Brave New Welfare

[ismnotwasm]

This is a very long MoJo article, but worth reading.


"In 2006, Letorrea Clark was 22 years old, unemployed, and living with her boyfriend in Homerville, a tiny town near the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia, when she discovered she was pregnant. The timing wasn't ideal. Her boyfriend's job at the local can-manufacturing plant supported them both, but his largesse came at a price. The man was controlling, unfaithful, and jealous, a problem only enhanced by the wide array of drugs that filled his freezer. Clark had hit the stash, too, but the pregnancy pushed her to get clean and get out. She slept on a park bench until a friend helped her secure a place to stay.

Desperate, with her due date fast approaching, Clark decided to apply for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (tanf), better known as welfare. But when she went to the local Division of Family and Children Services office, a caseworker told her—wrongly—that she couldn't apply until after the baby was born. "They basically said, 'Go get a job,'" says Clark. "I was eight months pregnant"


http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2009/01/brave-new-welfare.html

[bliss_eternal]

1. Reminds me of the right wing myth...

...created by Reagan of the "welfare queen." Living large on big government bucks, buying new cars and laughing all the way to the bank. There are many neo-conservatives that believe that myth to this day. I've seen some say things like poor (impoverished) women are trying to get pregnant, so they can start taking in the big bucks from welfare. :eyes:

As this story demonstrates, welfare isn't easy to get--even when someone desperately needs the temporary assistance to get out of a desperate (sometimes dangerous) situation. It's not a guarantee, and it's never been a great deal of money.

Thanks for this. :thumbsup:
You should crosspost in pro-choice.

[ismnotwasm]

2. Done

I was debating which forum to post it in, and you're right, both is good


I was on welfare for many years. When I tell my story I often use the term "welfare queen" to describe myself just to watch people sputter or squirm. I talk about cooking things like hamburger and rice for the kids with kool-aid to drink, hamburger stew, fry bread, chicken backs you got from the food bank and an actual nostalgia for gov'ment cheese. You get to know the bus routes, because there was no car, and often no phone. No food by the end of the month, unless you were GOOD at being poor and even then it's a crap shoot. I could go on.

More, when you live in that kind of poverty, you are surrounded by a counter culture. I was able-- with help-- to get away from some of the more sinister aspects of poverty, but it wasn't easy and I could never have done it without that help. I never ever forget that either.

"Welfare Queen" was a disgusting, horrid term from a disgusting horrid man and caused great damage. Being white, I was spared the blatant racial overtones, but not the attitude of blame and sometimes disgust for the cycle and chain of poverty.

[ThomCat]

3. When I was homeless 20 years ago

caseworkers lied to me and told me I had earned $29 too much that year to qualify for any type of assistance. I found out later they told everyone that. It was the standard lie used in the Buffalo office to deny benefits to people.

That fact that this hurts women and children most doesn't seem to bother a lot of people. We have billions of dollars to give to wall street executives, mostly with no strings attached, but senators are still scouring legislation line by line that might possible help working class and poor people.

A lot of people are considered disposable. Not just in any one culture but in every culture. Women and girls are almost universally considered disposable. Poor people are always considered disposable.

:(

I slept on benches and figured out how to survive a dollar or two of food per day because these bastards lied to keep people off of public assistance. Can you imagine what that must do to a woman who had a child to feed?

x(

[raccoon]

4. Good gosh, Thomcat! Talk about corruption. This sounds like a Third World country.

" I found out later they told everyone that. It was the standard lie used in the Buffalo office to deny benefits to people."

Thanks for sharing that.