It's not unusual to be on food stamps around here. At least, not in my experience. Most of my friends last year should've been on food stamps (strictly according to income/net worth - most of them worked part-time minimum wage jobs and had piles of debt from college, which most of them hadn't finished), but I doubt it ever occurred to them to try for it.
When I was considering doing AmeriCorps around here, I asked someone what it was like. She said it was hard, and frustrating, and great. I asked if they paid her enough to live on around here. She replied cheerfully, "Well, you're eligible for food stamps and fuel assistance and all kinds of great stuff that makes it totally bearable." I thought that was a fair answer, and actually didn't think much of it.
When I was telling my mother about it later, I mentioned the whole government assistance thing, and she became really angry. "A college graduate on food stamps!? There's something so...wrong about that!"
And I thought, "there is?"
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
"lo alekha hamelakha ligmor, v’lo atah ben chorin l’hibatel mimenah"
"When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader." (Bird by Bird)
"You are not obligated to finish the task…but neither are you free to desist from it." (Pirkei Avot)
Reading List
- Bird By Bird (Anne Lamott)
- Calling All Radicals (Gabriel Thompson)
- Class Matters (Betsy Leondar-Wright)
- CLASSIFIED: How To Stop Hiding Your Privilege and Use It For Social Change (Karen Pittelman and Resource Generation)
- Without A Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class (ed. Michelle Tea)
Archive
-
▼
2008
(60)
-
▼
July
(30)
- Response
- from my mother
- freewrite
- monopoly
- a cheater entry - it's a crazy night
- the Japan Letter
- a question to ponder
- Quick stories from work
- food stamps
- book review - "Sport"
- tangentially related
- food and class and jewishness
- Class Action's question of the month
- it's 3:18 and i'm supposed to be coherent?
- no internet last night either - an intersection
- no, honey, it's not too much
- quickie
- no internet access last night - disclosure
- quotes
- cheater entry
- equity, fairness, and other such impossiblities
- healthcare and whatnot
- song post
- remember - write about country music
- a conversation to analyze later
- stories involving financial aid - 2
- what I could've done better
- stories involving financial aid - 1
- last night's entry - oh, you can't scare me
- why this job is easy
-
▼
July
(30)
All work copyright Dane Kuttler (c) 2008
2 comments:
There's something that feels wrong about working people having to use government aid. Aid should be there to provide a safety net for when things don't work out, but shouldn't be built into the economy as a method for survival because it is demoralizing.
If you work full-time, then you should be able to afford to be self-sufficient. Maybe that's the protestant work-ethic ingrained in my mind.
Food stamps are a sort of equalizer I guess, something to compensate for the wag gap, but it's also a cheap substitute for making employers pay a living wage and a way to subsidize corporations.
I'm still pondering...
C, you're still signed in as me, darlin'.
Post a Comment