We all know the image of the stereotypical welfare mom. She is a woman who is 100% supported by the government as she appears to have kids like cats and dogs, while not having a husband. We clip coupons while she buys convenience foods that we wish we could afford, and she doesn't even need, because she's home all day, with food stamps.We cannot stay up to watch a movie that we haven't seen in years, because it comes on at 11pm, and we have to get up and go to work. However, the stereotypical welfare mom can, because she has nowhere to be in the morning and can stay up all night, sometimes tv is her only vehicle for entertaining her male guests, and sleep all day. We trudge through winter's worst blizzards to work, while the stereotypical welfare mom is just turning over and really getting into deep sleep.
Then there are the not-so-typical families on public assistance. There are couples with children who cannot find full-time work with benefits, a single parent father that needs assistance, a recently widowed woman with small children and whose husband left no assets; or dozens of heads of households who make up the working poor---they work full-time but cannot afford health insurance, and paying for rent/mortgage and utilities takes their grocery money. So they relunctantly apply for and receive government health insurance (Medicaid) and food asistance (food stamps or the food stamp card).
It really doesn't matter whether the public assistant recipient is the stereotypical welfare mom or a struggling family, all recipients have to deal with grouchy, overworked, and sometimes arrogant caseworkers at some point or another. But let's go back to the stereotypical welfare recipient.
Compare and contrast that to being a slave on your job. On a job that you hate, but are chained to it because of obligations or poor educational or financial-planning in the past, you must deal with arrogant, power-hungry, and corrupt management. That is along with grouchy and overworked co-worker peers. A redetermination of determining which public assistance that you qualify for only has to take place about every six months. The redetermination interview might take a few hours, which includes time spent waiting to be called. However, dealing with creepy people on a full-time job means dealing with those creepy people for 40 hours each week, which is 2,080 hours per year. Redeterminations, even if they take 4 hours each time and require 3 visits each year, only take approximately 12 hours per year. Basically, it's a choice of being treated like crap everyday versus once every 4-6 months.
And what about all this money that you supposedly make from working versus waiting on a government check at home? Consider the money spent on gas in your car (or bus fare), lunch money (afterall, you cannot starve yourself), clothes and shoes that have to be replaced ever so often (because it's against the dress code at work to show up like a hum drum bum, with faded, raggedy clothes and run-over shoes), and childcare (if your children are under 12, you really aren't supposed to leave them home alone all day while you work, when school is out in the summer). What about the wear and tear on your vehicle? Those expenses disappear when you stop being a working stiff and you stay at home.
However, back to reality. Stereotypical welfare recipients don't build up a stable work history or earn a pension for when they get older. So it's a trade-off. And with welfare reform, welfare cash grants don't last forever. But the comparison can surely make you choose an occupation more carefully.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Child and Spousal Support Should Never be Plan A
On the one hand, child support has been a blessing for millions of children who would otherwise have no support from their absent parent, and those absent parents may have high-paying jobs. Many children have been rescued from a life of absolute poverty because of child support legislation. Absent parents include women as well as men. BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE---child support legislation was not created because of nationwide love for children. It was created to give the taxpayers a break from paying for all those children on welfare. Why should a child be on welfare and/or medicaid (state-funded health insurance) if they have an absent parent who has a full-time job with health insurance?
Similarly, for many women who had been married for years, only to have their husbands leave them for mistresses, spousal support has been a godsend. These women may have put their husbands through medical or law school, or helped them start and build a business. Spousal support helps women who have been left high and dry start new lives. The spousal support is sometimes used to pay the mortgage on the marital home. Other times it's used for college or job training to lead to self-sufficiency. Sometimes, if the wife was the primary wage-earner, the ex-husband becomes the spousal support recipient., and the ex-wife has to pay.
Things get tricky when the payor of child or spousal support does not have a regular 9 to 5 job. When there is no payrolled job, the payor is responsible for sending money on his or her own. Child support agencies will attempt to find bank accounts to freeze and seize, but if this doesn't happen, the support recipient may not get support, because it is up to the payor to send support. There is nothing that the child support agencies can do, except suspend the payor's driver's license. However, driver's licenses cannot be suspended for spousal support only orders---only if there is child support involved. So having an absent parent who is a performer or NBA player is not so stable afterall!
It is important to remember that child support agencies are collection agencies only. If there is no income to attach, and the payor does not simply follow the court order and pay, the child support agency can only prepare a court packet for the case. The family court, in most cases, will do absolutely nothing. The courts cannot do anything. Imagine how much more overcrowded jails would be if everyone not paying child and spousal support were thrown in jail!
Therefore, screaming at your worker at the local child and spousal support enforcement agency is simply a waste of energy. Again, the child support worker can only assist to *collect* support. If there is no income found to collect the support, the case is turned over to the court. The reality is that the court slaps the payor on the wrist and sends him or her on his or her way. The cold, cruel reality is that no judge or prosecutor really cares that your children need clothes, or that you cannot pay your mortgage or get your medication. Also, a court order does not mean that sheriffs are going to hunt a person down for noncompliance.
Support enforcement expectations can even get to the point of ridiculous. If an absent parent is an addict, why waste time expecting support from him or her? Similarly, if an absent parent is a big-time drug dealer, there is no payroll office to garnish his or her earnings. Or, if the absent parent makes a living by shacking up with love interests, and/or has no *legal* marketable skills, why stress over not getting support? Even further down the road of ridiculous, why expect someone to be committed to paying child and spousal support if they weren't committed to a marriage or long-term relationship? Or, most ridiculous, why expect no problems receiving child support if you gave birth as the result of a consensual, drunken one-night stand or as the result of an adulterous affair?
Even people with the best intentions of paying their support experience problems and setbacks. With this economy, a person may lose his or her job and not be able to find another one quickly, thus affecting his or her ability to pay. Job losses are not limited to indefinite layoffs or plant closings, but also when payors sustain injuries or illnesses that make working impossible.
So what should be done? People need to take more responsibilities for their actions. Do you really want to look in your children's faces and tell them that they have nothing to eat, no clothes, or live in an unsafe area because their mother or father isn't paying child support? Do something to better yourself---take a class to learn a marketable skill or get a job (any job to bring income in until you can get something better). Don't wallow in guilt, anger, or self-pity over a failed relationship or a mistake in judgment. Get counseling if you cannot seem to get a grip. However, BY NO MEANS should child or spousal support be relied on as a sole source of income.
Remember that old saying that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? Well, it can be applied to child and spousal support. Do not enter a marriage, long-term relationship, or sexual encounter unless you have a means of supporting yourself and any children that may result. Most of all remember that no matter how much your significant other promises to love you or never leave you, he or she can change his or her mind. We have all been given free will. No matter how many years that were invested in a relationship, no matter how many kids that the relationship produced, and even if a significant other gets stricken with a serious illness, everyone has the option to walk away. It may not be biblically and morally right, but it may happen.
Similarly, for many women who had been married for years, only to have their husbands leave them for mistresses, spousal support has been a godsend. These women may have put their husbands through medical or law school, or helped them start and build a business. Spousal support helps women who have been left high and dry start new lives. The spousal support is sometimes used to pay the mortgage on the marital home. Other times it's used for college or job training to lead to self-sufficiency. Sometimes, if the wife was the primary wage-earner, the ex-husband becomes the spousal support recipient., and the ex-wife has to pay.
Things get tricky when the payor of child or spousal support does not have a regular 9 to 5 job. When there is no payrolled job, the payor is responsible for sending money on his or her own. Child support agencies will attempt to find bank accounts to freeze and seize, but if this doesn't happen, the support recipient may not get support, because it is up to the payor to send support. There is nothing that the child support agencies can do, except suspend the payor's driver's license. However, driver's licenses cannot be suspended for spousal support only orders---only if there is child support involved. So having an absent parent who is a performer or NBA player is not so stable afterall!
It is important to remember that child support agencies are collection agencies only. If there is no income to attach, and the payor does not simply follow the court order and pay, the child support agency can only prepare a court packet for the case. The family court, in most cases, will do absolutely nothing. The courts cannot do anything. Imagine how much more overcrowded jails would be if everyone not paying child and spousal support were thrown in jail!
Therefore, screaming at your worker at the local child and spousal support enforcement agency is simply a waste of energy. Again, the child support worker can only assist to *collect* support. If there is no income found to collect the support, the case is turned over to the court. The reality is that the court slaps the payor on the wrist and sends him or her on his or her way. The cold, cruel reality is that no judge or prosecutor really cares that your children need clothes, or that you cannot pay your mortgage or get your medication. Also, a court order does not mean that sheriffs are going to hunt a person down for noncompliance.
Support enforcement expectations can even get to the point of ridiculous. If an absent parent is an addict, why waste time expecting support from him or her? Similarly, if an absent parent is a big-time drug dealer, there is no payroll office to garnish his or her earnings. Or, if the absent parent makes a living by shacking up with love interests, and/or has no *legal* marketable skills, why stress over not getting support? Even further down the road of ridiculous, why expect someone to be committed to paying child and spousal support if they weren't committed to a marriage or long-term relationship? Or, most ridiculous, why expect no problems receiving child support if you gave birth as the result of a consensual, drunken one-night stand or as the result of an adulterous affair?
Even people with the best intentions of paying their support experience problems and setbacks. With this economy, a person may lose his or her job and not be able to find another one quickly, thus affecting his or her ability to pay. Job losses are not limited to indefinite layoffs or plant closings, but also when payors sustain injuries or illnesses that make working impossible.
So what should be done? People need to take more responsibilities for their actions. Do you really want to look in your children's faces and tell them that they have nothing to eat, no clothes, or live in an unsafe area because their mother or father isn't paying child support? Do something to better yourself---take a class to learn a marketable skill or get a job (any job to bring income in until you can get something better). Don't wallow in guilt, anger, or self-pity over a failed relationship or a mistake in judgment. Get counseling if you cannot seem to get a grip. However, BY NO MEANS should child or spousal support be relied on as a sole source of income.
Remember that old saying that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"? Well, it can be applied to child and spousal support. Do not enter a marriage, long-term relationship, or sexual encounter unless you have a means of supporting yourself and any children that may result. Most of all remember that no matter how much your significant other promises to love you or never leave you, he or she can change his or her mind. We have all been given free will. No matter how many years that were invested in a relationship, no matter how many kids that the relationship produced, and even if a significant other gets stricken with a serious illness, everyone has the option to walk away. It may not be biblically and morally right, but it may happen.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Call for sensitivity---The new face of disabled people
Disabled people used to only mean people in wheechairs, people using canes or walkers, or mentally-challenged people. However, with so many chronic illnesses that are debilitating or cause intermittent physical disability, you can no longer go by the way that a person looks.
There are people that look like the picture of health, that may be secretly battling chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction, fibromyalgia, lupus, multiple sclerosis, or multiple chemical sensitivities, to name a few. So when a person that looks great takes longer than you think to cross the street, gather his or her change and move his or her cart to get out of line; or perhaps asks for assistance in carrying something, that person might just be having an exacerbation or flare-up of symptoms.
The sad truth is that you probably work with some of these people, but they don't dare tell you and risk you seeing them as somehow less than worthy of a full-time job with benefits. Is that why Susan or Brett has months where they are late or leave early a couple of times a week? Could it be because of flare-ups or for medical treatments? Or is that why Kim never attends after work events, even just a couple of drinks or appetizers at a nearby eatery? Perhaps Kim only has energy, or can only ignore her pain for working her 8-hour shift, but then has to go home, take her pain medication and then immediately climb under the covers.
Another sad truth is that in this economy, disabled people have to choose between being able to maintain a roof over their heads and maintaining health insurance by working, and energy for personal pursuits. Get on social security disability? That is a joke, because it takes an average of two years to be approved for social security disability. By that time, the disabled worker will have astronomical debt (bills will not get paid without a source of income), be homeless (neither mortgages nor rent will get paid without a sufficient source of income), or possibly even be dead (not being able to afford medication or supplements, plus the stress of having no source of income, can exacerbate symptoms to the point of death. STRESS DOES KILL!).
With all of the environment toxins and accidents caused by such a fast-paced society, increasing numbers of hard-working, even brilliant people, will become disabled during their prime working years. They will watch as their independence, physical functions, and financial stability are suddenly or gradually taken away. However, they will continue to work until they just cannot push their bodies anymore, and then they will pray that their social security disability is approved before they become homeless or worse.
So remember, you cannot always tell if a person has a disabling condition by looking at them. They can appear to be the picture of health, even looking younger than their actual age. Sadly, often the youthful-looking person may feel like an elderly person. Please try to be more sensitive.
There are people that look like the picture of health, that may be secretly battling chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction, fibromyalgia, lupus, multiple sclerosis, or multiple chemical sensitivities, to name a few. So when a person that looks great takes longer than you think to cross the street, gather his or her change and move his or her cart to get out of line; or perhaps asks for assistance in carrying something, that person might just be having an exacerbation or flare-up of symptoms.
The sad truth is that you probably work with some of these people, but they don't dare tell you and risk you seeing them as somehow less than worthy of a full-time job with benefits. Is that why Susan or Brett has months where they are late or leave early a couple of times a week? Could it be because of flare-ups or for medical treatments? Or is that why Kim never attends after work events, even just a couple of drinks or appetizers at a nearby eatery? Perhaps Kim only has energy, or can only ignore her pain for working her 8-hour shift, but then has to go home, take her pain medication and then immediately climb under the covers.
Another sad truth is that in this economy, disabled people have to choose between being able to maintain a roof over their heads and maintaining health insurance by working, and energy for personal pursuits. Get on social security disability? That is a joke, because it takes an average of two years to be approved for social security disability. By that time, the disabled worker will have astronomical debt (bills will not get paid without a source of income), be homeless (neither mortgages nor rent will get paid without a sufficient source of income), or possibly even be dead (not being able to afford medication or supplements, plus the stress of having no source of income, can exacerbate symptoms to the point of death. STRESS DOES KILL!).
With all of the environment toxins and accidents caused by such a fast-paced society, increasing numbers of hard-working, even brilliant people, will become disabled during their prime working years. They will watch as their independence, physical functions, and financial stability are suddenly or gradually taken away. However, they will continue to work until they just cannot push their bodies anymore, and then they will pray that their social security disability is approved before they become homeless or worse.
So remember, you cannot always tell if a person has a disabling condition by looking at them. They can appear to be the picture of health, even looking younger than their actual age. Sadly, often the youthful-looking person may feel like an elderly person. Please try to be more sensitive.
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