Comments on: Just Don't Be Poor

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By: MEA

MEA — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:31:24 +0000

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.

By: hengruh

hengruh — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:07:57 +0000

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

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:01:21 +0000

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

By: Naomi

Naomi — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:28:15 +0000

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.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:14:30 +0000

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