Master of Irony: Low income

Monday, May 07, 2012

Low income

I want to post this on facebook which is a bad idea so it lands here.

To those who think that someone who has a low income, someone who uses resources such as food stamps, medicaid, financial assistance programs, grants, etc., please realize that you are not better than me. I consistently see comments by people with a sense of entitlement about how those who use these programs are social dependents, not as good as the person who is working but struggling, or general are lesser people.

Guess what? It can be you. A year ago my income would have been considered high. Not because of me, but because I worked in a job with a high need and therefore high salaries. I didn't make this happen. I didn't know what I would make when I started, and I didn't use salary as a criteria for any of the jobs I took, although the last job had a $20,000 pay cut so I did negotiate as high as I could then. I've made exactly nothing for some time, and was on as many food stamp dollars as a single person is eligible. And now I am on SSDI, which is income I earned because it is an insurance program I paid into, and I'm not eligible for some forms of help, but i still don't make very much. I quality for things related to percentages of the poverty level and they are not huge percentages.

I worked very hard for the years I worked. I made a lot of money during those years, thank God over and over since it means I make a manageable amount WITH ASSISTANCE, now. But I am not less than you. I did not choose this. This is a state with a huge unemployment rate, once the highest in the country. I am not unemployed, but if I were it would be hard to expect me to easily gain employment (unless it was in my field, in which case there are lots of jobs). Disability, as in my case, happens. I wish it didn't. I'm young and I don't know if I will even work parttime in a field I spent $90,000 to qualify for only 11 years ago. But what happened to me, both the times I was unemployed and now that I am disabled, including every step of that path including the no income for months part that made food stamps a saving grace, those things can happen to you. I didn't set out to be disabled. I didn't expect it even though I probably should have. I knew it was likely. I refused to see it was probable. It changed nothing. I worked as long as I could and now I can't. And I may not have much money but I also don't have the self-righteousness that makes you think that not working is because of a choice or laziness.

I'm not mad at anyone on here but am hoping somehow that God will lead a few specific people to this page before my head explodes reading what they write.

Copyright 2006 www.masterofirony.blogspot.com

2 comments:

Jean Grey said...: It is easier to "blame the victom," because then it can't happen to you. If the people on food stamps are just lazy, then if you just work hard, you will be okay. A nice myth. People don't like to acknowledge the role of chance in their lives- whether it is a turn in the economy and a job loss, or illness, etc., that could turn everything upside down. If you haven't had serious illness that stops you from working, it is hard to understand. And there are enough people who abuse the system to give everyone else a bad reputation.

But there is also a problem with the disability system- which encourages us to think of ourselves as disabled as a status, and not as a temporary state. And really penalizes efforts to return to work.; 8:39 AM
Anonymous said...: Almost always, the criticisms are of people who use these programs for most of their lives and whose children use them and whose children use them and whose children use them

It's also instructive to look at the disability claims of people in their 20s and 30s who manage to ride out disability and/or get permanent disability (which, of course, entitles them to Medicare even if they've not put in more than 1 credt toward Medicare)and compare this demographic of twenty and thirty-somethings to the people in the same age group who were awarded disability/permanent disability/Medicare 20, 30, 40 years ago.

Use your head: Decades ago, a huge % of the male population worked at jobs that were high-risk for permanently disabling conditions, jobs that required heavy labor. Today, few young people in contrast have such jobs, yet look at the percentages contrasting the disability claims and permanent disability statuses.

You can't blame those who work and don't cheat the system for being pissed off at it all, at those who use the system and the bureaucrats and politicians who use the system to procure votes.

It's disingenuous to suggest that the average working American isn't willing to use his or her tax dollars to award temporary aid for those who have had misfortunes, but they are sick of the lazy asses who use the system and pass that attitude of laziness and entitlement on to their offspring who pass it on to their offspring and sick of those whose "misfortunes" are not the result of blind happenstance but rather bad choices.

Think of this: working Americans who want to have another child yet feel they can't afford one are forced to pay for an ever increasing number of babies born to women who are not just ignorant young girls who fell for some player's line and who didn't use birth control. Now we are paying for those who actually PLAN more births, yes, PLAN THEM, and it's absolutely amazing how many of these women are NOT from environments of poverty and are not uneducated.

UGH.; 3:01 PM