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Well, alrighty, then. Let's have you take the food stamp test. We'll give you $265 a month to buy food for yourself. Let's see you take that amount of money and last a month on it.
I've been training my autistic older brother to live on food stamps for several months now, after he recuperated from open heart surgery. This is the first time he's lived on his own, and I'm coaching him every day on how to budget for food and how to budget for personal items (e.g., razor blades to shave & dental floss).
So far, I'm doing pretty good at stocking the refrigerator & pantry on food stamps for several months in a row.
In my household as a kid, with my mom working to support us doing manual labor, she never made it a question if my sister and I would go to college. It was ingrained in us that we would continue education after high school. We both worked part time and commuted to university. In return, we were allowed to live at home without paying rent. We both graduated with bachelor degrees, my sister becoming an engineer.
Good for your mom! Similarly, a friend I met at work grew up in the ghetto in Newark, born in the 1960s. I was a white suburban kid, not rich compared to some of our neighbors, but we had everything we needed. She was bitten by a rat as kid, her mom carried a bolt cutter to get back in to the apartment when the Sheriiff's office locked them out for not paying rent, knowing he would not come back to the 'hood after dark. Six kids, father had another woman and other kids.
But her mother volunteered as a teacher's aide and made sure her kids got into Head Start and every other program.offered by the schools. Five of the six went to college. One messed up and did some time but eventually managed to do something legal for a loving. My friend married, lives in a leafy burb and both her kids have finished college. A mother can be a great influence.
I don't blame my mother. She loved school but her family was poor and ignorany and her father had her quit to take care of a mentally and physically challenged sister when her mother had a breakdown. She married a disabled veteran at at 20 and had 7 kids. She spoke wistfully of being asked if she would be interested in becoming a buyer when she worked at Woolworth's, but my father came along, he was a kind man with a good job, and she saw that as her best opportunity to escape the life she knew.
Mom was intelligent and I discovered late in her life that my writing ability came from her. She took care of the family finances and made most of the important decisions, but she was always ashamed of not having graduated from high school, even in her 80s when no one knew or cated anymore.
You can't escape from a dungeon until you realize you are in one.
In my 20s I spent 9 years working in various Atlanta ghetto areas as a welfare worker. The words of one welfare mother have stuck with me to this day--- "my kids were crying because they were hungry"---and this is why I contribute to my local food bank.
It sounds judgemental to say it but most of these people, many of which were third generation welfare, were incredibly ignorant and their children, being raised in this atmosphere, tended to continue along the same path as they had no one to model better behavior for them.
Role models can be powerful - both positive and negative.
One private school I support focuses on providing role models. All the students are extremely disadvantaged; some are homeless and others do not have a stable adult at all (a parent one week, an uncle another, a friend of a friend the week after that).
Of course, there is no tuition as none of the students or their families, broadly speaking, can afford it. The school is 100% funded by contributions by people like me - (and more than one billionaire).
The school's focus on role models, so far, seems to be paying off. For example, during each vacation break, the school takes some of the children on an extended field trip to places such as state capitals, Washington DC, and New York City, and each child has an assigned adult mentor -- all to show and make tangible for the kids that there is economic life outside the several square blocks of where they sleep at night. The administration plans well in advance - a 1st grader will be exposed to formal German or French or Spanish with subsequent immersion for the following decade so that the child can take the AP Language test when they are in 12th Grade. Ask the kids, from 1st grade through 12th, "what do you want to be when you grow up" and you will hear amazing ambition: "I will go to West Point and I will become a General Officer of the United States Army." "I will study Neurobiology at Stanford and then get my PhD at Columbia." "I will be a Data Scientist at Google." "I will be Governor." (Why not President? "That job sux.")
Were they too ignorant to reap the benefits of taxpayer largesse, in the form of food stamps, section 8, and the rest of the litany of federal and state benefit programs? No (note the highlight above - generational welfare recipients know EXACTLY what benefit programs are available). If their children are hungry, it’s because they are choosing to not feed them. Perhaps they are trading their food stamp/SNAP benefits for drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol, or cash for a new iPhone or pair of Air Jordan’s. If their children are school aged and hungry, it’s because they aren’t sending their kids to school - otherwise those kids would be getting the free breakfast and lunch.
No. If kids are “crying because they’re hungry,” it’s 100% the fault of abusive parents.
Absolutely the fault of the parents. I can remember on home visits asking if I could see what was in their pantry.
This was in the late 60s - early 79s. They didn't have food stamps, they got "surplus food" which was a big box of various dry foods. The only item I remember was corn meal because the recipients were always complaining about getting yellow corn meal and for some reason they preferred white.
Regardless of the cause, there were children at that time and place who went hungry.
Last edited by Mightyqueen801; 12-23-2023 at 05:40 PM..
Reason: Quote tag
In my household as a kid, with my mom working to support us doing manual labor, she never made it a question if my sister and I would go to college. It was ingrained in us that we would continue education after high school. We both worked part time and commuted to university. In return, we were allowed to live at home without paying rent. We both graduated with bachelor degrees, my sister becoming an engineer.
Family support can mean a lot. My parents were not interested in me or my sister becoming educated as it had not played a part in their lives. Like their parents their view was that you grew up and got a job at a gas station or if you were lucky some manual labor job in a factory and that was it. So when I got bored and quit school at 16 it was no big deal to them; just part of life.
Fifty years later my mother told me that the school guidance counselor told my parents that I could be a doctor or a lawyer or anything I wanted if I put my mind to it. But it didn't mean anything to them as college was not for people like us so it was never mentioned to me.
And yet- "We've done a terrible job taking care of thebottom 30 percent of earners. So, y'all are wealthy and have money and stuff like that, but their average wages are $17 to 20 a year. They're the ones who lost their job in CoVid, they are the ones whose health...they're dying 5-6 years younger than us, they're the ones who don't have medical insurance. They are the ones whose schools don't work and they are the ones dealing with crime. What the Hell have we done as a nation?!"... Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan CEO
Perhaps wealthy and comfortable retirees should shut up, count their blessings and be grateful that their benefits have not been reduced. Yet.
Yes, but according to what I have read, 40 percent of senior have only their Social Security of their income, and that is why I am concerned for them, which is what I think I implied in my post.
Again, I am doing fine (knock wood) as I have savings and other income, but many seniors aren't as fortunate.
"Among Social Security beneficiaries, the SSA says that half of married couples and more than 70% of unmarried people get at least half of their retirement income from Social Security. Almost a quarter of married couples and more than 40% of unmarried senior citizens rely on Social Security for fully 90% of their income in retirement."
Sadly, COLA did not come close to the many increases in the cost of everything. The goal is to have everyone dependent on the government, and this is part of the plan. Everyone will eventually be in the same shape if it continues as it has these last couple of years. Each year the money, no matter how much is coming in or where it is coming from will buy less and less. Third world here we come.
Good for your mom! Similarly, a friend I met at work grewup in the ghetto in Newark, born in the 1960s. I was a whire suburban kid, not rich compared to some of our neighbors, but we had everything we needed. She was bitten by a rat as kid, her mom carried a bolt cutter to get back in to the apartment when the Sheriiff's office locked them out for not paying rent, knowing he would not come back to the 'hood after dark. Six kids, father had another woman and other kids.
But her mother volunteered as a teacher's aide and made sure her kids got into Head Start and every other program.offered by the schools. Five of the six went to college. One messed up and did some time but eventually managed to do something legal for a loving. My friend married, lives in a leafy burb and both her kids have finished college. A mother can be a great influence.
I don't blame my mother. She loved school but her family was poor and ignorany and her father had her quit to take care of a mentally and physically challenged sister when her mother had a breakdown. She married a disabled veteran at at 20 and had 7 kids. She spoke wistfully of being asked if she would be interested in becoming a buyer when she worked at Woolworth's, but my father came along, he was a kind man with a good job, and she saw that as her best opportunity to escape the life she knew.
Mom was intelligent and I discovered late in her life that my writing ability came from her. She took care of the family finances and made most of the important decisions, but she was always ashamed of not having graduated from high school, even in her 80s when no one knew or cated anymore.
You can't escape from a dungeon until you realuze you are in one.
Yeah, just to give you an idea of my mother's mindset about education, because of the war in Europe when she was a little girl, I don't even think she started high school. Their house was blown up and schools were closed for a long time I think. After the war, she stayed home helping her parents make ends meet. Her last year of school might have been when she was 11 or 12. Yet, she could read and write and do basic math as well as anyone. So education for her kids was very important to her.
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