is that it doesn't really go all that far. There are so many costs if living, that at the end of the day, there is very little left. When they see someone with an EBT card and see that their conveyor belt load of food contains better quality items than they can afford, they get upset.
If that person making $50,000/ yr before taxes and insurance (if lucky to have) are taken out, it's not a ton to live on for a family. Believe me, my husband and I are just short of the $50,000 threshold. We have mortgage, cars, car insurance, gas, daycare, food expenses... While I recognize that I am lucky enough to be ok week to week; we also live in that fear of a loss of income or a car accident or a hurricane blowing the roof off the house or a major medical illness that would put us in the poor house.
When the middle class family making that $50,000/ yr have an emergency, we are holding bake sales, begging family for help, and charging credit cards with interest... Credit cards seem to be the middle-class/ working class stand by for assistance.
The reality is, having a socialized medical system would take a huge burden off of all Americans. The truth is that when a family has a child, pd maternity/ paternity leave should be a right, we should jaw 4 - 6 wks of pd vacation every year, we should have a national daycare system similar to school, we should have better public transportation so paying for getting to work isn't a must in so many areas, and when a tax paying family finds itself in tough times and needs a bit more help with say formula or food or energy (heating/ cooling), it ought to be easier to access for those rough times... Perhaps then the family won't lose their home or wouldn't need to worry about doing anything but fighting a cancer diagnosis instead of the bills that will pile up still.
It's not that poor people shouldn't receive assistance; they actually need more in my opinion. Its that it shouldn't be so damned hard for those who normally do well year after year to fall completely because they don't qualify bases on having a car or last year's tax returns. The system actually penalizes married couples. If my husband and I were not married, we would qualify for SNAP bases on individual income. If I became pregnant, I could qualify for medicaid, WIC, and SNAP... Possibly even educational vouchers, housing assistance, and daycare vouchers.
And now that so many jobs require college education and the costs soaring, young people are starting out strapped before they begin...
The real items that congress needs to be taking up is collecting taxes for the Romney's dressage horse and for offshoring their money. Their tax rate should be much higher than the avg Anerican. Minimum wage should be a living wage. And with the fact that both women and men are working and productivity has increased, the avg work week should be closer to 30/ 32 hrs a week so that people have time to live and spend with their family. Technology has made things easier; there is no reason to be out and about 60 hrs a week trying to eek by. And when that middle class family has a tough year or 2, it should be easier for them to qualify for some help; rather than turn to credit cards and interest loans.
Our society has such a me, me, me quality to it with communities disjointed that people don't come together to get things done that make sense. It also means that we may have to look at ourselves and lives and decide if sharing means more than getting one over on the next guy?
This is why u hear people complain. Many still thought that welfare queens and deiving caddies and living the good life... It's only now that so many are in this Main St depression that they are realizing the govt they pad taxes to and did the "American dream" thing, played by the rules, etc, is not there for them in their time of need. It's how the teaparty meme took off at first. And then occupy made more sense after they were bamboozled by the teaparty Klan.
Organize, run real candidates, get your community together, and elect more women to seats of representaion (and not the plain Bachman type).
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