juliaoceania
Posts: 21383
Joined: 4/19/2006
From: Somewhere Over the Rainbow
Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: KatyLied
quote:
. but the image that was sold was vastly different than that.
I have a good image of women on welfare -- I worked with them. They ate better and drove a better car than I did. You don't make a ton of money on public assistance, but when you add food stamps, government housing, medicaid and tax free income from working under the table, it's not a horribly bad existence, not from what I saw. Many of these women didn't want to get (real) jobs because they would be giving up a lot. I didn't approve of what they were doing, but I kept my mouth shut and smiled and helped them because it was my job to do so.
You knew that these women were working under the table? They told you this? Did they inform you of how much their public assistance worked out to be? Did you make these assumptions (as my own sister used to in serving welfare mothers in a pediatric office) based upon the car they drove and jewelry they wore?
One is allowed to keep a car on public assistance, they are allowed to keep a certain amount of jewelry (which jewelry depreciates once one steps out of the jewelers with it). Most of the welfare mothers I have spoken with (which in my research was quite a few), had cars before they got on the rolls, and had other items beforehand. Public housing and medical are things a mother can get even when she works, and the only thing she is giving up is foodstamps and cash aid.
I have done a great deal of research in this area, enough to consider expanding it in my graduate level work.... there is a domino effect that leads most women to welfare. They are usually raised by a single parent, they have no real support system, the father does not pay his child support reliably, often there is an illness that leads to a lack of employment (of herself or a child that she is responsible for)
A very small percentage ever have more babies while in the system.
Now we could sit here and talk about ancedotal evidence, but the fact of the matter is this: the average welfare mother before welfare reform was married with between 2 to 3 kids, left without support, had no marketable skills, and remained on the rolls for approximately 18 months before becoming employed... Go single working moms!
I have been in the above situation, my ex left me with 5 dollars, nothing but two weeks of clothing because I was in another state when he began playing games with our marriage. I had an infant I was nursing. I was working fulltime soon after we split up, but had to use medical insurance because none of the jobs in my area offered it. My son had asthma. I have never been in public housing in my life, it is not available for most welfare moms that live in rural areas, and most of them do live in rural areas, most are white too.
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