AP just caught how low the income levels are to received any government help by noting a $25 Stimulus check may cost you food stamps.
When President Barack Obama increased unemployment benefits as part of his economic stimulus, he also made some Americans ineligible for hundreds of dollars a month in food stamps. Under the economic recovery plan, laid-off workers have seen a $25 weekly bump in their unemployment checks as part of a broad expansion of benefits for the poor. But the law did not raise the income cap for food stamp eligibility, so the extra money has pushed some people over the limit.
The article comments this is what happens when bills are ramrodded through Congress and not even read, never mind analyzed. No kidding. It's ridiculous.
We do not get well crafted policy, we get power plays, strong arms and bills full of hidden loopholes and problems. The poverty levels are so low, to receive any government assistance you must either lie or be dead in a box somewhere.
Here are the 2009 poverty guidelines for the lower 48.
| Persons in family | Poverty guideline |
|---|---|
| 1 | $10,830 |
| 2 | 14,570 |
| 3 | 18,310 |
| 4 | 22,050 |
| 5 | 25,790 |
| 6 | 29,530 |
| 7 | 33,270 |
| 8 | 37,010 |
| For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person. | |
For one person that is $902.5 dollars a month. Who thinks one can rent a studio in many cities for that amount? Food stamps are also graduated.
I have a personal story on this
I was actually on food stamps a while ago and when I was a kid. It's from a disabled person's point of view. No charts really, but I could detail some expenses to show how impossible it is to live on Food Stamps and that other so-called help...aka Medicaid.
- JV
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www.venomopolis.com
suggestion
How about digging out the statistics intermixed with personal experience? The stats are there We have something like 20% of the country on food stamps yet we know the poverty line is such one cannot even pay rent with those numbers. and without kids, they will not pay for shelter for people.
The reason I am not fond of personal stories is because what happens is readers focus in on that individual and look for reasons to reject their experience. So, they can easily say "on that's just that guy and it's obvious that guy is a blankety blank" because there are no large numbers to prove that particular story is the rule and not the exception.
Also, in my view it takes away from getting any real policy/legislation change. You get people saying "that's awful" instead of "that's stupid" and we should change the system now to x,y,z. They empathize instead of seeing it as a systemic problem.
I've seen this happen over and over with Professionals who were squeezed out of their careers. They tell their story, then get character assassinated, all to deny this is a corporate agenda...to labor arbitrage professional workers, esp. tech workers. Let's say someone lost it and committed suicide. Well, the focus will be on their "chemicals" in their "brains" and looking for "personal issues" as the cause...instead of correlating that to financial ruin and being denied the right to work, a fundamental esteem issue in the U.S. and it should be a right for every American to have a good paying, stable job when they work hard. But the focus will be trying to categorize that person as just some fringe crazy instead of acknowledging the treatment of labor is a direct correlation to this unfortunate increase in self-inflected harm.
Why Pay Rent? Just Get One of Those
'NO MONEY DOWN" mortgages. Ride it out for as long as you can, and bail.