security cards for everyone, driver’s licenses/state ID’s (color copies if the originals are not available), mortgage paperwork/rental lease, statements on all investments, copies of every insurance policy regardless of the type (life, auto, homeowner’s, renter’s), three months of current bank statements for every account including those that might be closed, utility bills, phone bills, cell phone bills, signed explanation of anything you get for free as part of your job (i.e. our parsonage) by those who own it or pay for it, and a few other documents that I’m not remembering. I mean, it’s like no effort, right?
Being denied said public service because your caseworker lost your paperwork. It’s not like it hasn’t happened… three times. And of course, this is my fault, right? Especially after I physically put it in the dropbox at the DPPS/DHHS with my worker’s number on it… TWICE? Yeah, medical providers *love* hearing about that, especially when you’re the fifth person that day to tell them that. (The providers thankfully believed me.)
Being told that if I did without the perks in your life, I wouldn’t need public assistance. We don’t have cable or satellite. I don’t have a smartphone or data plan. I have a cell phone but it’s for emergencies and we have the lowest possible minutes plan for it. We also didn’t have a land line at our apartment while Jon was between calls so our cell phones were pretty much it. The church pays for our Internet and during that year between calls, I found places to do Internet for free. I don’t buy clothes and when I have this year, it’s been because my bras have fallen apart or our now-defunct dryer punched holes in my shirts and underwear. Otherwise, my clothes are several years old or have come from Goodwill. My car is 8 years old and was bought used last year. (Given the amount of driving I have to do that is Daniel-related, a car is a necessity.) In other words, I’m not going out and getting pedicures or spending my money on fancy gadgets so I’m not entirely sure what perks people are talking about.
Being told that I’m a freeloader and should pay my fair share. Funny thing there… Turbo Tax, the church accountant, and the IRS all agree that I don’t owe any… because we qualify for the child tax credit and EIC. There’s also the interest on Jon’s student loans that we can deduct and medical expenses over a certain amount because Jon is self-employed. That year Jon was between calls? We were below the poverty line and while payroll taxes were deducted, we got back every penny paid of federal income tax. Clergy are self-employed so we pay estimates on those taxes. The refund we got last year on our 2010 taxes covered January – June of self-employment taxes if we owed any at all. (Still working on that. Sallie Mae needs to send me paperwork so I can finally finish.) So really… I’d totally pay if I actually owed any taxes and any refund I get is automatically put toward the next year’s estimates so it’s not like I can go on a massive shopping spree with it.
Being told that I have a victim mentality and have an overinflated sense of entitlement. Actually, I don’t have a victim mentality in the slightest. Did crap happen and did we get put in a bad place? Yes, but that’s the nature of life. Do I feel entitled to housing/food/health care from the government? Only in that I’ve paid taxes in every job I’ve worked to support the programs that helped us out during that year in between calls. Am I proud to have had to go apply for food stamps? No, but now I know how to do it so that I can help a parishioner in that situation. Do I enjoy having a son on Medi-Cal? Given that they’re paying what insurance doesn’t cover, I’m happy that he qualifies by virtue of receiving SSI for disabilities. (Filing for SSI is another level of hell that I’ll save for another time.) I have a million dollar baby — literally — and his medical bills are 5-6 figures. Having to figure out how to cover those on our own would mean filing for bankruptcy… for something that wasn’t our fault. To protect parents in our situation, the SSA and various state agencies have programs to help out.
What I think people don’t realize is that to qualify for these services, you need to meet really strict criteria and it’s not incredibly easy to do. I have “my manilla envelope of fun” with all the stuff needed to apply for these things because it is so much easier than having to dig through file folders to get it. Both Jon and I have been fingerprinted as part of the food stamps process and they require proof of income every 3 months and you are kicked off if your income level disqualifies you. I hardly think that it breeds entitlement.
For more Quick Takes, visit Jen at ConversionDiary.Com.
What’s sad/true is that you have to be somewhat well-educated/literate in English to be able to wade through the bureaucracy, including knowing where to get official documents, how to correctly fill out the forms, etc. My husband sees a lot of this in his line of work–with former incarcerated men trying to re-enter the community. They aren’t well educated, they don’t have certain common sense skills (like how to start looking for their birth certificate) and there’s little to no help in teaching them these types of things (that a lot of us take for granted), so it’s no wonder why many of them end up back in prison. Because it’s easier. The staff at the halfway houses and re-entry programs can only do so much to assist, but there’s not enough time, money, staff, etc. Vicious cycle.
I can say there are people that abuse the system but I know there are def. people that use the system correctly. It’s just sad that ppl abusing the system make it harder for everyone else.
You clearly aren’t abusing the system and THESE are the life circumstances that our government provides these programs for. It’s such an unfortunate situation that the “few bad apples” really give the term “government assistance” a bad name. May you and your family be blessed in trusting that God is with you through this valley.
I get SO ANGRY when people talk about those who abuse the system. For every one person who is abusing it, I’m sure there are 100+ who aren’t. Not to mention that the system is set up for people to you know…. not really be able to get out of it! Sooo frustrating. On another note, our Medicaid/food stamp office is BEAUTIFUL. I’ve never seen anything like it but it makes me so happy that the people going there for help don’t have to feel like they need to go on antibacterials afterward.
I am so sorry that you have to shoulder this. I know how horrible it feels to not be able to feed your family on your own (we’ve been there, too). It’s something that you carry around all the time, like an actual weight you can feel.
So after reading your takes, I have to ask you this question: considering how degrading and ill-organized your experience with a government health care program is, how do you maintain faith that Obamacare will offer something better? Putting aside the questions of contraception and abortion, how can we look at something like WIC and VA hospitals, and the sorry state they’re in, and have faith that a universal, gigantic program like national healthcare will offer Americans a positive change?
I’m not trying to put anyone on the defensive, I am just honestly wondering. Between my husband and myself, we’ve had experience with a wide range of government services, from the DMV to social services offices (you know, “the welfare line”), and none of them have demonstrated even a minimum level of competence. I feel, from reading these takes of yours, that you probably share in this assessment. So how to we move from the model currently in practice, to a better one?
Now imagine being uneducated and trying to jump through all these hoops.
Imagine not being able to make your appointment because you don’t have the gas money, or not being able to call because your phone ran out of minutes.
Imagine you lost your apartment or trailer and had to move again, across a county line, and now you have to enroll all over again, to receive benefits from the same state. Imagine now you’re living with some random relative who will let your whole family sleep in their nasty basement but you have to feed their family with your food stamp money as rent. Imagine that if you tell your caseworker you’re living with your relatives, they will count their income as household income and take away your food stamps despite the fact you’re using them to feed two families now.
Got all that? Now you’re pretty much my mom or people like her. I can’t tell you how many times my family has gone without welfare because it’s so hard to maintain your status in the program. People do abuse the system, and the system does abuse people also.
I couldn’t read without commenting, but I’m not sure what to say. Can I just send a virtual hug? Because I know what it’s like, and I know how hard it is to keep your chin up.
Thanks for these reminders about the good that these programs do. I’ve had several friends act like it’s no big deal to buy a new car and still receive food stamps, and it’s put a bad taste in my mouth regarding public assistance. (And the stories about people using EBT cards at casinos doesn’t help.) I sometimes forget that these programs are providing necessarily help to those who need it.