Assistance for Working People

Tongues wag, brows curl, hearts pound, and tonsils growl when someone talks about government assistance. Why, if the government gives stuff to anyone, we should all fear the uprising of a communist regime. ... or, people who get stuff from the government are lazy, non-working folks stretching their hands out at the expense of everyone else.

I could be politically correct and debate the reasons I feel that anger pointed towards recipients of community welfare is misdirected, but I won't be. It's selfish. It's self-serving because it fits to serve the ego as well as to serve up some pittance in the pockets. I will agree; however, that it is possible that by going to a completely capitalistic society, we can lower taxes for all, increase competition and services for all, and balance out the social classes more fairly; however, I don't believe assistance is only usurp by the desperately lazy (or drug sellers and prostitutes).

I think the notion to most upper-middle class folks who object against assistance-getters, is that all one needs to do is get a job. "Just get out and work!" and if the argument is,

"But a one bedroom apartment with roaches and broken window screens costs $650 a month, and the electric is so bad there that my bill will be $200 a month, and I'll need to put my one child in day care, which costs about $80 a week, or $347 a month. Without food, water or gas to get to that job, I'm already looking at $1197 a month. That's rough at minimum wage, which is what I'll get because my mom was uneducated and worked at a bar all her life and had 3 kids by 3 different abusive guys who didn't pay child-support and made me baby-sit my siblings instead of doing extra-curricular activities and get a job to pay bills when I left high school. We didn't have a car so I couldn't go to the library to do reports on a computer, nor could I keep up with extra school activities."

The kicker is this: when that low-income person does get a job for full-time employment, he or she might need to apply for Food-Stamps, Section-8, LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program), Child-Care Subsidy, WIC (Women, Infants and Children), and a free cell phone. At the beginning, this person could NOT work full-time, or even maybe two jobs (child-care is either unavailable or more expensive then the job), and pay ALL the basic bills. When this person gets all the available assistance, he or she has enough money left over from his job to get a land line telephone, Internet (for the hand-made computer he/she made through a local program), and an an occasional luxury, such as a game console or a few outings. This person may even be able to afford basic cable now.

People get all in a tizzy when people get these things with "MY TAX DOLLARS" as they'll exclaim. I'm not sure, though, where one determines a fair compensation, in terms of lifestyle within a specific society, for a full week of labor.

Anyhow, there is assistance for working people. That was the original point of this rant.

The problem with the "working poor," or those who work but just can't pay expenses is that we can't really fault anyone. I know some small business owners, and it's so tough to afford to hire people. From taxes, to insurance, to worker's compensation and other benefits, it's a far stretch to expect small business owners to be able to afford to decently compensate their low-end workers (and in some cases, even more experienced staff suffers low pay).

Check out this bit of info: Who Are the Working Poor?