6 Baltimore public schools where not a single student tested "proficient"
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
If you are an older teen who has grown up in a welfare household, and you live in a neighborhood with lots of other families similar to yours, you begin to realize as you move towards adulthood, that even if you get a HS diploma, your chances of finding a job that pays enough to support you to move out is limited. Even if you find such a job, finding and paying for housing can be difficult. You want to stay close to family and friends but all he housing near them is subsidized so you can't just rent it on your own and even if you could, you want to get away from the crappy neighborhood you grew up in. But the housing that is nicer and still somewhat close is more expensive, much more so than your minimum wage job will pay. So then you think you can get 2 jobs or maybe 3 but really most almost young adults do not relish the idea of working 3 jobs.
You look around you and you talk to friends. Those with babies get housing vouchers sometimes for those real nice apartments, medical care, food, maybe school for themselves or job training, free christmas gifts, free clothes for the kids, free food bank food, all of those freebies your friends tell you free up what money you do make by babysitting or some other under the table job to pay for your hair and nails and phone and then the baby daddy will also give you money sometimes. So as a young adult women who has grown up watching everyone in their family and everyone around them living off the system and then faces these 2 choices, which of these looks like the better option? |
Anonymous
|
Just make it easier to get birth control period.
I went with a friend from the neighborhood to get the pill, my mother (we were middle class) got it for me. Her mother, not so much. Her mother had her at 16/17 and her grandmother had her mother at 14! She didn't want to be that. They wouldn't give it to her without parent there. She got pregnant a few years later and I went to college. |
Anonymous
Where do you live that there is such a thing as "a welfare household", where people get housing vouchers for "real nice apartments"? First, by federal law since 1996, you can only get TANF for 60 months or 5 years in your life time. https://www.dol.gov/wb/info_about_wb/regions/tanfmd.htm In 2015, out of every 100 poor families with children, only 27 received cash assistance from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program. http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/tanf_spending_md.pdf In Maryland, the maximum TANF benefit for a family of 3 in Maryland is $636 per month (38% of the federal poverty level, which is $1,680 per month, or $20,160 per year). Maximum TANF plus maximum SNAP (food stamps) together gets a household of 3 to 66% of the poverty level. Maximum TANF covers 46% of fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment. http://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/tanf-cash-benefits-have-fallen-by-more-than-20-percent-in-most-states And as for housing, only 34% of poor households receive rental assistance; for every assisted household in Maryland, twice as many low-income households are homeless or pay more than half their income for rent and do not receive any federal rental assistance due to limited funding. http://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/4-13-11hous-MD.pdf And half of the families with children who receive rental assistance (keeping in mind that most don't) in Baltimore live in substandard housing. http://www.urban.org/research/publication/low-end-rental-housing/view/full_report In 2014, 129 children in Baltimore were diagnosed with lead poisoning due to housing: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/investigations/bs-md-lead-poisoning-gaps-20151213-story.html Nobody is leading a plush life on public assistance. |
Anonymous
This is exactly, exactly what happens. These are teenagers making decisions on whether or not to have babies. They look at the immediate results (the housing vouchers, free medical care, etc) and make the decision based on that. And yes, they continue to make some money in cash paying gigs and side hustles to make sure they don't need to claim it (not that it is usually even enough to put them anywhere above the levels required for assistance). I know several women who do this. Right down to spending the $50/week getting their hair done. Continuing to offer free stuff isn't doing anything. Some of the moms do really want to do the best they can for their kids - especially as they get older, IMO. But the girls making the decisions to have 3 or 4 kids in their teens are not thinking long-term. They're thinking of all the free stuff they'll get if they can pop out a few babies. Not faulting them because what choice would you make? What choice looks more inviting to a 14 year old girl? Working two shittastic jobs or getting public assistance? |
Anonymous
Why wouldn't more resources change that? It stands to reason that a given person is a better parent if they don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from and whether they'll have a roof over their head next week than if they do. |
Anonymous
Nobody is saying they are leading a 'plush life'. We're making the point that these girls have a choice to make. Remain childless and work crappy minimum wage jobs for years, try to attend college which they are often poorly prepared for. Or pop out a few babies and receive some decent enough public assistance. These are teen girls looking at their immediate future who have already been living in poverty. Somehow, make it more lucrative for them NOT to have kids. It needs to be acknowledged that having additional babies, when you cannot support the ones that you already have, is not a good decision. You don't seem to think that is at all part of the problem, but really, it is. We're making it harder for poor teen girls to make the decision not to get pregnant when the alternative looks more inviting. We didn't even discuss the social capital that comes from giving birth to Larlo's baby. |
Anonymous
According to whose standard? More realistically, the choices are -- remain childless and work crappy minimum wage jobs for years, have children and work crappy minimum wage jobs for years with inadequate public assistance, have children and work crappy minimum wage jobs for years without inadequate public assistance. Yes, poor girls -- and boys -- need better choices. Teenage mothers aren't poor because they're teenage mothers; they're teenage mothers because they're poor. You can't make a good choice when there is no good choice. |
Anonymous
|
[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Why have people romanticized the poor so much? I grew up with teen parents, food from the food bank, sleeping on a mattress in the front room, bathing in the kitchen sink, parents then divorced, etc. Often the poor choices made by these parents in their own lives translate into bad parenting. [b]More resources will not change that. [/b] I wish society would develop the will to "break the cycle". We are not doing kids any favors by leaving them in these situations.[/quote] Why wouldn't more resources change that? It stands to reason that a given person is a better parent if they don't have to worry about where the next meal is coming from and whether they'll have a roof over their head next week than if they do.[/quote] You're thinking about this from the point of view of an UMC white woman. These are poor teenage girls (of all races) making the decision of whether or not to have kids. They aren't putting aside money for the future because their basics are covered or saving for college - what teen does that? They're trying to get as much free stuff as they can and of they have any extra, it's for clubbing/nails/hair. They aren't realizing that while in the immediate future, they are getting more public assistance when they have more babies, it doesn't 'pay off' in the long run. |
Anonymous
Remember, "real nice apartments" are relative. What you would consider really nice vs. what someone in a lower income apartment would think is really nice is two different things. This is something so many liberals struggle to understand. As to the location, both Arlington Co. and Alexandria City provide newer updates "affordable housing" and public housing that is on par with market rate rental apartments in the area. And again "plush life" is relative. What you think of as a plush life is far different than what someone who grew up on welfare thinks of as a plush life. Just having $20 cash in your pocket money period can be seen as "plush" I used to think like you and then I moved closer in and lived near this kind of housing and saw first hand day in and day out how it really plays out. The previous poster is correct about romanticizing the poor. The reality is these are people who are making choices based on the limited choices they have. They are making the choice that provides some income, some lifestyle that is right above scrapping by. |
Anonymous
|
Anonymous
Let's start with: won't give the kids lead poisoning. |
Anonymous
|
[quote=Anonymous]
You're thinking about this from the point of view of an UMC white woman. These are poor teenage girls (of all races) making the decision of whether or not to have kids. They aren't putting aside money for the future because their basics are covered or saving for college - what teen does that? They're trying to get as much free stuff as they can and of they have any extra, it's for clubbing/nails/hair. [b]They aren't realizing that while in the immediate future, they are getting more public assistance when they have more babies, it doesn't 'pay off' in the long run[/b].[/quote] Not having a baby also doesn't 'pay off' in the long run. A poor teenage girl who doesn't have a baby has the same bad economic outcome as a poor teenage girl who does. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17965 |
Anonymous
|
[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You're thinking about this from the point of view of an UMC white woman. These are poor teenage girls (of all races) making the decision of whether or not to have kids. They aren't putting aside money for the future because their basics are covered or saving for college - what teen does that? They're trying to get as much free stuff as they can and of they have any extra, it's for clubbing/nails/hair. [b]They aren't realizing that while in the immediate future, they are getting more public assistance when they have more babies, it doesn't 'pay off' in the long run[/b].[/quote] Not having a baby also doesn't 'pay off' in the long run. A poor teenage girl who doesn't have a baby has the same bad economic outcome as a poor teenage girl who does. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17965[/quote] Yes, so then our current system of throwing money at these women is obviously not working out for anyone. But for the teen girls, who really don't care about the 'long run', the choice to have multiple kids is pretty straightforward, isn't it? |
Anonymous
|
[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
You're thinking about this from the point of view of an UMC white woman. These are poor teenage girls (of all races) making the decision of whether or not to have kids. They aren't putting aside money for the future because their basics are covered or saving for college - what teen does that? They're trying to get as much free stuff as they can and of they have any extra, it's for clubbing/nails/hair. [b]They aren't realizing that while in the immediate future, they are getting more public assistance when they have more babies, it doesn't 'pay off' in the long run[/b].[/quote] Not having a baby also doesn't 'pay off' in the long run. A poor teenage girl who doesn't have a baby has the same bad economic outcome as a poor teenage girl who does. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17965[/quote] Yes, so then our current system of throwing money at these women is obviously not working out for anyone. But for the teen girls, who really don't care about the 'long run', the choice to have multiple kids is pretty straightforward, isn't it?[/quote] Our current system of throwing money at these women is obviously working out for people who, but for food assistance, housing assistance, and healthcare assistance, would go hungry (or hungrier), less adequately housed (or homeless), and sicker. SNAP isn't there to provide a better economic option for poor teenage girls. It's there to provide food for people who can't afford food. Same with housing assistance (which, again, the majority of poor families don't even get anyway). Same with Medicaid. As for the long run, please do read the linked paper. http://www.nber.org/papers/w17965 The whole point is that, in the long run, poor girls who don't have multiple kids are no better off than poor girls who do. If they waited until they could afford to have children, they would never have children. So yes, it is a straightforward choice. |
Anonymous
Really - no one? Work under the table selling prescription pills, weed, selling stolen loot out of their car, lawn care, babysitting, etc.. If there is no documentation of work, they are considered unemployed. You can make as much money as you want under the table and still get assisted housing, stamps, and more. Most new developments have to set aside about 10-15% low income housing. The apartments are very nice. Stripped of all the upgrades yes, but still new. |