Can a typical family survive on minimum wage in your city?

[Wordie]

The inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage is 24 percent lower today than it was in 1979 and in real dollars, $5.15 an hour minimum wage is worth just $4.75.

Each city is likely to be a bit different, as the cost of living will differ, as will some of the other characteristics that make a city survivable for a poor person (public transportation is the first that comes to mind as an example). Keep in mind, the federal minimum wage works out to only about $885.80 per month, before taxes.

Does a minimum wage family in your city have enough for the basics: food, rent, utilities, transportation, healthcare. Can they even afford these items?

Can they afford to have a car? Because if they do, they will have to pay for gas, insurance and maintenance? Or will they need to take public transportation?

What about healthcare where you live? Are there low-cost clinics for those who are uninsured? How much would an individual healthcare policy cost if one does not receive health insurance through one's job? What proportion of low-paying jobs in your city offer health insurance? For that matter, what happens if a worker has a sick child? Can he/she take the time off from work in the typical minimum wage job in your city? (And I mean is the person really able to. Even with laws that allow it, does the employer subtly or directly discourage it? Because if you are working for minimum wage, you may not want to challenge your employer, even if you are legally allowed the time off)

What proportion of a minimum wage earners monthly take home is the average 2 bedroom apartment in your city? How about utilities? What is the average deposit on utilities for a poor person where you live? Or, lets look at it a different way, if the family followed the typical guidelines, which say you should be spending between 25% and 33% of your take home on housing (rent and utilities), what kind of apartment would that buy, if any? Would they have to squeeze into a 1 bedroom? Live in a high-crime neighborhood?

AND, this is probably the most important: what happens if there is a family emergency of some sort. A severe medical problem, uncovered by insurance. A traffic accident. Any of the things that can happen to anyone, through no fault of their own, but which can plunge a family such as the one I've asked you to imagine in your own city into a financial crisis from which they may never, really, be able to recover.

How are the homeless shelters in your city?

I probably should be asking these questions over at the Free Republic, where they believe the answer to all problems is "personal responsibility." I presume most of the people here are more sensitive to these issues. But, its something to keep in mind, anyway.

[Nikepallas]

1. No, in fact when we were down to my hubsbands income which

is more than min wage we STILL struggle badly. LUCKY for us our landlady is an ANGEL she is letting her pay her slowly.

[tk2kewl]

2. That is the funniest thing I've heard

I live on LI and work in NYC. A family can't own a home in a decent neighborhood without $100Gs per year.

[Karenca]

39. I live in NYC

I sometimes imagine that if I relocate,
I'de be a very wealthy woman.

But I'm staying.

[purduejake]

3. I don't know how people do it.

I know I could not and I am in a mid-sized city for Indiana.

[Union Thug]

4. I'm near Seattle...

NO WAY... Although, I'd be careful about using the word 'survive'. To survive is really a different thing than to live. So, if someone tells me that they can survive on minimum wage, it doesn't really mean shit. I can survive eating out of the garbage of a local restaurant and sleeping in a shelter.

If a person is working full time and cannot provide a decent place to live, food, healthcare and a few little things to make life worth living, then the system is corrupt and should be changed.

But you see, this is what the right wing wants:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/19/national/19clock.html?ex=1101852286&ei=1&en=e3f0222bc3e013a8

"To keep costs down, Ms. LeBlue said, the manager often ordered her and the two other stylists to engage in a practice, long hidden, that appears to have spread to many companies: working off the clock."

They want us over a barrel, working for cheap and for many more hours/day. It's all going according to plan and the american bewildered working class herd is letting it happen.

[Wordie]

19. The situation is just so bad now.

Because if a person is working full time and, as you said, "cannot provide a decent place to live, (and) food...", then chances are, the person will not be working for long, as nobody could keep that up forever. There are certain basics a person needs just to be even reasonably productive.

[Technowitch]

5. Not anywhere in the SF Bay area, no way.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

6. Not anywhere in Mass.

family needs to earn 100K to afford the exhorbitant mortgages because of the exorbitant housing prices.

[Wordie]

15. I wasn't even thinking housing purchase! Just rent is hard enough! n/t

[Sugarbleus]

45. I think "renting" has become the "New Gold Mine" for

the power elite. If everyone owned their own dwelling the housing market would end, pretty much. They "know" everyone can't afford to buy because they've turned home building and loans into stock opportunities...that leaves MASSES of people needing to rent. So now, they see another huge money making boon in jacking the rents sky high and not building enough rentals to meet the needs in any case.

There's more to it than what I said; I'm just trying to break down the attitudes of today's free market economy......IT'S UNETHICAL and CRIMINAL.

[Hello_Kitty]

7. But...but...but...

Rush says that most people with minimum wage jobs are teenagers and we'd be depriving little Johnny and Susie of spending money if we raised it. Dontcha know McDonald's and the mall would shut down immediately if they were forced to pay their employees a living wage?

[Wordie]

14. Well, maybe we should calculate the answer to the same question, but

with two wage earners, at minimum wage levels, in the family, then. I think people would still fall into the "at risk" category.

(I know Rush isn't right, because I've known people, far from teenagers, who work at minimum wage jobs.)

[yorkiemommie1]

8. not here...

SoCal near the beach.

no way.

[madrchsod]

9. no

not without huge amounts of support from state and federal welfare,county ,and other local agencys. i`m in northern illinois where living is reasonably cheap

[RoyGBiv]

10. OKC ...

Not really, no. Cost of living is pretty low here, but unless you live in a slum, live on Ramen noodles, and suffer through the summer in an apartment with no windows and no A/C, walk everywhere (which is hard in this city considering how spread-out it is), and avoid the doctor, you won't survive on it.

In reality there are not a large number of min. wage jobs around here. There are a lot at just above min. wage, around 6.00/hr. I know people who live on that, but they generally live in two or three income households.

[distantearlywarning]

11. Yes, probably. But they would have to live in a poorer neighborhood.

[candy]

12. Median house price in my city is $650,000-----You're kidding.

Average 2 bedroom apartment,without heat,$1600.00.

[Karenca]

40. purchase price of a studio apt. in NYC

average....$340,000.00

[verdalaven]

13. Not in a small rural town, either

Middle of now where, America.

We do "survive" on $35,000 a year, both of us working, however. It isn't so bad. Except that we can't afford to get sick. Except for that...yeah....

[DieboldMustDie]

16. The minimum wage is worth 41% less now than it was in 1968.

It was $1.60 per hour then; adjust that for inflation -- http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl -- and it would be $8.78 today.

[Wordie]

17. Haven't costs for certain basics, such as housing, healthcare, exceeded

inflation during that same period? I'm pretty sure they have. So as bad as the real minimum wage vs the inflation-adjusted amount is, the actuality of the situation is even worse. Making it even harder for that family to survive.

[bread_and_roses]

37. thanks for that page, and can you tell me

from what home page is it linked? I can't seem to find the originating site. Thanks.

[Mackenzie]

18. No. Of course not.

I voted Libertarian in the election. This is because I favor legalizing gay marriage, and medical and recreational marijuana. And because I am against the Patriot Act and the Iraq War. And because I am against corporate welfare. I oppose any restrictions on abortion. I think Bush is an evil scum who got rich off of corporate welfare for his baseball team. And his complete lack of using his veto power so far shows that he is not fiscally conservative at all.

I always feel very happy whenever a Republican tells me that I "wasted" my vote. Their anger at my voting Libertarian is 100% certified genuine proof that I did not "waste" my vote.

I do know a lot about money and economics.

The minimum wage is not enough to raise a family where I live.

That's why I didn't drop out of school and get a minimum wage job.

It's important to get an education and acquire job skills so you won't have to work at minimum wage.

Of course, we could try raising the minimum wage to a "living wage" of $25 an hour. But then anyone with job skills worth less than $25 an hour would be unable to get a job, because it would be illegal to hire them.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

20. Flaws in that reasoning

1. Not everyone is capable of taking advantage of educational opportunities.

2. The low-wage work still has to be done by someone. Who will clean offices and hotels, who will staff daycare centers, who will wait on tables, who will staff stores?

3. People are not worth less as human beings simply because they have less education.

4. Have you not seen all the young college graduates working in retail or coffee bars? As I know from my experience teaching college, not all of them were English majors. I ran into former students who had majored in business who were selling shoes or making cafe lattes. Just today, my water aerobics instructor at the YWCA explained that she needed to work 1.5 jobs to survive at a bare minimum. "Every twentysomething is working two jobs," was her comment.

[Maurkov]

35. Non sequitor

3. People are not worth less as human beings simply because they have less education.

They are not worth less as people, but the value of their labor is lower. People are rewarded (paid) based on the value of their labor. If the value of what they offer is not enough to support their lifestyle (however squalid), they end up needing to offer more of it, i.e. 2 or more jobs. I don't envy that at all, but the solution is to identify or learn some skill that people will pay more for.

1. Not everyone is capable of taking advantage of educational opportunities.

Are you talking about a reduced mental capacity, or something else?

2. The low-wage work still has to be done by someone.

Not really. If nobody is willing to do the low wage work, but an employer still feels it "has to be done," she's going to need to pay more; enough to motivate someone to take that job. Some stuff won't get done.

4. Have you not seen all the young college graduates working in retail or coffee bars? ... she needed to work 1.5 jobs to survive at a bare minimum. "Every twentysomething is working two jobs," was her comment.

Something tells me that her definition of "survive at a bare minimum" is opulent compared to mine.

[jwirr]

36. I am so sick of people who think everyone can get

an education! My sister, who teaches special ed. said that to me one day and I lit into her about the students she teaches. Many of them end up in dead end jobs and worse. Both ability and school financing play a role in "get an education". That also forgets that there are PHds slinging hash at Hardees.

[Wordie]

21. Would it be possible for some of us here at DU to compile these sorts of

figures to have ready for the battles on the coming cuts in social services for the poor? Because the cuts ARE coming. And it might be good for us to have this information at our fingertips. I've noticed figures published every so often, but I've also noticed that sometimes they are not enitirely reasonable.

For instance, I've seen government things on how budget that offer ways to keep food costs down, and they are good ideas, really, but totally unrealistic if the mother in the house is working, as the ideas often involved long food preparation times that a working mother simply may not have time for.

So it might be useful to have a calculation of realistic budget figures to use for writing letters to the editor, etc. And while we're at it, maybe someone could look at the categories and weightings that are used to calculate COLAs.

[Dark]

22. The Living wage of Cincinnati is twice the minimum wage. n/t

[Wordie]

23. Is the "Living Wage" considered enough to support a family, or just one?

Because to support a family, in many places, even twice the minumum wage may not really be enough for any sort of secure life, imho.

[Dark]

28. I think it is just to support one person. n/t

[Nikia]

24. Maybe

There are cheap apartments around here for around $300 per month for one bedroom, occaisionally with utilities. In my little town, there isn't exactly randomn violent crime although you might not want to leave your doors unlocked. Food is fairly cheap around here. There are also food pantries that will give you about a week's worth of food. There is also energy assistance if that would not be covered in the rent (We have a friend who has qualified for up to $1000 of assistance for this winter). So far this might be doable if you walk to work. Most businesses in town are located within walking and definitely biking (be sure not to have it stolen) distance. You might even be able to have a car if you bought if off of someone cheap (Everyone once in a while you will see cars with $500 or less written on the windshield).
Healthcare might be a problem. My husband and I have worked in a couple part time low wage jobs that offer basic policies that cost at least $400 per month. All the doctors in town are part of HMOs and do not give discounts to people without insurance, making their bill unaffordable to people who would have very little discrecenary income. As far as I know, there is not a local public health clinic so you better have a car and be willing to part with a few dollars worth of gas if you would get sick.
The hypothetical family could not afford daycare. This alone usually makes working at a minimum wage job unpractical for a single parent of a preschool child.
No they could not afford there to be emergencies. People making $10/hour usually cannot afford emergencies where they need money right away.
Most minimum wage jobs do have fairly flexible schedules but a parent could not really afford to take off work. Most of these jobs do not have paid time off and missing a day's work could be a week's worth of groceries.
Overall, it might be doable for a family willing to gamble with their health. Regardless, it is a gamble especially if there are children involved.

[libpunkmom]

25. Not in Portland, Or.

and our min. is $7.05 an hour. I live downtown and housing around here is Super high..

[Wordie]

26. Even at TWICE the federal minimum wage, most city families are going to

have problems, imho. And for most people, there are so many things that can potentially go wrong, that put their budget all out of whack and put them at risk.

[CheshireCat]

27. Not even in SC

can a family survive on minimum wage.

The average wage in SC is probably no more than 20K, so its a cheap state as far as living standards.

"Does a minimum wage family in your city have enough for the basics: food, rent, utilities, transportation, health care. Can they even afford these items?

No way! Heath care has become a luxury for anyone under 35K, even if they have "OK" insurance. Low-cost Clinics are hard to find in SC.

Can they afford to have a car? Because if they do, they will have to pay for gas, insurance and maintenance? Or will they need to take public transportation?

In SC, if a minimum-wage worker doesn't have a car, they are out of luck. The only cities that have public transportation are Columbia, Charleston, and maybe Greenville. In Columbia, public transportation will get you around town, but many jobs are on the outskirts of the city. No public transportation to these areas.

[durablend]

29. No way, no how (central PA)

Even assuming that one could find a minimum wage job that actually pays 40 hours a week (a rarity if not an impossibility), there's no way they'd do anything better than barely subsist. Shelter costs will eat at least half of it, while the supermarket will get the other half. Forget about affording a car (unless you skip on things like insurance, registration, maintainence etc), and healthcare is a non issue (few or no low cost clinics, long waiting list for the state's $35/month plan). BTW, this is all even before the tax man come calling.

[Droopy]

30. It's not possible to live on minimum wage

in my area without public assistance unless you are single and sharing an apartment in a high crime area with another person. I know this for certain because I had a job making $7 an hour back in the mid 90s and I shared a two bedroom apartment at $425 a month with another person and we were okay until my room mate lost his job. He had to move back in with his folks leaving me to pay for the whole rent. I was evicted on the last month of the lease and I had nothing left in the bank. It would have been impossible for a person with a family making minimum wage with no assistance to live there.

[LeftyMom]

31. no

Min. wage in CA is $6.75. A studio apartment costs over $500/mo, a two bedroom is at least $700 for a bad complex, maybe a little less in the worst neighborhoods. A monthly bus pass for an able-bodied adult is $60. The city school district doesn't offer bus service for most kids, so unless kids go to school within walking distance they need a city bus pass too- that's another $15/month per kid. I fyou livein the unincorporated county, bus service is better and freein most districts. Universal lifeline telephone service is another $16 or so, electricity for even the tiniest apartment is at least $25/mo and gas is at least another another $20 or so in the winter and about $5 a month in the summer for the minimal amount used to keep the pilot on and costs to maintain the account(that's using the low income discount utility rates.)

I have no clue what daycare costs but I'm sure it's scary. The state only helps with daycare if you are a current or former welfare recipent. Low income families get medi-cal but you have to jump through a lot of hoops at the smelly welfare office to apply. If you're moderate income the kids can get healthy families for less than $20 a month (and you don't have to go to the welfare office) but the Gropenator capped enrollment so there might be a waiting list now. He also scuttled plans to add coverage for parents, but an emergency might still be covered by medi-cal.

There are homeless shelters, but none that I know of will house a whole family together. Men are housed separately from kids, even if mom isn't around. There aren't enough beds anyhow.

Wait list for housing vouchers (section 8) is over two years and most properties don't take them anyhow. The ones that do tend to be scary places in bad neighborhoods.

A minimum wage worker with two kids would get foodstamps, but the amount one gets is calculated with the expectation that you will need to pay cash for part of your groceries.

[Biased Liberal Media]

32. We lived on near minimum wage when we lived in California

we relied on food stamps, medical help, and low rent thanks to renting out from my family (which actually was NOT low rent and they neglected the house bigtime). We were poor. Beyond poor.

Then we moved to WA state, where my hubby is from. Making above minimum wage now, but still cannot afford medical insurance. However, I feel incredibly fortunate.

As for homeless shelters in my area? Where I live now, I don't think there are any. Maybe in the bigger city kinda near us, but it's still a ways away and there is NOT a reliable public transportation system.

[amazona]

33. not in my town

There is no public transportation, and there is no low cost housing. Minimum wage jobs are held by college students working for extra money, and often the jobs are not filled at all for lack of people who could take such a job and still end up with money at the end of the week. This means friendly but rushed and untrained service in most stores and restaurants. Lots of "help wanted" signs in retail here. But you would have to have "Daddy-fare" to be able to accept one of those jobs. It's pretty sad when you have to tell the cashier at the grocery store how to ring up a coupon or accept a traveler's check. People used to be able to live on those jobs. Now it's just for Muffy to save up and buy a prom gown. And Muffy may be a very nice person but she is not a professional at her job and it shows.

This is a well-to-do area and I often figure I have the lowest income of anyone here in the age 30 to age 60 group. It's a fluke that I was able to buy in here. But I will be honest, even though Louisiana is probably one of the least expensive states to live, if not the very least expensive, I don't see how you could make it on minimum wage without outside help. And it is damn hard to get public assistance here of any kind. I could tell some stories but I'm writing a post here, not a book.

[u4ic]

34. Barely

(as I don't have a family and cannot estimate how much it costs to shelter, clothe and feed one, this is individual).

Our minimum wage is $5.90/hr ($944 per month) and a so-so one bedroom apartment will set you back about $500-550(that is also the amount of the security deposit). Electricity will be around $40 a month, phone will be about $30, heating and water is included in the rent, and there is a health care subsidy depending on what you make (minimum wage earners would pay no Alberta Health fees). They would have to pay prescription, dental and optical.

Public transport is expensive - $2 a ride, and it is time consuming. The routes were redesigned a few years ago, and are crap now. A 10 minute drive by car can take 20-60 minutes by bus, especially if one has to transfer. A car would be unaffordable; insurance is the highest in the province here, and a good driver will be set back at least $75-85+ per month for insurance, and then there's the cost of gas. As we have very cold winters, cycling is an option only part of the year.

Homeless shelters are full. In certain areas of the city, shelters are being shut down because residents (ie homeowners) are complaining. A couple of years ago, due to low vacancy and high rents, many in the homeless shelters WERE working full time at minimum wage. The vacancy rate is higher now, but rents are not much lower. There are incentives, such as lower security deposits or a month's free rent sometimes, but in the long run, it doesn't add up to much.

And if the minimum wage isn't bad enough...provincial disability pays $855 per month, and all needs must be met on that. Dental, optical and prescriptions are covered, but many end up at the food bank.

[indigo32]

38. I hardly think so

the Twin Cities were featured in Barbara Erinreichs "Nickeled and Dimed" and she was just trying to keep herself alive.

BTW I wouldn't bother with FreeRepublic. They'll tell ya you sure as heck shouldn't expect to support a family on minimum wage. I wouldn't, but frankly not everything is in my control either.

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mr. Grieves]

42. Solution?

I see no ultimate solution to this problem (within the existing economy, i.e. capitalism), though it one that needs to be addressed. Applying more tax money to homeless shelters and subsidies to the poor can help, but with that must come money for transforming a community that upholds economic and social progress. The obstacle is where this money comes from, and how willing are the people?

[nathansnewman]

43. Would Get Worse with Santorum Sweatshop Expansion "Minimum Wage" Bill

Full details here

Excerpts:

Sweatshops Expanded, Overtime Attacked, and State Minimum Wage Laws Undermined

This is as low as it goes, as the GOP fights to expand sub-minimum wage sweatshops across the country. Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum is leading the charge for a GOP bill that would ostensibly raise the minimum wage by $1.10 per hour, but in reality would cut wages for millions of American workers and expand unregulated sweatshops across the country.

As this Economic Policy Institute analysis details, the bill is a trojan horse for assaulting workers rights.

Licensing Sweatshops: While a $1.10 per hour minimum wage increase by itself would help 1.8 million workers, Santorum includes a poison bill exempting any business with revenues of $1 million or less from regulation -- raising the exemption from the current $500,000 level.

The upshot: while 1.2 million workers could qualify for a minimum wage increase, another 6.8 million workers, who work in companies with revenues between $500,000 and $1,000,000 per year, would lose their current minimum wage protection.

-- snip --

But here's a kicker from a GOP supposedly dedicated to states rights. Santorum's bill would ban states from requiring employers to pay tipped workers with a guaranteed wage. Employers could pay tipped workers nothing and force them to live off tips, while states would be preempted from creating a higher wage standard for tipped workers. . . Essentially, those workers could be hired for zero dollars and told they had to live only off tips, however little those were.

The attack on the tip credit is bad enough, but the precedent of the federal government creating a MAXIMUM standard for wage regulation and restricting the right of states to create a higher standard is even more dangerous.

[spikesmom]

46. Santorum Not Fit To Work At McDonald's

Let's put him In A McDonald's to work a 9-5 shift and get a feeling for what it is like to do minimum wage work. Oh yeah, he should have to work an extra 4 hours and receive stright time ,no overtime pay , and see what life is all about!!!

[Sugarbleus]

44. Fat Chance in my town!

"The Shelter Project" in my community just built a very nice apt. style complex to house certain houseless people and families. It has assistance programs to go with: healthcare vouchers, job skills, counseling etc...

I've noticed quite a few for rent AND for sale signs around town. Non professional people cannot afford to live here anymore. Housing is too costly and cost of living is skyhigh.

West coast here. Look out Kansas and MO, here we come! The dust bowl heirs are coming back home to roost.

[Juche]

47. A family, no.

It is possible to survive on $6/hr, but it requires alot of things.

You need to be:

Young
Healthy
No dependents
No serious physical or mental illnesses
Live in a low rent area
Find people willing to share cramped housing
Live in an area where you can use walking, the bus or a bike to get around.


In college people would sometimes have 3-4 people in a 2 bedroom apartment. A couple (or a single person) in one bedroom, a single in another bedroom and the 3rd or 4th person in the living room. That cut cost for rent & utilities down to about $175-200 per person (rent was as low as $500-600/month where I went to college).

$100 for food
$30 for a bus pass
$20 for toiletries
$40 for health insurance with a high deductible
$150 for medical issues (vitamins, OTC meds, occasional doctor visits), dental visits every 6 months, misc., clothes, entertainment

Comes to about $540/month.

Yeah its possible. Is it possible if you aren't young, healthy, live in a low rent area, don't have dependents, don't have access to public transportation, can't find 2-3 extra people willing to share a 2 bedroom apartment? Not really.

Also, don't expect your insurance to actually be there when you need it. They'll find a way to drop you.

[bobbolink]

48. You were doing great, until... "How are the homeless shelters in your city?"

Can you please tell me why you want me to live the rest of my life, bouncing from shelter to shelter?????

I really want to know why that is the ONLY thing "progressives" can seem to think about for us homeless folks.

Really, I want to know....

[zonmoy]

49. not possible.

lowest rent apartments start at about 300 for a single room and go up from there without any utilities.

only reason I am able to get by is that I get subsidized housing.

[bobbolink]

50. You're very lucky you have subsidized housing!

More than 3 million of us are waiting.....

:(

How do you like your apartment?

How is the management?

[zonmoy]

51. apartment isn't too bad

neither is the management. although my problems probably doesn't have me on their best side right now. If I run into problems in my life I have a bad habit of pretty much backing away from the problems getting to the point that if I cant back away I will divert my resources from dealing with basics such as cleaning and other necessary tasks to dealing with whatever current crisis there is usually letting things pile up a bit.

[bobbolink]

52. I asked because so much of Section 8 is abusive, I have found out.

I'm glad it doesn't seem to be where you are.

That is another problem with the whole privatized thing... no input from the very people it purports to serve. We're just so many cogs.

I think I understand what you're saying about crisis. As a friend of mine said quite some time ago, we all only have so much gunpowder, and when it's gone, it's gone.

Most of us poor folk skid from crisis to crisis, then people wonder why we get cranky.

DUH!!!

[zonmoy]

53. about it.

between my families attempts to help in ways that pretty much left me barely able to say anything more than yea and no. and the other problems I have I seem to barely keep my life together at times.

[bobbolink]

54. Ah, yes, the cost of "help". GRRRRR! So much power and control.

I've been there so many times, and it's really hurtful.

Not to mention aggravating.

Under those circumstances, just keeping one foot in front of another is a triumph.

:patriot:

[zonmoy]

55. even worse.

at the time I didn't want them to help and did my best to tell them that. I ended up having to quit school to deal with their help.

[bobbolink]

56. oh, geeeez..... that is sad. We really need to find ways to get people to understand

that they are charging too much for their "help"!

It's hard to get that across, because people then paint you as an "ingrate", etc., rather than seeing that they way they are going about it is crippling you.

Any ideas on that?

[zonmoy]

57. they weren't charging for their help.

they did it free. but the nature of the help was to first push me back into their religion. not a good thing for me because I walked away both the get enough sanity to deal with school and because I found that my being gay and not a fundy wasn't a good thing for dealing with a fundy family.

that first part drove me into a depression that almost ended with me taking my life. then they decided to help fix the damage they caused. they decided to help me clean. having the family that pushed you into a religion that you despise going through all your stuff in the name of helping you clean is not a good thing. about the only good thing they did after that was hooking me up through the social services department of the county with the local supported employment services. they helped get me back to functioning and got me plenty of work. pretty soon I plan to start back at school and hopefully finish my associates degree in computer programming.

[bobbolink]

58. No, it was EXPENSIVE in terms of what it cost YOU... emotionally, mentally, physically, etc.

That's what I meant...

There are strings to everything.. so many people seem to think that by "helping", they are entitled to a piece of you.

I'm running out of time, and will answer the rest of your reply when I can get back to the library!

Thanks for your input!

:hi:

[AccessGranted]

59. Hell To The No

I'm barely surviving on my full-time salary.