This ↑↑↑
Srsly? I’m sure I’m missing some, but just off the top of my head:
EITC*
WIC*
Medicaid*
SNAP (“food stamps”)**
Heating assistance**
Pell grants**
TANF
Section 8 housing assistance
*My family currently receives
**My family has received in the past
Nearly all of those are unavailable to adults without children in the home. The section 8 waiting list in my area is ten years long.
Again - what safety net?
An adult without a child qualifies for food stamps, maybe EITC. Nothing else.
Again - what safety net? If the holes are large enough to fall through it’s not a net.
My sister and her adult son both live off disability. My sister because she has multiple health issues, most of which come from being a morbidly obese hypochondriac. She was employed in a retail setting until she quit, saying she’d rather work at McDonald’s than work there any longer. Of course, she didn’t go to work at McDonald’s or any place else. My nephew because he is supposedly bi-polar. Mind you, he managed to do well in school, scoring absurdly high on ACT. He dropped out of HS, worked nominal retail jobs until he was in a car accident. He was severely injured in the car accident, but still managed to get back to work eventually, until the store he worked in closed. Now he suddenly has a psychological disability and is morbidly obese as well.
They both get government checks, food stamps, and health insurance. They each go to probably 100 times as many doctors appointments in a year as I do. I won’t say they’re living high on the hog - they share a 2 bedroom apartment because they let the house my parents bought for my sister fall apart around them. (My parents subsidized my sister while they were alive because she was a single mom and they didn’t want to see their grandchildren do without.) The apartment is in a not-so-great complex. They often have had to choose between having cable or internet. Entertainment like the movies usually happens when someone else is willing to foot the bill. But they manage to eat well. My sister is a decent cook and good with coupons, sales, etc.
So yeah, I don’t think the poor are that bad off. My sister and nephew sleep til noon (unless they have a doctor’s appointment) and sit around all day watching TV and playing on the internet and watching the soap opera that is their apartment complex.
StG
Taking everything you say at face value…looks like the only way for a poor person to have it “not that bad” is to be sickly, be a hypochondriac, or be a malingerer.
I think you are basing your opinions on really big cities, where your statements about housing are mostly true. In smaller cities, there are many poor people who live in rental houses woth lots and out-buildings. In my small city, rental houses outnumber apartment-building units by a large margin.
Okay, then…no difference between now and 1930…whatever you say, chief. :rolleyes:
Believe me … if I had access to arable land, I would be a vegetable growing fool! Poor people these days are frequently stuck in an urban setting where there is just no way around the money-costing obstacles. Rents are often 30% or more of peoples’ income; food is much more expensive, relative to your income; apartment buildings almost never have any space where you are allowed to grow food. If you have no medical insurance, doctors and dentists are way beyond your means. Medical assistance programs no longer pay for dentures or hearing aids. Speaking for myself, I feel that in order to have any kind of quality of life as a modern poor person, you need to be pretty freaking clever.