So weary. Just finished a discussion with another working-class person

[lapislzi]

intent on sabotaging her own interests.

My co-worker was responding to my Facebook post citing this link:
http://thesterlingroad.com/2013/09/19/my-name-is-jason-im-a-35-yr-old-white-male-combat-veteran-and-im-on-food-stamps/

Now, I *know* this woman has come from humble beginnings. She's worked her way up the ranks and now makes a nice living. And good for her for doing that.

But, she has been on for YEARS--years, I tell you--about the "rampant welfare cheats," all of whom she apparently knows personally. All of whom (according to her) use their TANF benefits to get their nails done. All of whom apparently consider themselves "too good to work."

As a former recipient of food stamps (back in the 70s when they really were stamps), I assured her that government benefits really do not allow you to live very well. Even then, they weren't that easy to get. You don't waltz into Social Services (think of it!) and waltz out five minutes later with $500. And, since restrictions were tightened during the reform years of the 1990s, it is no longer possible to buy a dozen eggs, collect the change from your $100 food stamp, and buy beer. It doesn't happen.

Maybe there really are people who collect TANF and never intend to hold a job. They're not my concern. I'm not in the judging business. And I don't know any people receiving TANF personally. There probably are people who game the system. But it seems to me that it really can't be that easy to do.

Anybody know the ins and outs of this? My gut tells me this woman is talking out her ass (and I'll never change her mind, no matter what I say) out of sheer spite and a healthy dose of "I've got mine" racism. I said that I could live with a few cheats at the bottom if we could zero in on the cheats at the top.

Deaf ears. I'm weary.

[enlightenment]

1. Sometimes it is easier to just say

"prove it and get back to me when you have hard data to support your assertions". Then walk away.

[lapislzi]

4. yeah, funny how that works

Since the alleged lazy-ass cheat is known personally to my co-worker, I suggested that my co-worker report her.

"Oh, I don't know her address."
"Oh, I'm not sure her last name."
"I think she left the state."

Should the cheat's school-age child be punished for her mother's alleged laziness?
"She gets free lunch at school."
"The child lives with her grandparents most of the time, so she's OK."

Could you and your child (if you had one) live on $125 a week in the metro area where we reside?
"I know nutrition. I wouldn't give her candy to eat."
"She makes bad choices."

Did you know you can't even buy soap with food stamps? Or toilet paper? Or toothpaste?
"All I know is she's figured out a way to game the system."

Maybe so. Or maybe she's bouncing from pillar to post and doing her goddamn best like the rest of us. I choose to believe that because I'm not in the judging business, you see.

[handmade34]

2. "game the system"

Ahhh... the wealthy wrote the book

yes, some less advantaged "game the system" so to speak (I do know a few)... and wouldn't anyone who feels helpless and hopeless???

your co-worker is self-absorbed, and lucky to have made it ok after coming from humble beginnings...

my solution is... a works program should provide respectable livable wage jobs for everyone and THEN if some able person refuses to work... then we can deny them help

[madrchsod]

3. i forgot about military wives on food stamps

i wonder what the guys who are overseas thinks about the republicans taking food from their families.

i had a medical medical problem that my wife had to take fmla for almost three months.we applied for as many government programs that were available. we kept our house,had our utilities paid,and received a snap card all under state and federal programs. we still receive a snap card because we are still under the cut off.

this women is another victim of the dreaded mental condition known as the obama derangement syndrome or ODS.

[B Calm]

5. The millionaire farmers all around me are all getting subsidies from the government. I suppose

your co worker doesn't have any problems with that.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

6. If she's been on TANF for years, something isn't right. Because since the 1996

Welfare Reform law, there is a 5-year lifetime cap on welfare benefits. One can only remain on the program for 2 years at a time, at which time they must be actively searching for work or in school...or become ineligible after that 2-year period. If they are working and/or in school, they can remain on assistance for up to 5 years, but no more than that.

With that said, there are always cracks in the system. Why? Because the states are responsible for Maintenance of Effort. In other words, the states maintain the sytem whereby they set specific levels of benefits and they are responsible for implementing the program and distributing those benefits. TANF (formerly AFDC) is a block grant, so states have wide discretion. Some states can go above and beyond the federal guidelines with respect to the level of benefits they offer and some states choose to stay right at the federal minimum. When TANF was AFDC (categorical grant), the federal government mandates a certain level of benefits and ALL states had to meet the SAME levels. Now under TANF, states can be stingy and not offer as much in the way of benefits as other states. So, again, depending on the states, there may be fraud in terms of the way the program is administered. Your friend may have fallen through the cracks; her case worker simply may not be on the case; or, the state may just be lax in overseeing how the program is administered and staying on top of the regulations. If she's not being penalized--and if others who abuse the system are not being penalized--it's not the program's fault, it's the ADMINISTRATORS' fault. Those who administer the program and are responsible for tracking outcomes are not doing their jobs properly.

[lapislzi]

8. Brilliant! This is exactly the information I need.

do you by any chance have follow-up links?

She'll pooh-pooh me, of course, but at least I'll have the facts on my side.

Much obliged, Liberal Stalwart!

[haele]

7. TANF gets them food. How much does a nail job cost? $10 - $15?

So, if a stay-at-home with the kids mom who's household doesn't make enough to pay for a baby-sitter if she goes to work, or for food if she doesn't, spends $10 every two weeks or so to get a little mental health "me" time when she gets her nails done is a lazy rampant welfare cheat. Because $20 a month of someone's own money, be it under the table or meager household earnings, is exactly the same as $200 a month in food stamps.

Poor shaming - it goes like this:
"Honey, if you have $20 a month left over after the bills and household essentials to spend on something as frivolous as your nails or a nice hair cut just so you can feel better than a skanky beggar - or let your kids go to a movie or have a cake and ice cream for their birthday parties, then you don't need that $200 or $300 in food stamps for your family of four or five."

An occasional $20 a month on what some people consider frivolous "family feel good" spending shouldn't be considered a crime against the taxpayer.

I live in the barrio, I see what happens in these "welfare families" that need food stamps to get by, why the children who seem so hopeful in the beginning fail and drift towards gangs.
There is an insidious "punish the moochers who live off taxes" attitudes only encourages the children to remain in generational poverty. It creates stressed, struggling families, with children growing up with the implication that they're worthless mistakes to society from the the time they are born because their welfare cheat parents (whether or not they have a job) were poor, lazy and stupid and shouldn't have had kids in the first place.
Honestly, children whose parents are being punished for being poor have little reason to try to escape of poverty the parents are trapped in. The parents and families who, in most cases, try to create as much love and stability for those children as they can with what they have.

Instead being hopeful for a future where their parents are simply considered unlucky, these children are pretty much only given opportunities with all sorts of oversight conditions attached by the community.
To get out of a poor community, they have to accept the re-enforcement that their parents were failures, and it is expected that unless they strive to be exceptional, ignore their families, and conform to the "rules" dictated by those handing out those charities, they, too, are failures.
Poor children cannot be like children whose families don't need support, they must be better, they must try harder, they must prove they are more virtuous and worth being citizens.
And only then, are they considered worth the same as "normal kids" of working or middle class families, whose parents can, if they can't pay outright, get the credit to provide for their children.
Of course, they are never worth as much as rich kids, but then, no child is worth more than those precious little snowflakes...

That is what poor-shaming does. So you wonder why there is a gang problem or drug problem, or a generational poverty problem. For the average poor child growing up in the Barrio, why should they try harder when a just-above minimum wage job is about the most they can see in their future?
When most children aren't "exceptional" enough to be able to even make the grades necessary for a educational program better than community college or a simple trade school, and their parents can't afford to fund them much past a Pell grant, or when many have to quit high school to work or take care of their families, or start working that minimum wage job right out of high school because there are no programs to help their families support them anymore.
"Hey, now that you've graduated, you're on your own...and since you're still poor, you obviously just aren't working hard enough - you're just lazy like the rest of your people - you have to try harder..."

The cultural attitude in the modern-day USA is not that all children are created equal, but the "virtues or sins of the fathers" will always be present in the children, and all of even the slightest "faults" or debts must be paid for in blood and sweat (if not family savings) by the family before a child can attempt a better life.

Haele

[lapislzi]

9. Also brilliant.

I *wish* I could forward your post word-for-word to her.

She is the living embodiment of the self-loathing and class loathing that can accompany a modest rise in one's circumstances.

"I did OK, what's wrong with everybody else?"

You did OK sister, because your parents were unionized workers. That college scholarship? Union paid. Medical costs? Union insurance. That apartment you managed to buy? Federally subsidized home loan. Boot straps my ass.

[FLyellowdog]

10. Similar experience yesterday...

with the mail lady. I don't know how we got on the subject but in a nutshell everything that is wrong with our system of government is wrong because of illegal immigrants and the way they get free benefits, particularly that they get free healthcare while everyone else has to pay for theirs.

The lady told me (in no uncertain terms) that her friend couldn't afford health insurance so she was working at a decent job where they were paying her "under the table". The friend decided to quit that job because her boss was increasing her workload without increasing her (illegal) pay. When I commented that I was sorry her friend couldn't buy insurance but was glad the friend was no longer breaking the law, the mail lady said that she herself had worked MANY jobs where she was paid "under the table" just so she could make ends meet.

So...I guess it's alright to do illegal things if it's "you" but if it's someone else, it's wrong.

She continued to talk about the way an immigrant (no mention of illegal or not) had gotten to move ahead of her and her children at the local health department when they went to get their immunizations (these are FREE by the way) simply because "an interpreter was needed for the Mexican lady". The mail lady's deduction was that since she didn't speak Spanish, she had to wait in line, and therefore, the America Dream is lost (her words, not mine).

The immigrants "on her street" apparently live in a newer house than she does and they get free transportation to and from free daycare for their children while the mail lady has to pay for the same service. (?)

When I asked her how she knew all this, she grabbed her ears (literally) and said all she had to do was listen and that I should start listening. Now, not to be rude, but I'm guessing the voices in her head are getting really loud.

As I think back on the whole discussion, I realize that she was probably speaking of ALL immigrants....illegal or not....and that I was simply talking to a racist.

[lapislzi]

11. And the only OK racism is "my" racism

Because it's OK to be a racist if you belong to the ethnic group you're insulting...??

As in "the shiftless _____ people...I'm not one of those, I made something of myself."

Or maybe it's just poor shaming by another name.

[FLyellowdog]

13. Poor shaming = passive aggressive bullying

[jeff47]

12. 5-year cap.

You can't spend decades on TANF. It was one of the "reforms" pushed by Gingrich and Clinton.

The right-wing rhetoric hasn't caught up to the 1990s though, so they're still on Regan's Cadillac-driving welfare queens.