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I've been working at the welfare office for a few days now, conducting pre-eligibility screens for a new program available to homeless families in Massachusetts. The welfare office, as it is commonly known, or the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) administers food stamps, TAFDC (the official acronym that describes the benefit people are referring to when they say "you're on welfare") and is responsible for placing families in shelter when they are homeless. It is the haven for many of the benefits we know as "entitlements" and that is exactly where most of the controversy lies, in the thought that these people feel "entitled."
"They come knocking at your door with all of their problems and just lay it on you, expecting someone else to just pick it up for them," says one of the workers.
She goes on to say, "What were you thinking when you had that child? That things would be easy?"
And I hear my colleague's concern: One of the women who came into my office today looking for shelter because she can no longer pay her rent was being very specific about what kind of shelter placement she would like and what part of the state she would like to go. She does not work and sees her way towards progress as securing a Section 8 voucher, a program that allows low income people to pay 30% of their income towards rent. Whereas some of us see our way out in terms of employment, she sees it in terms of a benefit the State or the Federal government provides. Upon hearing this, many a "Worker" would at least think, if not say, "You are not in the position of being picky about where you are placed, honey, if you can't pay your rent." Does this woman feel entitled to benefits she does not deserve?
Last week Tea Party senate-candidate compared welfare-recipients to raccoons looking for the easy way to get food "if we let them." Although in-articulately, like many Americans, Jon Bruning takes issue with the fact that welfare programs "do not incentivize people to work."
Here are some thoughts: 1. Since when do people--poor or rich--intentionally look for the difficult way out? And why should we make it difficult for people to access the most basic of goods? Are Bruning's comments suggesting a sort of masochism--to make getting food stamps hard for the sake of making it hard? Is it the State's job to teach these people a lesson?
In the same week, Warren Buffet accused the United States government of coddling the rich as though they were some sort of endangered species. He reminds us that many wealthy people are also taking the easy way out. Because they can!
2. It's a myth that everyone on welfare is just coasting along easily without a care in the world. The amount people get is hardly enough to live on and there is a time frame in which they are allowed to receive it. Folks cannot be on TAFDC forever. It's simply not allowed. Specifically, you get 24 months.
3. Throughout the hundreds of cases I have seen these last two years, seldom have I come across a person who is just ducky about being a welfare recipient. In fact, people feel a lot of shame around it. So much so, that the first thing many of these families will say to me when they walk into my office has to do with why they are unlike the other people in the waiting room at the DTA.
4. While I agree that we need to incentivize people to work, we talk about it as though welfare-recipients don't want to work. Many of them don't work--not because they are happy sitting around their respective houses all day--but because they are part of a generational cycle of poverty in which opportunities for higher education were not just handed to them. And the mention of "higher education" here is not to be taken lightly. For example, in a study released by Metro Boston Housing Partnership they found that in order for families to be successful in some of these programs that provide rental subsidies education is a huge factor. .
Now, don't get me wrong, I agree that we are doing people a disservice when we give them fish instead of teaching them how to fish. I have witnessed how disempowering it can be and how it weakens their abilities over time. And I do think we need programs that help low income people access educational and career opportunities (something we're not really investing all of that much money, time or energy into). But the issue I'm taking up in this particular post is that welfare-recipients don't seem to me like a different class of people. They seem to be acting logically to illogical circumstances.
Furthermore, this week has made me think about other ways in which all of us feel entitled. Is it far fetch to diagnose our bitter rants in which we covet what others have as entitlement? Welfare-recipients might feel entitled to food and to a few hundred dollars a month provided by the state, but what do we, folks with college degrees, job security and parents who gave us resources feel entitled to? What do we complain about not having that we think we should have?
"They come knocking at your door with all of their problems and just lay it on you, expecting someone else to just pick it up for them," says one of the workers.
She goes on to say, "What were you thinking when you had that child? That things would be easy?"
And I hear my colleague's concern: One of the women who came into my office today looking for shelter because she can no longer pay her rent was being very specific about what kind of shelter placement she would like and what part of the state she would like to go. She does not work and sees her way towards progress as securing a Section 8 voucher, a program that allows low income people to pay 30% of their income towards rent. Whereas some of us see our way out in terms of employment, she sees it in terms of a benefit the State or the Federal government provides. Upon hearing this, many a "Worker" would at least think, if not say, "You are not in the position of being picky about where you are placed, honey, if you can't pay your rent." Does this woman feel entitled to benefits she does not deserve?
Last week Tea Party senate-candidate compared welfare-recipients to raccoons looking for the easy way to get food "if we let them." Although in-articulately, like many Americans, Jon Bruning takes issue with the fact that welfare programs "do not incentivize people to work."
Here are some thoughts: 1. Since when do people--poor or rich--intentionally look for the difficult way out? And why should we make it difficult for people to access the most basic of goods? Are Bruning's comments suggesting a sort of masochism--to make getting food stamps hard for the sake of making it hard? Is it the State's job to teach these people a lesson?
In the same week, Warren Buffet accused the United States government of coddling the rich as though they were some sort of endangered species. He reminds us that many wealthy people are also taking the easy way out. Because they can!
If you ask me, I think that the poor are not the only ones who try to get their needs met the easy way.
3. Throughout the hundreds of cases I have seen these last two years, seldom have I come across a person who is just ducky about being a welfare recipient. In fact, people feel a lot of shame around it. So much so, that the first thing many of these families will say to me when they walk into my office has to do with why they are unlike the other people in the waiting room at the DTA.
4. While I agree that we need to incentivize people to work, we talk about it as though welfare-recipients don't want to work. Many of them don't work--not because they are happy sitting around their respective houses all day--but because they are part of a generational cycle of poverty in which opportunities for higher education were not just handed to them. And the mention of "higher education" here is not to be taken lightly. For example, in a study released by Metro Boston Housing Partnership they found that in order for families to be successful in some of these programs that provide rental subsidies education is a huge factor. .
• The median income of families participating in MBHP’s HPRP
program is $762 a month, or $9,144 annually. This is only 18
percent of the income needed to support the average $1,238
monthly rental and utility payment ($49,520 annually) and
17 percent of the income needed to support a two-bedroom
Fair Market Rent of $1,357 ($54,280 annually).
• Even if every HPRP participant is able to secure employment,
only those with at least a bachelor’s degree can expect to afford
the $54,280 in annual income necessary to support a $1,357
fair market rent, as median annual earnings in the Boston-
Cambridge-Quincy MSA for someone who has completed a
bachelor’s degree was $53,495 in 2009, compared to $30,518
for someone who had only completed high school.14 Only
9 percent of HPRP participants had completed a bachelor’s
degree, while 29 percent had completed some college,
50 percent have completed high school only or have earned
a GED, and 12 percent had not completed high school.
Now, don't get me wrong, I agree that we are doing people a disservice when we give them fish instead of teaching them how to fish. I have witnessed how disempowering it can be and how it weakens their abilities over time. And I do think we need programs that help low income people access educational and career opportunities (something we're not really investing all of that much money, time or energy into). But the issue I'm taking up in this particular post is that welfare-recipients don't seem to me like a different class of people. They seem to be acting logically to illogical circumstances.
Furthermore, this week has made me think about other ways in which all of us feel entitled. Is it far fetch to diagnose our bitter rants in which we covet what others have as entitlement? Welfare-recipients might feel entitled to food and to a few hundred dollars a month provided by the state, but what do we, folks with college degrees, job security and parents who gave us resources feel entitled to? What do we complain about not having that we think we should have?
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