What the hell is wrong with this government system?

madpeys, welcome to our current culture of "equality" and morality of death...

"How do I qualify for financial aid for school? Do I have to have 10 babies, change my ethnic background or revoke my citizenship? What the hell is wrong with me? Why so I have to sit back and pay for all these benefits that everyone gets to enjoy, everyone but the white working lower middle class single person with no kids?"

I see you've come to understand what the system is all about. You already know the answers to the questions you ask. You know the intentions of the programs and policies. You know why you cannot qualify for them. You know what the end result will be. Don't be afraid to name it and to fight against it.

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While I completely understand your anger, I think your frustration may be keeping you from actually seeing what's going on. Having been on both the giving and receiving end of the welfare system, I have an inside view a lot of people don't.

When I was a caseworker a few years ago, close to 90% of my caseload consisted of working people and the usual amount of kids was 1 or 2. These were people working not only one job, but at times, two or three. These people didn't receive the full amount of food stamp benefits, but a smaller, supplemental amount. The majority of these people weren't lazy, sit at home and watch tv all day people. They were people who had found themselves in a situation they needed help with. There will always be the occasional bad seed that gives all who receive welfare a bad rap.

Did you know that where I live, the most a family of four can have in net income is $1721 a month? Granted that doesn't sound too bad, until you realize that the governments idea of net and what you actually net on your income are two different things. The net income on your paycheck, is not the net income they count, although it is the lower of the two. They also don't count all of the money spent on rent or a mortgage. My housepayment each month is $1252 and my utilities run about $400, but I would only be able to count about $790 of that as my utility/shelter cost. They are basically ignoring the fact that I actually spend $862 more than that on my shelter/utility cost.

My major source of contention, though is with medicaid. While it's true that you can make quite a bit and still cover your children, although with the higher income, the parents will have to pay a small premium each month per child. For adults to be covered though, the income maximum goes way down. For a family of four where I am, if the gross income is over $764 a month, the adults will not receive medical coverage. The reason this irritates me so, is, we are telling these people you must go to work, but we aren't going to help keep you healthy so that you can keep working.

Now to my story. My husband had a great job. I had quit working a few years earlier, because it got to the point where, after we paid for our disabled son's care each week and I paid for gas and childcare for our daughter, I basically cleared $20 a week. Then the company my husband worked for suddenly decided to move all operations to Mexico. Within two months of that decision everyone had been laid off. The job market in our area is so bad, he couldn't even get a job at Wendy's! On top of that, the unemployment office had screwed up and listed my husband as having received a pension. He didn't. We lived off of our savings while he was looking for a job and while waiting for his unemployment to get straightened out. It took over four months to get the unemployment worked out. In the mean time we depleted our savings. Having exhausted all sources, we finally applied for welfare. The first month we received the full amount of food stamps $542. That same month he finally found a job making a whopping $9.50 an hour. The next month, our benefits went to under $200.

I can't even begin to describe the sense of shame I felt in using those food stamps. I only shopped at the store I had worked at because I knew these people would know that I hadn't been living off of welfare and knew thay I had worked until not too long before that. Most people who get food stamps aren't proud of the fact. As for the clothes, my kids always dressed nicely, even when we received welfare. I bought eveything they wore at thrift stores and you'd be surprised by the namebrand things you can get for $2.

Until I actually worked within the welfare system, I was just as angry as you are. It was certainly an eye opening 11 months. Luckily, my husband found a much better paying job, although he still doesn't earn what he did previously, and we were able to move off of welfare within just a few months.