This is a hot topic and can easily be spun. I did not always work for a Fortune 500 company. I have needed medical, cash aid, daycare assistance and food assistance. I am not ashamed to say it. I was a young mother, just out of college and needed help. I have been working since the day I turned 16. Nothing to be ashamed about. These programs exist because people need them. It is not a cake walk. First of all, at least for me anyway, there was pride. I certainly did not want to walk into that office. I felt like a loser. Just being honest. Of course I am older now and do not feel the same way but at the time I was embarrassed and it caused me an extreme amount of anxiety. You go in and tell the person at the desk what you need. You fill out a stack of forms. You need last pay stub, a stop work form filled out by your employer, SS card, birth certificate, basically everything but your 1st born. If you need cash services, you will be scheduled to watch an out of date movie. It explains what the MFIP program is, rules, and shows video snippets of people who were on it, got back on their feet and got off of it. You then go up and turn all of your paperwork in to a worker. They will tell you if you qualify or not. You are assigned a job center and if you are getting daycare assistance or cash aid, you have to report to them weekly with all of your job search activities or with pay stubs if you have started working. If not, they will cut your benefits off, quite quickly. Your monthly benefit amount changes based on how much money you start to earn. Cash benefits have a lifetime cap, 60 months. But you cannot cap out on food or medical. There is also emergency assistance. They will help you but usually way after your emergency has spiraled out of control. You may be in eviction court before you hear from them and the answer may be no.
The vast majority of people- takes a lot to ask for help. The vast majority of people are not abusing the system. There is a strong misconception that people who need assistance are lazy moochers who ride the system. Sure, those people exist who sell their food stamps for money or apply and they do not really need it, but as data has proven time and time again, they are a very small percentage. There is also the misconception that more black people receive assistance than white. Not only does that not matter but it is not true. This article breaks down what assistance is and also breaks down demographics by locale. These types of census are not done every year but the US Dept. of Commerce is who is charged with these types of statistics works to compile them every few years.
You have likely heard people complaining that these moochers are stealing their taxes. Where does this money for this type of programming actually come from? First of all, public assistance is meant to reduce poverty. Unemployment benefits and the earned income credit are other examples of this attempt to reduce poverty. How we fund these programs is through government revenue. Economists have done studies that suggest that poverty would raise a little over 17% without these programs. Out of the total budget, which fluctuates from year to year, public assistance is about 8 % of the total budget. That is a small number considering that is the US we have over 40 million people below the poverty line. Over 300 million people live in the US, just to give you some perspective.
The cost for drug tests would also come from government revenue, which yes, includes taxes. So why is it worth it to screen people who live below poverty and spend even more money from the budget? If someone is a drug addict, why do they not deserve to eat? We do not shun abuse victims for not leaving their abuser, these people need help. The more people we shun, the more people living in poverty and the more people become desperate to meet their basic needs. You can connect the dots to petty crime and theft here as well. I think as a society we have a moral obligation to feed the needy, elderly etc. We feed the greedy. No one is drug testing the corporations and banks that we bail out. We give money to those at the top of the food chain but refuse to provide food for those at the bottom and that is an issue for me. People get so hung up on what these recipients buy. There has been resolutions put forward in some states to ban buying steaks, soda, candy, chips, seafood (more specifically lobster and shrimp). The argument is that if a tax payer (a lot of these recipients are tax payers by the way) cannot afford shrimp and steak then they should not be allowed to buy it either. I can understand why someone would say that but for me it is ridiculous. If we are going to spend the extra money, over a million dollars by the way, let's make sure that those who test positive get their food and drug treatment. We already know that this drug testing has little reward, read here. It is just a gimmick to make it seem like money is being saved. When you look at the cost compared to the benefit, it is not saving anything really. I really hope that people who agree with this supposed cost saving measure never have to apply for benefits themselves.
At the end of the day no one is gaining anything. People who live below the poverty line are stereotyped in more ways than one, and there is no return on the drug testing except for the large bill.
Comments
Post a Comment