Just Don’t Be Poor
Sharon November 13th, 2009
Robyn at her Adapting-In-Place Blog has what I think is a superbly dark and funny piece about the pains of accepting public assistance. I think it is well worth a read: http://adaptinginplace.blogspot.com/2009/11/ah-long-time-no-post.html She lists the rules that people who accept public assistance are forced to adhere to:
Two of her rules:
“3. Never engage in any luxury activity at all, ever. Remember, you are currently taking public aid, which means of course that you must never, ever, find any way to enjoy your life that costs any amount of money at all. Do not ever do any of the following: go to movies, rent movies, go to the theatre, go to a restaurant, take your children to amusement/skating/other fun activities, or anything else that might cost money. You are poor–you don’t deserve a moment’s enjoyment of life. If you did deserve it, you wouldn’t be poor, right?
4. Never possess any item which could be construed as you spending money. This rule is a bit confusing, so examples might serve well here: do not let your SIL give you a manicure for your birthday, or fix your hair in any fancy way. Do not dress in business clothes, even purchased secondhand. Do not borrow your parents/in-laws nice car to go to run errands. Never dress your children in the expensive clothing purchased for them as gifts by loving relatives. Do not use public aid to buy your child a birthday cake and soda, which was the only thing they asked for for their birthday. Obviously, if an upstanding, tax-paying citizen sees you in a grocery store with nicely done nails & hair, driving a nice car, and buying a cake and soda, they are entitled to decry loudly (and post everywhere possible online) how abusive you are being of the system. Just because they have no idea how or why you have these things is no excuse–it is your responsibility as a poor person to never make taxpayers have to think about, well, much of anything.
You really do need to read the whole thing – she brilliantly articulates the way that our society punishes you for becoming poor.
Sharon
Society isn’t punishing someone for being poor. They are (rightfully so in my opinion) making judgements based on someone living on public assistance and milking the system.
Having lived on public assistance I can see it from both sides. When I was on it, I can tell you there’s no better motivation for getting an education than being around those who continually milk that system. Nasty people. Truly. And those stereotypes are around for a reason, I can promise you. The problem is, as Robyn points out, for those who land there through no fault of their own, and who are trying to get out.
I see a lot of the milkers in my job; they are always the ones who are there every other week, or even every other day, with nebulous complaints that require narcotic pain relief, and can’t be proven not to exist…chest pain, abdominal pain, headaches, … you get the idea. Some have public assistance and some don’t but none of them plan on paying anyway.
We actually don’t tend to see the people who really NEED our help until they are pretty far down the cycle of illness. They’re too worried about incurring a bill they know they can’t pay.
I agree with Susan in her observations about the milkers of the system. Of course, not all are misusing assistance, but the frequent flyer does come to the attention of emergency rooms and medical facilities…schools,
too. I see lots of unnecessary spending in medical systems on vague complaints and I wonder
what will happen to these demands for services in a compromised economy…
Amen, Robyn! Sounds like many of the comments/debate that went on several months ago on Sharon’s blog re. how people should look and behave if they pay their groceries with food stamps.
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
This is funny, in a “laugh so you don’t cry” kind of way. It reminds me of the rules for fat people, of whom I am one. Never be seen eating or drinking anything in public, with the possible exception of raw cabbage or plain water. Do not go to a restaurant of any kind. There is kind of a confusing, inverse rule here – the more ascetic/pure the establishment, the more you will be disapproved of and looked down upon for being fat. A juice bar in an upscale gym would be the epitome of this counterintuitive phenomenon. Conversely, going to McDonald’s will fill you with shame and self-loathing, but nobody will look at you cross eyed. Even in the privacy of your own home, don’t ever let yourself be seen to enjoy a piece of birthday cake, a beer, or some home baked bread with butter unless you are willing to eat a big helping of pity and disgust on the side. God forbid you should go to the beach: just stay in the water up to your neck the whole time and spare everybody, why don’t you? At all times you must radiate an awareness of the unworthiness of your body, yet never seem to be self-pitying or even worse, defiant. You should be engaged in a full scale battle against your wobbly flesh every waking moment. Don’t sit on the couch and watch a single 30-minute sitcom, you hear? Now you’re just asking for it.
As a fellow health professional (R.N.) I have to put in my two cents objecting to the comments by susan and ashley. Non-specific complaints such as abdominal or pelvic pain, headaches etc are extremely common symptoms of many serious diseases, including emergent conditions like heart attacks and stroke. Pain is serious, and everyone has a right to have their pain treated, no matter their form of payment or none at all. In my opinion pain is severely UNDERtreated. Even when a nonspecific complaint such as abdominal pain cannot be diagnosed or resolves spontaneously, the health professional has an obligation to treat the patient with respect and to take seriously their reports of symptoms – including pain. The most reliable indicator of pain is the patient’s report of pain – do either of you remember THAT from school? I’m certainly glad not to be a patient of yours if my being on medicaid causes you to treat me with such cynicism and disrespect.
P.S. yes even heroin addicts need pain control
Gandhi wrote, “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
I can tell you from experience that being born into poverty is a horrible thing. During my childhood we moved around constantly. My parents fought violently over many things but mostly over money. At numerous points we were homeless and for many month, I lived in a car with little or nothing. By nothing, I mean having only a few clothes and little food. Going to school that way was very difficult. I ate free lunches and often clothes that didn’t match. More than once, I was teased and harrassed for not having what other children did.
One of the neighborhoods where I spend the most time had the distinction of becoming the worst slum in our town. Everybody was on some sort of public assistance and everybody had only one parent at home. Usually, that parent was absent most hours of the day working a low-wage job to provide what few things their children would have. I don’t know how many of the people I grew up with are still alive because I stopped counting as I watched too many pointless tragedies unfold over the years.
Some of the people I know who are poor can’t read well enough to follow a blog. Some of them have serious health problems which they won’t get treatment for anymore because they don’t like how other people look at them or speak to them. Many of them have given up trying and spend a lot of their time trying to forget the feelings of hopelessness, despair, disempowerment and worthlessness they feel every day of their lives.
Some of the people I know have now been homeless and jobless for several years. At least one couple travels around following every rumor of work only to find the work is not there or the lines for the jobs are so long. These folks fret their unemployments benefits will run out long before there is work again. They are well past caring what they eat or where or how they dress or why.
Do they deserve all this? I don’t know anybody who deserves such violence.
I get so fed up with being poor sometimes…..and yet we have so much really. We still have a place to live and enough for food and some extras for the kids (music lessons mostly). The collections of patches we wear are only minor inconveniences compared to those who really are suffering. It also means our carbon footprint is tiny.
Its all an attitude of mind.
viv in nz
Just found this.
These guys really know how to make a social comment…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u2ill7yOZo
Respectfully disagree with Aimee. These people I’m talking about are drug seekers. Period. They make the rounds of every ED in the city, they’re known by name.
Don’t insult my intelligence or my training by implying I am ignoring complaints. We waste thousands of dollars of scarce resources on these people by treating them as though they might actually have a REAL complaint, every time they come in. Meanwhile, in our waiting room, people who actually do have real complaints wait due to the fact that our beds are full.
REAL pain deserves to be treated.
Sharon,
I’ve lurked here for 4 1/2 yrs. since learning of peak oil, and have always enjoyed your website, the ideas, the comments, etc. I’ve thought of responding before but never actually done it until now. This post, along with Robyn’s, really really hit home. I’m not on assistance yet, but this coming week I’m going to apply for rental assistance and food stamps.
I’ve relocated twice, from southern CA to Eugene, OR (which was a nightmare for me), and then to NW Montana three months ago. So, my savings are almost all gone, no credit card (haven’t had one for 20 yrs), and with a seasonal part-time job that I don’t get enough hours so that I’m already in the hole each month….and I’ve been very busy looking for another job. (So I can try and get out of the hole I’m in, and I’m soooo thankful I’m not in debt and only have expenses like rent, food, gas, and storing my “supplies” and a library of about 1,000 books.) So many rejections, I get really discouraged and depressed. I’ve been eating a lot of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cut back on my meat, fruits and vegetables, so I’ve been living Robyn’s rules even without being on public assistance yet. I’m in my 50’s, and I’ve always been able to pay my rent, bills, etc. and have extra, so this has been so hard. I know it’s part of our transition. I also read Carolyn Baker’s and Kathy McMahon’s websites regularly.
When I hear people talk about the “recovery” it drives me crazy….we are in the “Long Emergency” and there will be no recovery. When I think of all of the things that we ought to have done with the money and resources, instead of wasting millions and trillions of dollars on wars, highways, roads, expansion of airports, and saving Wall Street’s butt… it infuriates me. All of the millions of people that need help (as well as the railroads and our electrical grid).
I’ve been in and out, mostly in, the place of “what’s the point?” for several weeks now. As Robyn said, it’s really hard to continue adapting when jobless or underemployed. I was jobless most of the time I was in Eugene, and the last two months I was there, I was also homeless living out of my car. It’s no fun at all. Quite humiliating and degrading.
Thank you so much for all that you do.
thanks cornish-that show of hand song is freaking awesome. wow……….
Poverty is the abuse we impose on each other because industrial civilisation is as much a calvinist-christian construction. Poverty is used to reinforce hierarchy in a delusional religious ordering from god to sinner.
re: Nasty people
I’ve often wondered what I look like to other people in the waiting rooms of public assistance offices, doctor’s offices, etc. How do I code? Am I one of those nasty people who are just milking the system? I mean, I certainly don’t go out of my way to dress nicely when going to those places; I’m often in sweats & t-shirts, typically not “freshly laundered” to put it mildly. My children are generally clean, but straggly-looking–especially Ian, whose hair compulsively tangles no matter what I do. Do I wash my hair often enough? Do I brush my teeth often enough? What if I forgot deodorant? That ketchup stain on my shirt, does that condemn me? I’ve been known to laugh while in those places, and chat with others–probably that shows how happy I am to be there, and how unashamed I am to be in “my situation”. I’ll even trade tips with others for how to keep benefits longer or answer questions effectively–surely that shows how brazen I am in sucking on the public teet. I have all my own teeth, I guess that’s a plus, although it is only by grace of good genetics, since I have no dental insurance. I don’t usually mutter to myself, so maybe I’m just nasty, but not actively creepy. That’s something, I guess.
I’m certainly doing everything I can to stay on assistance for as long as possible. I mean, sure, if a decent job with benefits were offered to me or my husband, I’d jump all over it, and we are actively searching for the one or two that pop up every month for which we are qualified. Otherwise, I string out my applications for jobs as far as possible to only cover the bare minimum required by unemployment. I do this because I know that there *aren’t* enough jobs for me to meet application requirements in our area every week, and we *need* those weekly payments. I don’t apply to jobs that have no benefits but that would pay enough to bump us off of public healthcare. I won’t because I know that if we get bounced off of public care, we won’t make enough to afford our own private insurance (the most recent quote for our family was $900/month for bare-bones coverage). So I guess I’m milking the system. Or not. Who can tell? Who gets to decide? You? Me? The lady in the waiting room shaking her head at me and my children? I mean, at the end of the day, I probably am one of those nasty people just milking the system. But at least I serve a useful social function of giving random strangers who’ve never met me the chance to feel morally superior and self-righteous. There’s always that.
Below is a link for an article by Naomi Klein along the lines of the recent post on Vandana Shiva. It is a reminder that yes, indeed, the progressives are aware of a lot of what is going on, and that it is a monstrous idea – pushed somewhat by peak oil writers – that there is an equivalance between progressives and regressives.
I think it was Heinberg who first tried to invalidate the notion that progressives had the right to blame regressives, and I think he is dead wrong: the regressives have damaged this country, and we would be a whole lot better off if progressives were in positions of leadership.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/11/14-5
Now, let’s add in the cost of the US military and two wars, wealth that could be used to fund The Transition, not to mention the pollution generated by global US military operations.
So the question is, “How come there arent 30, 40 million people in the streets of this country demanding that the elites stop wasting wealth and killing people in insane wars?”
Why? Because there aint no draft of upper middle class and upper class kids into those military meat grinders, it is the poor as usual shouldering the burden.
Stopping the wars and the Imperial policies of this country are an integral part of all this, and those who have the time need to help spread the meme: wasting wealth on war in the face of the global crisis we are in is morally reprehensible beyond belief. We need to stop this now.
I see both sides. I teach middle school and every kid in my class who is on free lunch also has a cell phone. Does a 12 year old need a cell phone? Surely if a parent can afford a kid’s cell phone, free lunch may not be a necessity…just because you “qualify” for assistance doesn’t mean you have to get it. We’re a family of 5 and at one time we lived on $35 K a year. We could have gotten every government thing offered, but we didn’t. We just didn’t want to. I felt too guilty keeping cable tv and asking for food stamps.
But—-I also see the point the writer and you are making. People do deserve creature comforts even when poor. It is just the FREQUENCY of those comforts I usually take issue to.
Several decades ago I had jobs at the NYC Department of Social Services and later the Housing Authority. I really see red when people talk about cheats because, although they exist, they are no excuse for generalizations. Almost all of the clients and tenants I met were battling really difficult problems practically and with grace. The woman in the beautiful green coat made it herself and the one with a nine kids was actually raising nieces and nephews as well as her own. It’s so easy to judge without all the information.
I have to point out that there is also a reverse sterotype here as well. “The lady in the waiting room shaking her head at me and my children?” illustrates this quite well. Just as you perceive that others are judging you because you are on assistance and may behave a certain way or have certain things, those of us not on assistance (or chosing not to take it in tough times) are perceived to be lacking compassion or ultra-judgemental towards those of you who are on the assistance. If *I* am shaking my head at your children in a waiting room, it certainly has nothing to do with you being on assistance (and quite frankly, I would never shake my head at anyone’s children even if I did happen to be someone who frowns on public assistance and some how knew you have it. I wouldn’t even shake my head if your children were swinging from the rafters). How would I even know that you have assistance unless we are in some special public assistance only clinic (and wouldn’t that mean I have it too)? I think just as you mention that “poor” people shouldn’t behave in certain ways (sarcasm noted) due to how others are judging you, it also wrong to believe that many of us are out there looking for these things to judge. We’re not, but we are pigeonholed the same way by a few judgemental types (just like the “milkers” seem to ruin it for the folks who need PA). Either way, the point here is it is tiring to be judged. Period.
@Lindsey: do those kids have land-lines at home, or are the cellphones their primary telephone? Many family plans these days are cheaper than land service. Are they planned phones, or tracfone/pay-as-you-go phones? Again, those are cheaper, and usually indistinguishable from “the real thing”. Did the parents get them as gifts, or so that perhaps their kids wouldn’t get picked on at school, since everyone else has them? Do the parents work multiple jobs and feel that this is one of the best ways to keep their kids safe and accessible? Have you ever asked these kids why they have cell phones?
It’s not a matter of “creature comforts”, it’s a matter of basic dignity, of accepting that without knowing me, you are in no position to judge me, my behavior, or my decisions. Everyone has reasons for what they do, you just don’t know what they are.
And if it’s any consolation to you, these days a family of five making $35k qualifies for exactly zip in my state. Cutoff for most programs here is $24k-$29k., with no additional money for a family size over five. Hell, right now with my family of four, I’d give just about anything for one of us to land a $35k job–we would be set.
For those that truely have done nothing but strive to improve their place, they deserve some leeway. However, when we were both paying our way through school and life working full-time at both and buying beans and mac and cheese; seeing people buy steak on food stamps, wear designer jeans and drive away in a caddy when our car would barely get us from point A to point B because we refused to play the system causes me to get a bit upset at the so-called “poor”.
I highly doubt text-messaging, mobile internet, and $1.99 ringtones are deemed necessities for a 12 year old’s cell phone. Call me crazy. I raise three kids, and for “emergencies” we use a prepaid phone with ZIP bells and whistles. And we also pay for our kids lunches as well.
Like I said, I see both sides. I truly do. Been there and done that on both sides. But I also see a gross misalignment with priorities out there. Part of the reason america’s poor are “poor” is nothing but a case of misplaced priorities. Our poor is relatively wealthy to the rest of the world that lives on a dollar a day. Our entitlement mentality is what gets us in trouble. “Hey, I’m poor, but I’m entitled to feel good! I’m entitled to have this. To have that. I work hard, I deserve it.” To whit, some is true. But we also have to be realistic and think about the long term effects of our wants and desires, rich, poor, or something in between.
I’m just sayin’.
If you work to buy your 12 year old a cell phone with text messaging because everyone else has one, then your priorities are way out of whack. Period.
I didn’t have a cell phone until 18 and I did just fine. I’d also like to mention that 90% of my SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS have iphones, blackberries, LGVUE or other such fancy phones that are much nicer than any basic go-phone that I, an adult with a job, happen to have. They don’t “need” them, they “want” them.
We have an entitlement problem in America which fuels our economic problems.
I also see both sides. Like ex consumer I grew up poor. We were on food stamps, assistance, section 8 most of my childhood. Sometimes my mother was married, but most of the time she was a single mother of 5. Very few people knew we were poor. In fact, I think most people thought we had a lot of money because we lived so well.
The houses we lived in were fairly large and usually in nicer neighborhoods. The houses my mom would find usually needed repair due to the previous renters. She would make a deal with the owner to fix the place up for a large drop in the rent. So for six months we lived in the house while my mom and I replaced floors, painted and repaired walls, etc. When the lease was up we couldn’t afford to live in the place anymore, so we moved. Between the second grade and ninth grade (when I left school to get a job) I went to 12 different schools. And because we moved so much we rarely had furniture. We also lived out of our car many times.
We were always dressed beautifully and well manicured. My mom was trained to cut hair so we all had beautiful hair cuts. She was also a seamstress and she made beautiful clothes for all of us. What she didn’t make we got at the thrift stores. She would go through the clothes with a fine tooth comb. By the time I was 12 I could sew very well, so I started designing and making my own clothes. I regularly had people stop me on the street to ask me where I got my clothes. The kind of clothes I wore were the kind that would cost hundreds of dollars in a specialty shop, but I rarely paid more than ten dollars for the fabric.
My mother was also an excellent cook. She never bought anything in a package. For breakfast it was eggs and bacon or oatmeal etc. For dinners she’d always have a complete “farm style” meal. At the end of the month there would be food stamps left over. She knew how to get a great meal from cheap staples and cheap but good cuts of meat. I remember several times she had friends that were also single moms that could not feed their kids on the same amount of food stamps. She would either offer them her extra at the end of the month or invite them over for dinner regularly. Sadly these people ate fairly poorly. Processed cheese sandwiches on wonder bread with chips was considered lunch, yuck!
She would take on jobs when she could get them. But as a single woman with 5 kids and no job skills not many wanted to hire her. At one point she even started her own company cleaning houses.
I’m not saying she was the perfect woman, she wasn’t (her taste in men is awful). Did she “milk” the system? I’ll let you make your mind up on that one. Did we have the right to use our skills to better our lives? Should we have bought the ragged stained clothes at the thrift stores instead? Or lived in the bad areas? Should she have fed us mac and cheese or ramen noodles instead of a cheap roast and potatoes or navy bean soup and corn bread?
I feel that growing up poor gave me an advantage. I know how to get a lot from very little and I can appreciate the simple things in life. Most importantly, I know that you should never judge a book by its cover;).
Sonrisa! Brilliant and beautiful post! I too was lucky enough to have a mom who could cook and sew fantastically. I can’t sew, but I can cook from nothing but cheap meat and bones, potatoes, and whatever vegetables are on sale (or wild greens etc in season). I am trying to get my mom to teach me how to sew basically on an old foot treadle machine though this winter. I will be 50 next year so it’s never too late, while I am blessed with her here on earth.
Linda in Montana, and all the rest, I make about $8000 a year, teaching part time at a local community college as needed (because of union contracts, since I am an adjunct they won’t let me teach as much as I would love to). I have taught archaeology, environmental history and ethics, sociology, drawing, painting, and basic landscape design. $8000 this last year is the most I made in 3 years; usually it has been $4000 or so.
I lost my fulltime job working for a state agency in 2006. In all that time and with 50-60 applications, I have only had two interviews and I wasn’t hired for either one. The only reason I got hired to teach as an adjunct, even though I am qualified with two Masters degrees, was because I knew someone at the college and they were hard up at the last minute. I work hard and get excellent evaluations from students.
My wife is unable to work, so that 8K covers both of us. The strain of how we have come to our present situation has broken her, and she has become a recluse who never leaves the house. She refuses to seek any help, and all we do is fight when I try to talk her into it, so I have given up since there isn’t any help in our community, and she isn’t a danger to herself or others.
Both of us took school loans in better days, but with my job loss, her illness, and such, things will never get better. I went to see a psychiatrist at a clinic, and all he could come up with is there was nothing I could do but divorce her and try to save myself. That is not an option. No health insurance = no meds anyway. There is a thing I will not break. I expect to see a lot more of mental breakdowns and psychiatric disorders as our society fails over the coming months.
We rent a small 1 bedroom apartment in an old partitioned house for $450 a month in a rundown part of town. No yard so we can’t garden, but I am learning about wildcrafting, and I gather such things as dandelion, violets, and such from the lawn and berries and rosehips from alleys.
I walked people around telling ghost stories and local history for a few bucks this summer (when there was no school) for food and pin money and to help pay utilities, including the Internet access (without which I wouldn’t learn about what’s going on in the world).
I walk to work most of the time, catch a ride with a friend when it works out. I borrow a family member’s car if I have to get something big like flour and bulk stuff from the store. We eat pretty good because we have family that hunt and get wild game, and then all we have to buy is bacon (we use the fat too), milk, potatoes and rice, and seasonings. For an occasional treat the wife bakes a cake from scratch or we get a chicken and roast it, then make soup from the bones.
We don’t have health insurance. I take vitamins, try to eat good, save pennies for when I will need antibiotics or dentist. I know I have cavities but not enough pennies yet. I know some old Native American herbal cures for fevers and flu -we got through the swine flu this way. Lilac bush leaves also bring down fever as tea. Lots of stuff in yards and alleys if you look and study.
I wish we could rent a little place with a yard so we could garden potatoes, and raise some rabbits and chickens. They are going to cut classes this January so I will go from this fall making $1000 a month (enough to get by) to $600 a month, which is not enough.
I am going deer hunting this month to see if I can improve the odds any. If it wasn’t for family nearby, that keep my spirits up when we visit, and my stoic native beliefs in the Creator and nature, I probably wouldn’t make it, emotionally and mentally.
I will not seek any public help. My mom did that with us when we were kids. They treated her like —- and I saw it, both at the state office and in the grocery stores. And she was a quiet respectful hardworking woman with 5 kids. I am just a middle-aged man with no kids and no fulltime job (=”loser” in modern American parlance) so I can only imagine what —- I would get.
No thank you. I will live in a cardboard box under a bridge and dumpster-dive, eat rosehips,cattails, and shoot squirrels with a slingshot before I seek any public aid.
I want to add that I don’t believe that anyone deserves something “because everyone else has it”. That is what got us into this mess to begin with. We all deserve the right to live well. But there is a difference between having good food with clean safe living conditions and being able to buy things to keep up with the Jones family. The cycle has to be broken.
Hengruh,
Are you physically able to do odd jobs? Garden in someone else’s yard? Borrow a snow shovel from a family member when there’s a severe weather warning, stage it at your place, and make some pocket change shoveling snow?
Have you tried putting up a sign at the college where you teach (or posting on craigslist) and getting some tutoring students?
I’m so sorry to hear about your wife. Does she knit? Can she knit socks? Would she? Yarn is often available at thrift stores, sometimes in the form of dreadful projects or worn but good quality sweaters that can be unraveled. Is there something else that she can do at home that would either bring in a little cash or trade? Bake bread or make tortillas? There is a market for handmade tortillas.
You are an educated man. Can you pick up some work helping write business plans and grant applications? Many people just need help putting their ideas into formal English.
Can you volunteer to do something that has the potential to leverage social contacts into paying gigs? The idea is to pick something socially useful and intrinsically rewarding that puts you in contact with a lot of people. Senior center, library, volunteer tax preparation, etc. And then tell people what you do. A certain percentage of contacts will turn into call-backs or referrals. If not, smile, enjoy your karma points and go on the the next volunteer gig.
It sounds like you need $400 a month to bridge the gap. That is totally doable in the informal economy. If you have some handyman skills it is possible to work up a clientele of elderly persons and single mothers who call you when their washing machine needs unstopping or their gutters are turning into hanging gardens. If you stay small and stick to word of mouth advertising, you are under the radar.
Another helpful approach is to take any weird ass part time job you can get. I used to have a sterilized resume for applying to weird ass jobs, with all the credentials polished off. This stopped working when the internet became universal. The best way is to try to expand your social network and let people know that you are looking for part time jobs and gigs. Make up some business cards with your name, contact info and some generalized description such as “handyman” or “odd jobs and pet sitting”.
Here’s an important tip: don’t be a taker. Don’t be out to get something from everybody you meet. Do the opposite. Just help somebody when they need it, and don’t ask for anything in return. They will know who to call later. Bake some cookies and hand them out with your business card. All kinds of small and welcome gifts can be made with free or low-cost materials.
My work is by nature seasonal and project oriented. My business is limping along, and I too am reaching into my recession skill set to make up a shortfall of several hundred bucks a month.
Shira in Bellingham, WA
I just want to add that I completely agree with what Shira has said about the “informal” economy. I, too, am a community college English teacher carrying as large a load as they will allow (4 classes). To supplement my income (very handily, I might add), I tutor a homeschool girl in English and I started up my own eco-friendly cleaning company. My start-up cost was almost zero–since it’s eco-friendly, I just use vinegar, Dr. Bronner’s, and baking soda as my staples. I already had my own cleaning equipment from my house. I make $12.00/hour cleaning, tax free. I have met many, many wonderful people, and because I do a good job, I have a constant flow of word-of-mouth clients. There is work to be found if you go about it unconventionally. Most people are appalled at the idea that someone with a Master’s degree should need to clean houses, but I actually rather enjoy it, and it helps bolster my income.
Something else you might try is freelance writing. I used Elance.com, and once you build up a client base, it’s easy enough to get gigs, if you’re a good writer.
Pretty much, if someone says they need someone to do something for them, I jump at the chance (within my limits, of course)–fixing a fence, baking a cake, sewing some curtains, pet-sitting, running a friend’s art gallery for the weekend…I’ve been paid for all of these things and more. It’s all a matter of keeping your eyes and ears open.
My mother became a single mother in 1972 after my father got another woman pregnant. I was 5, my brother was 4. She worked 3rd shift at Dunkin Donuts because that way her teenage sister could stay with us at night. And she waited at the Welfare Office, on a regular basis, to justify the foodstamps and other assistance she received. I remember waiting in that office with her one day when her worker asked her, accusingly, why my brother and I were wearing new winter jackets. My grandmother had bought them for us ( as she did for most of the extras my mother could not afford). My mother had to swallow what little pride she had left after being thrust into this changed life and explain to this woman where we got the jackets because she was fearful that she would loose her benefits. Benefits she was very dependent on because my father did not pay child support.
My mother’s story is more common than the story of the Welfare Queen. But our collective bias against poverty refuses to see my mother’s plight as common. Instead we get hung up on the notion that poor people are just leaches on the system. The end result becomes a public policy that is focused on the few cheats at the expense of the many who need the help.
Fascinating discussion. I guess what always strikes me about these kinds of discussions is how unobservant I must be. I don’t have the slightest idea whether most people I know are on public assistance or not – I’m a polite sort, so I don’t usually stand close enough in the grocery line to look at what card they are swiping. I certainly don’t check their mail to see where their checks come from – unemployment or somewhere else. I don’t pay that much attention to people’s clothes, so I’m not sure I’d notice if the lady coming out of the food pantry was well dressed or badly dressed – or for that matter, nor would I assume that if she was carrying a bag of food it was for her – for all I know, she could be one of the people who work there, or delivering to a shut-in neighbor.
I’m always surprised by people who seem to know a great deal about other people – and also by people who seem to assume a great deal about other people – about what a look means, or what a piece of clothing means. I’ve always suspected that I was at a disadvantage not being terribly good at picking up visual social cues, but clearly I am, because clearly there are whole complex interactions being conveyed by a look and a head shake around me.
For me, I suspect it is simply not my job to dispense justice in the universe. I have no doubt when I give money at the food pantry that some small percentage may go to someone who milks the system. So? I want even jerks to eat. I want even the people who milk welfare for a check to have a little food in the pantry for their kids and to be able to make the rent. Honestly, getting money from the state isn’t that easy – it involves taking a lot of crap, doing a lot of paperwork, sitting in waiting rooms a lot, being bored and condescended to. Honestly, I don’t see that most people would find it much more appealing than a job, but if some do, it just isn’t my job, as I’m walking down the street, to try and figure out who they are, so that the
$.004 cents of my paycheck that goes to them can be properly reclaimed.
Sharon
We are considered poor. We live on government payments in Australia (DP lost his job in the GFC, and I finished mine when I had our DS, 8 months old).
To look in our cupboards, we eat fairly well. Our 8yr old never misses a school trip. We have prepaid internet and mobile.
But we don’t go to the movies. We don’t drink.We don’t have cable tv, or many other things that are considered normal.
We pick and choose where our money is spent – good food is important to us, cable tv is not.
But if you saw us in the shop, people might think we were living the high life on public money due to what we buy. And they would be wrong. We are careful, frugal, and have our priorities right where they need to be. That doesn’t always match up to what others think we should be doing.
Over here (and i think it is similar in the US?) people pay into the public coffers that this money comes from via taxes etc. So for the majority of people recieving payments, they have been contributing to that money for years beforehand. Should they need to then make use of that system, does that mean they need to then justify their lives to strangers?
Cheats are not as common as the media would have you believe. To suggest the people who are receiving payments should only spend their money in “socially acceptable” ways is insulting. There but for the grace of god – remember that.
It is very easy to judge.
Dear Hengruh — Please get over your shame and embarrassment to access some public assistance benefits and keep your head held high. At the very least if possible, get a good dentist to mend your pearly whites, and you’ll feel better without having to suffer more extensive and expensive dental work later.
Like you, I’ve either worked my whole life (self-supporting since I was 17) or attended school to better myself, and paid in the system and would not hesitate to access benefits I needed to get through a rough stretch.
We all need to be doing more at the local level to take care of our own, and there is a part of my heart that believes we will do what’s right and just.
While on our way there, please be brave and let us know how it goes.
Warm thoughts to you and your wife.
Pearly May
Shira, Kelsie and Pearly May, thank you for giving me some ideas. I get trapped in my own thoughts sometimes, and you gave me some new things to think about and try
Hengruh
Sharon, there are some signs that people are in trouble that are just so blantant, I can’t miss them — children in boots, mother in flip flop when it’s snowing outside for example. Since I don’t assume they are (or aren’t) on public assistance, and don’t worry if they “deserve” to be or not, but am only concerned if there is something I can do (very rarely, there is) that I don’t think observing people around us, is such a bad thing.