In 2007 I was working for Blue Cross Blue Shield, assisting medical researchers from making travel arrangements, scheduling meetings with participants on several continents, to retrieving medical documentation from medical libraries.
Also in 2007 the company switched from assistants that made travel arrangements to having employees doing it themselves via web, outsourcing meeting planning/support, and employing a company based in Bangalore, India that would receive e-mailed requests for on-line journal articles and have them in the researchers in box by 8 am the next morning. At which point my services were no longer needed by BCBS and I was laid off. Thus, advancing technology rendered my profession skills superfluous. I was fortunate to leave with a generous severance package of one year’s salary.
As I had never in my adult life been unemployed long enough to collect unemployment I initially had great optimism I would soon be back to work, with a windfall in the bank.
It was not to be.
After a month of fruitless job hunting I realized the Great Recession was different to prior recessions I had experienced. Despite a bachelor’s degree and 25 year work history with no interruptions I could not even get an interview, much less a job. We had cut back our budget, and unemployment helped, but the money slowly trickled away. My landlord, in an effort to help us out, started employing me first to do maintenance on the building we lived in, then in cleaning up on job sites (he was a general contractor), and finally progressing to doing actual work assisting him with drywall, plumbing, carpentry, roofing, and other projects. Unfortunately, the construction trades were also hard hit and in a year or two he was having trouble finding work for himself and had to let the rest of his crew go, down to using me occasionally when he needed help and could afford to pay me. I did look into getting into an apprenticeship program because, after all, I was now doing work in the trades but was flat out told I was 10 years to old to do so, there was an age limit on entering such programs and I exceeded it. Meanwhile, my self-employed husband was likewise losing customers because people just didn’t have the money to spend on items that weren’t vital to their existence.
After four years the money ran out. I had stretched one year’s salary for three years, then threw in our savings. After four years we were down to a sum of one and a half month’s of rent in the bank and no income whatsoever.
And that’s why I applied for food stamps. (while still applying for jobs anywhere and everywhere I could). My initial application was a two page form and 20 pages of supporting documentation. I had to resubmit such documentation every 6 months for the four years were on the program.
For the next three years I pieced together rent money by doing odd jobs, scrapping, selling personal possessions (which is not as easy as people assume it will be), and asking relatives for assistance when we were really desperate. I was heartily ashamed as an adult that had been self-supporting for over 20 years, and head earner in the household for 10, when I had to ask my dad to pay our rent but the alternative was to be homeless and lose everything. For about 8 month from 2009 into 2010 I was able to get work from the US Census, which was a godsend although we lost our qualification for SNAP during that time due to the influx of money. After the Census, though, I could reapply for SNAP and it was another year of floundering until I obtained work as a cobbler.
During that year I was required to enter “job assistance” as a now long-term unemployed person (never mind all the part time odd job work I had been doing - I was considered completely unemployed because no one was signing a regular paycheck for me). So I had to report to a “job center” for 25 hours a week so someone could look over my shoulder to make sure I actually was applying for jobs. Which I was. By the way, this ended my work helping out a general contractor since I was now obligated to be at the job center instead of at the work site (because the contractor work was day labor it was not considered a job for the purposes of the benefit programs - I went from making $60-150/week to NOTHING thanks to that!) or lose the money that provided food for us to eat on a regular basis. I was asked if I needed help getting my GED. I pointed out I had a four year degree already. I was asked if I needed drug or alcohol counseling. I said I didn’t have a drug problem, would take a piss test on the spot to prove it if it would make them happy, and hadn’t had alcohol since 2008 cause I freakin’ couldn’t afford it and thought food more important. I was asked if I needed child care. I said I was in my late 40’s and had never had children, so no. The counselor looked at me, sighed, and said that the system was clearly never set up for the like of me and the other 20 people she’d talked to that day that, like me, had a long stable job history until 2007 when everything went off the rails. Nonetheless, I was still submitting applications. About once a year I’d be asked to come for an interview that would invariably be at least 50 other people all vying for the same job.
Anyhow, I eventually landed a job as a cobbler - on my own initiative, not through the job center - and that worked out well enough… but about 18 months into it the business faltered and the owner decided to “solve” her problems by simply not paying her employees. I attempted to work things out with her, but she stopped answering the phone. I went to the labor board, who found in my favor and the owner told me to fuck off. As she owed me a couple thousand dollars and we were now in debt because we had had no income for four months before I found another cobbler job I felt I had no choice but to sue her for the money. She then told me I was a fool, the court would never take my word over hers, threatened to ruin me, called me and threatened me on the phone (she left voice mails, if you can believe that)… and I won in court. And had to get in line behind the other people who she owed money, starting with the Federal IRS and Indiana Department of Revenue so instead of getting the money up front it dribbled in at $100/month… which immediately reduced our SNAP benefit because it was counted as income so at the end of the month we were no better off. Other than the satisfaction of winning my case and making the bitch pay, which was something, but that didn’t really help us financially.
When I went to collect unemployment for that job I was first accused of fraud, because the state had no record of such a company. I was able to prove via pay stubs that I had in fact worked for this person which is what started the state (and later Federal) investigations that lead to the IRS going after the owner. If I had not been able to prove that I could have been fined or even sent to jail, so good thing I had insisted on paperwork. Many of my coworkers had accepted payment under the table/strictly in cash so they were screwed - no proof they had been employed, no legal recourse, no way to collect unemployment. Two of them wound up on the streets.
The second cobbler job was going along until a coworker attempted to physically assault me. Because I refused to go back to a job where my safety was at risk the unemployment folks deemed that I had “quit voluntarily” and I could not collect unemployment. Because I had “quit voluntarily” my SNAP benefits were also in jeopardy and I was given two weeks to get another job or lose our benefits for six months - not just SNAP but also our Medicaid, which we needed to keep my diabetic husband in daily medications. I was told several times that if I had allowed the coworker to actually hurt me I would have not faced these penalties but since I had evaded injury there was not sufficient proof for my side of the story, thus, the “you quit voluntarily” determination. My husband was contacted by a social worker and “advised” that if his wife kept having so many problems keeping a job his best course of action was to divorce me and move out so he could apply for benefits on his own, and a social worker gave him several names of lawyers to facilitate that. I mean, fuck us for trying to stay together and support each other, and fuck me for wanting to get paid and NOT wanting to have my skull cracked open by a steel hammer, right? Let’s bust up a stable marriage instead. :rolleyes: “Foolishly” my husband and I decided to remain married.
Around that time the State of Indiana had FINALLY come up with a job search program designed for people who had degrees and experience but couldn’t fucking find another job. I was in the first group. And you know what? THAT finally helped - not one of us in the initial group finished the program because, finally, we ALL found jobs.
I was hired by my current employer. Initially it was part-time shelf stocking, which I was GLAD to do even if I was enormously overqualified because 1) my prior profession was gone and not coming back and I didn’t have a problem starting over at entry level in something new and 2) I was fucking relieved to be working in a place where my paychecks didn’t bounce and no one was trying to hurt me.
Within a year I was full time with benefits and a 401(k). I am currently making twice what I did when I started there 5 years ago and am now back to (lower) middle class. And yes, back to paying taxes. I am even starting to make some money again doing freelance work on the side, yay me. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to retire one day.
So… no, I wasn’t blowing my money on booze, cigarettes, alcohol or lottery tickets - didn’t buy any of those for a decade (and thank Og I’ve never been a smoker). In addition to looking for work and working when I could get it I also had a large garden and grew most of our vegetables. I bartered for eggs from friends and neighbors with chicken. I went to food pantries. I sold possessions. I asked for help from relatives but a lot of them were losing jobs (my sister who had a master’s degree was out of steady work for years, too, and did in fact become homeless after a car accident destroyed her means of transportation and left her oldest brain injured - she spent three months couch surfing before getting a permanent living arrangement again. Again, no drugging, no boozing, just job loss and a catastrophic injury in a family member). By 2010 the ONLY member of my family still employed was my sister with an MD and my dad but only part time - every other adult was no longer working - mom due to disability (officially determined, heart disease and vascular dementia), dad because he cut back on hours because mom needed a caregiver, my other sister due to aforementioned catastrophe, my Dr. Sister’s husband’s business failed in the bad economy so he was unemployed, my spouse’s business had failed in the bad economy so he was unemployed, the niece and nephews were out of work (one of them due to disabling injury)… in 2006 we had ALL been working full time except mom. It was a disaster for the entire family.
I had done everything “right” - I had gotten an education, a stable marriage, a husband with more education than I had, I hadn’t had kids we couldn’t afford, no expensive vices, unbroken work record, good work record… and it took less than four years to fall from solid middle class and a year’s salary in the bank to OMFG we’re going to be on the street next month. We we stayed there for SIX FUCKING YEARS. Because in no small part ageism DOES exist, and once your on SNAP or poor or haven’t had steady work for awhile you are ASSUMED to be a fuck up and undesirable so the longer it takes you to get a job the less likely you are to be employed.
Again - educated, totally clean legal record, excellent work history, no vices and it took six fucking years to get back to “real tax payer citizen” status.
My sister who lost everything due to an accident and disabled kid? She is STILL living in poverty, STILL on benefits, and both her kids are dead now. Honestly, I’m somewhat surprised she hasn’t ended it all, but we’ve never gotten along and she doesn’t really talk to me.
So yeah, it pisses me the fuck off when you insinuate that people who use SNAP or Medicaid are life-long free-loading parasites, lazy, stupid, uneducated, etc. Because I am none of those things, I suffered for years, and I get tired of hearing people such as yourself demean and verbally kick those who are down and out and struggling to claw their way back up the economic ladder. MOST people who use those benefits are like me - something bad happened, and they’re trying to pull themselves up and do better. Your constant nattering about how the poor are lazy, stupid, uneducated, breeding, full of vice, etc. DOES NOT HELP. That is CLEARLY how you see every poor person with absolutely no notion that yes, bad luck can and does happen to even the best of people.
So yeah, I AM a little bitter about it all.
Being poor did not make me a bad person. Not being poor does not make me - or you - a good person.
