During lunch today I was doing my usual quick look over the days news and my twitter feed, glancing at some and reading other articles to stay up to date. A tweet via Mother Jones caught my eye and an article lit a fire within me. I will admit a year ago I would have looked it over sighed and moved on, not truly understanding it.
You can find a link to the original post I was here.
The post alludes to an article from a Mississippi news paper that claims overall, through the above chart, that due to government "handouts" families making around $14,500 (a single parent with 2 children) have in the end more spending money than that same family making $60,000 a year.
I'm not going to go into technical details of how wrong this is, the post does a nice job of that itself. However, looking at a personal level this is beyond insulting to the people I work with everyday. As always there will be people who free ride any system, rich or poor this will always be the case. But to say everyone enjoys having to receive help to get by and reap the benefits is disgusting.
For many people, receiving public benefits has a huge stigma attached to it. To most having to accept public benefits says that you failed and you can not do it on your own. From where I stand that is not a very good feeling for most people to have. I know this to be true from the countless times I have had to beg clients to apply for Food Stamps and have them argue back that they are too embarrassed to have to use a LINK card in a neighborhood where their community will see the help they need. And do you really think those kids are proud eating their government funded lunch at school sitting with other children who had a choice in what they could eat today.
I won't really get started on the Section 8 Rent Subsidy, since the bulk of families currently in poverty (there because of the most recent economic depression) will never see or experience the benefit of a rental subsidy. Decisions made during the last presidential administration drastically cut this funding and the huge opposition those making $60k plus have to public or affordable housing make certain that very few affordable housing options have been built in recent years for those struggling to get by can afford a place of their own. But by all means if the creator of that chart would like to provide my clients access to this overwhelmingly accessible "government give away" by all means prove me wrong and show me those rolling in the cash in their small government funded apartment.
Having to beg is not something those in this country thrive on, we have created a culture that looks down upon those who have to ask for a hand out, so much so that people are embarrassed to do so. I ask you to consider the last time you had to ask for something because you couldn't acquire it yourself. How did you feel? I bet there was a good amount of shame mixed in there and I would bet that you waited until the last second to ask for said help. So if for one second you think that those receiving public benifits are beyond excited about this, please seriously reconsider what you are basing your opinion on. I think a LIFT client put it best: “Once you lose your job, you lose your identity and self-worth. Joblessness and depression? They go hand-in-hand.”
I think more people need to take the time to understand instead of just making assumptions based off numbers that do not tell the whole story. My boss, leaders within our volunteer base and myself are wary of numbers, things people are so quickly to turn to in-order to find and answer. Try some personal experience before you make your decision, try and volunteer, make a difference, then see what you think. Besides it's what you do and not what you say that really counts.
