Reply to How does public assistance (welfare) work?

Forum Index » Off-Topic

Reply to "How does public assistance (welfare) work?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Ok - after feeling rather nauseous from reading this thread full of vitriol and self-riotousness, I feel compelled to share our true story from a food stamp and utlitlies help assistance famliy. We have three school aged kids.  We have been married 25 years.  All we have is each other.

We are both highly educated, my DH has an MBA an I have an MS in fine arts.  I run my own business, which has been majorly hit by the recession - so not much money there.  So I put on an apron and went to work for $11 per hour at a sandwich shop to fill in.  Could only get 20 hours (they've been hit too) DH was unemployed for 2 years when we scrambled to get him contract jobs etc.  Got a full time job with benefits (yay) in january a year ago.  By Sept the company was sold and everyone was given the boot. Couldn't afford Cobra (2k) per month), so went and found independent insurance.  Everyone received coverage but me, due to a past bout with melanoma.   Yes they are legally required by law to give me coverage, but we couldn't afford their rates.

Extended family can hep a little, but not support us.  Time to sign up for food stamps and utility assistance (getting tired of having gas/water/phone/heat shut off).  A very byzantine and complicated process.  Finally we have it, which combined with DH's limited unemployement insurance (due to run out), gives us a whopping $600 per month to live on.  I make about $1200 per month, pre-tax. Take out the heath insurance ($400), care insurance (2 old cars paid for), food for five, including all luches (they don't like the the cafeteria lunches, which we now get for free - yes we are part of the dreaded FARMS now! and we manage to scrape by.  You do the math.  Could you do it?

So DH should just pull himself up by the boot straps and get a job, right?  Show me where those finance jobs are.  Or the retail jobs. Or any jobs.  I'm lucky to get 20 hours a week if it's busy at the shop.  And feeding five on $300 per month without doing fast food?  Yeah, we are [b]so[/b] working the system.

So you folks who have such disdain and hatred for those needing assistance.  Or what appears to be working the system? I can pretty much guarantee they aren't having a swinging good time.  We sure aren't.  But I'm glad there are are still some saftey nets out there.  And I sure hope this situation is very temporary.  Oh, and our modest mortgage - can't pay it.  will probably lose the house.   Section 8 housing is pretty tough to come by, so who knows what we'll do?

Blessings to all, and please did deep for a little compassion.  It could be your family next. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics