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Yea I agree with you, Them. If you are hungry, there are plenty of food banks, churches, soup kitchens, etc. that will feed you. Food stamps shouldn't be the default fix for being hungry.
I know the community is pretty tight among these kids in Williamsburg, I'm sure she has friends that will ask her over for dinner or give her some food if she's starving. There are a lot of other ways she can deal with it.
My fridge has been way more empty than hers and I've survived without going on food stamps. It's tough, but she's only 24, you have to work hard and establish yourself before you can have everything at once. She probably should move back to her hometown, work for her local newspaper for a few years, work her way up, instead of just plopping down in New York right out of college and expecting a job that will pay her a living wage, especially in the creative sector. That pretty much only happens on TV.
The average food bank church's and soup kitchen has food staples and rations provided by the monsanto corporation no self loving hipster wont eat that crape.
Gross Monthly Income for 1 person: $1,180; Net Income $ 908
You get to deduct
Quote:
A 20 percent deduction from earned income; A standard deduction of $147 for households sizes of 1 to 3 people A dependent care deduction when needed for work, training, or education; Excess shelter costs that are more than half of the household's income after the other deductions. Allowable costs include the cost of fuel to heat and cook with, electricity, water, the basic fee for one telephone, rent or mortgage payments and taxes on the home. (Some States allow a set amount for utility costs instead of actual costs.)
The amount of the shelter deduction cannot be more than $459 unless one person in the household is elderly or disabled.
When I got laid off in 2010, I did not qualify for food stamps even though my only income was $365 a week in UI benefits. In NYC. And my rent did not include heat and hot water, either.
Somehow, I lived. I'm sure this little princess will, too.
That says a lot. Obviously the field she choose does not pay much, which most of those creative type careers do not. Not initially anyway. It's nice to work in a field you can really enjoy but if it doesn't pay the bills then it might be time to get in to something else.
Well....she did choose a career where she is going to be fighting poverty her whole life. But like most "creative" types, she has a degree, and eventually she will leave her "writing" career and get a job as an office manager or for a company that gives her benefits and a 401K. Her current poverty is just a bump in the road.
And really, isn't that SUPPOSED to be the point of food stamps? I know this girl is going to survive. But it's sad to know that, althoug she doesn't qualify for food stamps now, if she went out and got some skinny hipster douche to impregnate her, then she could be on welfare in no time. And isn't that a problem? You have to get pregnant, or be on drugs, in order to qualify for government help?
I totally believe in a social safety net. I support Welfare. But I think welfare should be a TEMPORARY helping hand, not a way of life.
If this same girl had applied for food stamps, but she didn't have any student loans because she had dropped out of high school, and she had 4 babies at 24, and a crippling crack habit, then she would have gotten help in a second.
But instead, she laid the foundations for a better life, she got a college degree, didn't have any children before she was ready, stayed off drugs....and now she is told, by people on this board as well as the government, "Get over it hipster princess! Your life isn't so hard!!". She isn't saying her life is hard. She is saying she needs a little bit of TEMPORARY help to get her though some hard times she is going thru. Isn't that what food stamps ARE FOR!??
This young woman is going to be completely self sustaining one day, and because she has laid that foundation, she is treated more cruelly and deemed not as worthy for help than another girl her age that is a high school drop out, with kids, on drugs.
That is what is wrong with the current welfare system. It rewards bad behavior. It ENCOURAGES you to make as many bad decisions as possible, because the worse you behave, the more money you get.
Some things about his woman's story are ridiculous. She owns an IPhone? That seems like a waste of money. I can forgive a computer, she is a blogger, her computer is her paycheck. But an IPhone seems like a waste. I think it's commendable that she wants to repair old boots rather than buy new ones, to me that is not wasteful like some of you are saying, but again you can fix boots yourself at home...they just won't be pretty.
As far as her food situation, I sympathize, but I see several mistakes she is making. Unlike her, I was fortunate enough to grow up in poverty...so I know how to make a good meal on just $2.50 a day. She obviously does not possess the skills required to be able to stretch her food budget and learn to buy fresh healthy food and prepare it herself. But a lot of people her age and my age don't know how to do that...I don't fault her for it, but I hope she corrects that gap in her education rather quickly. That will do a lot to ease her problems. I wish everyone had to be taught to cook in high school. Home Ec should be required just like math and science.
Anyway, long story short, the thing that struck me most about this story is not that she owns an IPhone, or that she has a college degree so "get-over-it-you-will-be-fine-hipster-princess".
No, the thing that struck me most is that this girl has made a lot of good decisions in life, and she is going to eventually be able to completely sustain herself....and because of that she is deemed not worthy of help in the form of FOOD. She isn't asking for welfare to pay her rent, or go on a vacation, she wants FOOD.
But because she isn't a teenage mother or a crack addict or a high school drop out then she is told to stop being a princess.
There is something wrong with a system that says "You need help for only 2 years, and then you will be a productive member of society and pay back all the help you got in the form of taxes? GO TO HELL! We don't want your kind here!! Oh wait, you are a mother of 4 even though you are only 18? High school drop out? You are going to be on welfare for the rest of your life, and continue to have babies for welfare checks??? STEP RIGHT UP! Where have you been!! Let's get you some food stamps!"
Just saying that I, as an adult who has been a productive member of the workforce for over 30 years, did not qualify for the "temporary help" of food stamps when I lost my job. And believe me, when you live alone in NYC and you have to pay for heat and water, $365 a week doesn't go very far. Especially when you're trying to scrape together enough money to pay for classes to gain the new skills you need to get a job when you're pushing 50 (yes, I did try every free resource available, and there wasn't much... they were either subpar or had roadblocks at every turn--like needing a degree, which I don't have, to get state-paid training in my field).
I was also young and poor once, and didn't have the benefit of a college education, yet my family circumstances forced me to start supporting myself at 18. Think that was easy? No. I starved a lot, and learned to make and eat very cheap food. Those habits have stuck with me to this day. I too "benefited" from a background of poverty.
The problem with this girl is that she doesn't understand that not living "the lifestyle to which you've become accustomed" is not the same as true hardship. Not being able to have brunch with your friends is not true hardship. And I've never been to a cobbler (or had a manicure, or a pedicure) in my entire life. TRUE HARDSHIP is when you can't afford NECESSITIES, not LUXURIES. Where she's going wrong is at the very beginning... not knowing the difference. She could afford food without the help of food stamps if she temporarily deigned to "suffer" without the luxuries she currently deems necessities.
So yeah, she's a hipster princess. And this is coming from a dyed-in-the-wool liberal.
Just saying that I, as an adult who has been a productive member of the workforce for over 30 years, did not qualify for the "temporary help" of food stamps when I lost my job. And believe me, when you live alone in NYC and you have to pay for heat and water, $365 a week doesn't go very far. Especially when you're trying to scrape together enough money to pay for classes to gain the new skills you need to get a job when you're pushing 50 (yes, I did try every free resource available, and there wasn't much... they were either subpar or had roadblocks at every turn--like needing a degree, which I don't have, to get state-paid training in my field).
I was also young and poor once, and didn't have the benefit of a college education, yet my family circumstances forced me to start supporting myself at 18. Think that was easy? No. I starved a lot, and learned to make and eat very cheap food. Those habits have stuck with me to this day. I too "benefited" from a background of poverty.
The problem with this girl is that she doesn't understand that not living "the lifestyle to which you've become accustomed" is not the same as true hardship. Not being able to have brunch with your friends is not true hardship. And I've never been to a cobbler (or had a manicure, or a pedicure) in my entire life. TRUE HARDSHIP is when you can't afford NECESSITIES, not LUXURIES. Where she's going wrong is at the very beginning... not knowing the difference. She could afford food without the help of food stamps if she temporarily deigned to "suffer" without the luxuries she currently deems necessities.
So yeah, she's a hipster princess. And this is coming from a dyed-in-the-wool liberal.
I understand what you are saying. Too me, it's not a contest of who has a worse life. I could tell stories that would curl your hair, as I am sure you could as well.
I can feel sorry for her and still recognize that she could do things to improve her situation. I feel sorry for people that are depressed about their weight...even though I know they can control that. Yelling at someone "start excercising fatty!" is not helpful when they are already deep in depression.
That's just where I am coming from, it's a completely detached unemotional observation on my part. I think it sucks that it is so easy to get food stamps when you make bad decisions, but if you lay the foundations for a better life and work your ass off, then you get rejected. Much like you were rejected yourself.
It just seems like we as a society reward the worst type of behavior, that was my only observation.
I also have a special place in my heart of people that say they are hungry. I have been homeless and 17 years old before. I am 5ft 11 inches and at one point in my adult life I weighed 128 pounds. For those of you that have a hard time gauging Height/weight, that means I was starving. I didn't even have enough money to put a roof over my head, much less afford regular meals. I know what it's like to be hungry, so when I hear someone say "I can't afford to pay student loans" I go "meh". But when I hear someone go "I can't afford food", then that gets my attention. That's just me though.
Which is why to this day I get completely irked when people who are capable of working, don't. And they qualify for food stamps because they meet income requirements by being lazy and not working. But people like the blogger in this article DO WORK, and so they don't meet income requirements.
Bascially you are better off NOT working. You are better off NOT getting educated. You are better off having dozens of kids.
I know what it's like to be hungry, so when I hear someone say "I can't afford to pay student loans" I go "meh". But when I hear someone go "I can't afford food", then that gets my attention. That's just me though.
If I could live without food stamps when I was way worse off than Miss "WHAT, NO BRUNCH??", so can she. But I didn't see luxuries as necessities, as she obviously does. It's hard to feel sorry for someone who says "how can I eat without food stamps when I have brunch, an iPhone and THE COBBLER to pay for?" Whining like that falls on deaf ears with me. She CAN afford food. She just chooses not to. There are people who are truly needy, they're the ones who need food stamps. Not people who have other options, like she does.
JayBrown, I in general agree with your statement, the question is this: With limited funds, do we allocate money to those single, able bodied, educated people OR do we allocated funds to those who have children they can't afford (whether due to their own incompetence or sheer circumstance) to feed/house etc?
We do need to fundamentally change our system, and the one good thing about the economy tanking is that it did open a dialogue about the effectiveness of our safety nets and whether they need tweaking. In a perfect world she would get the temporary help she needs, and the stereotypical welfare mom with kids would get a new career and be self-sustaining. We do not live in that world, and with limited funds, I think it is clear why this woman did not receive the help she wanted.
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A 20 percent deduction from earned income;
