11.50 a hour alone and cant make it need advice! (credit rating, 2015, degrees)
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Hello Everyone,
I hope this post is in the right place??? I will try to make this short....
I am a bit older and retired and have a fantastic friend that is a widower, late 40s and her deceased husband had a good middle class job and left NO life insurance ( stupid I know ) well, he passed suddenly and now my friend has to work so, she is a cna/ med tech and only earns 11.50 a hour !!
She was left with a mortgage she couldn't afford, funeral expenses and to make matters worse, she had cancer after he passed its now in remission, but she also has a heart issue and has a heart Holter monitor so she isn't in the greatest of shape but not awful but its a struggle for her.............
I dont think she can get social security disability because she only has worked about 2 years. she earns over poverty level>>>>11.50 x 40= 460>>> 460 x 52 weeks =$23,920 a year thats gross
she nets about $16,900.00 >>> thats after taxes and her health insurance she now has.....
she has bad credit now because of all the bills and her not working when she had her cancer. She lives in a small place with her 30 year old son and really has no where to go...
correction to what we posted below about the car issue
Our family got her a car for $3000 because her other car cost so much to fix and needed over 1000 in work so we got her a new car
shes trying to make good on the past debts and pay all the daily living expenses like food, electric, help with rent and fuel and other things it takes to live.
she also has a $65,000.00 hospital bill and STILL is paying slowly on that and paying off credit cards she had to use when her husband passed away... she is head strong on paying the credit cards and debts even slowly because shes a HONEST person and wants to pay what she owes.. shes just that nice!!!!
My question is what can be done to help her get her own place??? she said she tried for section 8 and food stamps but was told she earns to much. She is basically homeless she cant stay with her son forever she is a true victim of circumstance I feel for her I really do...........
She has no savings, NONE... she had to use it when her husband passed then once that went dry she had to use credit cards............... she is one car repair away from disaster!!! we allow her to use our credit card for car repairs and she pays it EVERY TIME!! she just paid off $1200 that accumulated for car repairs!!!
Is this what america has come to??? I feel helpless!!! she is so stressed, I want to help and we have with several thousand dollars ( not asking for it back) but now we cant do more and if she looses her place with her son because they argue and its not a decent place very dirty and in a bad end of town... before her husband died they were very comfortable and now look.................. any advice on what to do??? she is in the state of Florida...... any advice is appreciated.
I will stop here and not rant on how unfair her wages are.... she works to be poor................. very sad and it seems this is so common!!! I feel terrible for her but cant help anymore than we already do... If we could buy her a house we would!!! but we do not know where to turn and hope you folks that read this may have some good advice................... Thank You...
her parents are deceased and has no family that can help brothers and sisters are struggling too...
very sad .............. I guess this is America...............
Your friend needs to switch jobs. Hers is too physical for her health issues. This is what I do for a living, see the link. Her experience as a CNA is perfect for this. Great job with great perks, medical benefits,401k and disability even for past medical issues considering you do not file for 1 year. That shocked me in reading that. 18.5 hr shifts- I work 37 hrs in 2.5 days. I am paid to sleep. She should only accept ASLEEP SHIFTS where they provide a private bedroom, bath, shower, internet, desk & fridge. She'll need a working car w/insurance or forge a copy of it which many employees do at first until they can afford to buy basic car insurance. There are many supportive living agencies. Here is the job description for one of them https://sacramento.craigslist.org/edu/5934870173.html
I was moved up to Supervisor but the benefits are the same. If she is diagnosed as "disabled" she qualifies for SSI which is about $825 here in California.
Put her name on every low income apartment complex waiting list you can so she'' only pay out 30% of her income. She can always decline when her name comes up. It can take years to get in
If she is only making $11.50 per hr, see if she is willing to change jobs. Supportive living jobs are available where she can get all of her hours completed in 2-3 days doing 18- 18.5 hr shifts in a stint. Make sure they are ASLEEP SHIFTS. Any awake shifts means major behavior problems and it's difficult to stay awake all night. I have full benefits- free medical, great other perks. And I can take extra shifts for $13.50 per hr if I want. I also work my husbands business 1-2 days a week for extra $$.
OR your friend needs to work very part time- get food stamps on the side. Make $$ under the table. And get moving into a low income apartment complex where she pays a set 30% of her income. So sorry she is enduring this, you are a great friend to her.
My job has a TON OF DOWNTIME after Client goes to bed. So many of us have side-gigs.
-I sell on EBAY & Amazon. My client and I shop thrift stores while on the clock. I list the items, take photographs etc. after she's in bed.
Answering emails. I also sell on Amazon.
-Another Co-Worker does taxes. She works on them for a few hours each shift at the desk we are provided in the room
-Another Co-Worker sells on Etsy. She makes home-made jewelry, working on it for a few hrs a night
-Another co-worker brings groceries and chops her veges for the next few days. Sets up a crockpot on high w/ a ham hock and cooks her meals for family. Split pea soup, etc... Before client wakes up, she loads crockpot in the back of her car.
So we all add $200+ to our monthly incomes this way. The lady who does taxes adds $400-$600 a month during tax season
Last edited by NancyDrew1; 01-11-2017 at 01:35 PM..
OP, this is reality for a lot of us. We do the best we can. She'd do well to pool her resources with her son in sharing a place together for now. Then maybe pursue a better job or some further training.
(4) Because of 1, 2, and 3, even though demand for CNA's are high, supplies for CNA's are even higher by magnitudes. Everybody and their mother wants to be a CNA these days.
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This isn't true at all. Most people who start CNA work will quit within about 6 months and there is a HUGE demand for CNAs. Nobody wants to do this work.
I agree that filing bankruptcy would be a sensible move for her in this situation, and to live with her son for as long as she can, so she can save up money. Or if you want to take her in and let her live with you for a while. She has a couple of advantages, 1) she is lucky to be getting free rent, because a lot of people earn $11.50 an hour and have to pay rent and 2) she's lucky she doesn't have young children to support right now. Her situation could be a lot worse than it is.
I also agree with the person who said that CNA jobs are not for people who have health issues. It is very physically demanding work, so if she has a heart problem, she shouldn't do this type of work for long. Perhaps she could work more as an assisted living caregiver, rather than a nurse aide.
Last edited by tassity22; 01-11-2017 at 01:34 PM..
"poor" is a reality that people have faced for millennia.
Does she have a TV? Cable? Smartphone? Those are all luxuries for someone poor and could be cut.
Can she move to a region with a lower cost of living? Maybe move to some Mayberry town where you can work at the local grocery store and get a roommate in a cheap - but nice - apartment.
Thats malarkey. Employers pay whatever they get away with. It has nothing to do with "worth". As long as the worker-employer balance of power is skewed in favor of one side, workers will suffer. That's why we've had 40 years of skyrocketing inequality, a redistribution of wealth from middle and low-income people to the top 1%.
This can change if we have the guts to take on the big money donor class. Organize and fight for a living $15 minimum wage (adjusted annually!), a national health care system along the lines of a Medicare-for-all system which guarantees every American the health care treatments they need without out-of-pocket expenses and organize to expand social security so seniors and low income people can live in dignity.
It can happen if we have the guts to take on the special interests and donors and dont buy into their deception.
Say what you really mean... You mean "It can happen if we turn America into a socialist state".
Bankruptcy. Sorry but it's the action to take that makes the most sense right now, it appears. The system is designed to only work for the upper middle class and everyone else below to depend on it. She needs to learn how to make the system work for her. File bankruptcy and get a clean financial slate and start over and lead a sustainable lifestyle on $11.50 an hour. Sucks I know. The united corporations of America you can thank for this wonderful system.
Bankruptcy won't remove medical debts, as I recall. A federal law was passed some years ago to prevent medical bills being wiped out by BR.
Your friend needs to find a second source of income. Pizza delivery, sales or whatever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PCALMike
Increasing the minimum wage helps people like this dramatically. She will have much better bargaining power over the employer. Thats a fact. No one should work 40 hours and live in desperate poverty. And healthcare should be a right for all people, just like the rest of the developed world. America is the only developed country that treats people with health issues like this and it must change. $15 minimum wage and a national Medicare-for-all health care system is the right way to go.
Now this is truly straight up false.
Employers don't have infinite pockets. When labor costs go up they cut people, they cut hours, or they raise prices. Either way you wind up with some people making more, more unemployment and everyone paying more for stuff.
Even the study being done by liberals on the Seattle min wage hike is admitting that its cutting hours worked, costing jobs and has raised prices.
Living wage is a myth. Companies pay people based on how much they earn for the company. Any artificial attempt to fiddle with this will result in them shifting that cost somewhere else.
When you start declaring things like healthcare, food and housing to be basic rights you have to provide them to people who for one reason or the other don't have them. The ONLY way to do that is to steal someone else's property and give it to them. So your infringing on another persons actual right to their property to give it to someone else because of a misguided notion that the world owes people a living.
We already have a great example of how government run healthcare system would work in this country. The VA. Its atrocious. Everything you would expect. Those Vets have free healthcare and they still can't get their basic healthcare needs met.
Why stop there if its so great. I mean if its so great to tax people more to provide services like this then why not just cut the BS and tax everyone 100% then split the money evenly between everyone regardless how much you work or what type of job. I mean is it really fair if a Dr is driving around a brand new BMW 7series when I have to drive around in a 5 year old Camry? Maybe they wouldn't even need to pay us, we could just fill out a request form online for a new TV / car / whatever and then they could just pay the company and ship it to us....if its gets approved. In fact the companies wouldn't even need to pay the government anything. The government could just direct the companies on what to produce and who to distribute it to..... Oh wait, there already is a system like this thats been tried repeatedly with disastrous results. Its responsible for more suffering and death in the 20th century than all the wars combined.
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