Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollynla
And another poster who didn't bother to read the article before commenting. 
The elderly, the sick, disabled, and those with dependent children are excluded.
As for transportation, you could do this in 2 days per month. You mean to tell me someone couldn't find transportation for just a couple days each month? Amazing they are able to find a way to get to the grocery store to spend the food stamps. |
I did read the article. I didn't reference children in my response. The only inadvertent word in my response was the elderly.
"Sick" to them means a certain level of illness you can "prove." My sister, who was poor for years, was definitely sick, but would not have qualified as "sick" under some programs, like SSI.
She had COPD, bad arthritis in her knees such that she could stand for only limited periods of time, was morbidly obese, had metabolic syndrome (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, etc.). She was a mess. She hadn't a penny to her name but got small amts of money from relatives for gas for her old beat up car, so she could look for work. There was no public transportation.
She went for computer training on a public program, but couldn't get it, because it required $10, which she didn't have. There wasn't enough time for me to mail her the $10 to register for the program.
So to do volunteer work would have been almost impossible for her. That was why she couldn't get a job. No one wanted someone who was clearly in a bad way health-wise. And what time she did have, she needed to concentrate on improving her skills or finding employment.
Medicaid covered her hospitalization for a staph infection. She was only able to get medication from Medicaid or if the drug co had a program where it gave it to poor people.
These people at the bottom live a life you have no idea of. Just getting up and functioning on a daily basis is difficult for many of them. Besides physical issues, they battle with depression and other mental problems, either original problems or as a result of their low lives at that point.
My sister would not have been able to participate in a volunteer program. She couldn't have afforded it money-wise or time-wise. Her transportation, her old car, wasn't even reliable. If she had been told she had to, in order to get the piddly food stamps they dole out, she wouldn't have gotten the stamps. She wouldn't have been able to handle the situation.
And that's the way it is for many of them, down there at the bottom.
And that is why almost NO people in Maine are getting the food stamps, now. It's not because they're all home smoking and eating and drinking and living it up and refusing to work, as some people seem to envision.
Someone should put you in their shoes for a year for you to see what it's like. It is shameful to browbeat the poor begrudge them a pittance in food stamps, when you're more than happy to shell out billions of dollars to Exxon and GE and BP.
The difference between Republicans and Democrats (I'm neither) is that Democrats lose sleep worried that someone somewhere is not getting what they should get, and Republicans lose sleep worried that someone somewhere is getting something for nothing.
BTW, my sister FINALLY got a part time job as a sitter watching homebound invalids. It paid next to nothing, but at least it paid. I think it was $5/hour. No benefits. Unfortunately, it came too late. Not long after she got the job, my sister, who would not have been recognized as "sick" under a govt program, had a massive stroke at a young age and is now an invalid in an old age nursing home for the rest of her life. With the govt paying for it.
There should be better programs to help people dig themselves out, when they've tumbled to the bottom. Most do want to better their situations. Most are not freeloaders. Most have made mistakes and suffered the consequences, and can't get out of the situation. Once you've made mistakes, people generally don't give you another chance (unless you're a politician).
So, yes....I know a thing or two about "these people," as another poster called them.
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