That only reduces rent to 30% of the person’s income - it is NOT free housing! If you make $100/month then it reduces the out of cost pocket to $30… which is still money you, the poor person, have to come up with. THAT portion is NOT “paid directly to the landlord”. So that portion will either be cash or check… unless there are landlords out there who take plastic. Again, I’m not aware of any, and I’ve been renting for 30 years in two different states so yeah, I know a tiny bit about renting one’s residence.
^ And this.
If you’re NOT on rent assistance you’re SOL on this deal.
I am extremely fortunate that I rent from a tolerant private individual who is NOT charging us late fees on rent… because the brutal fact is that I can not cover the rent until the first paycheck of the month these days, meaning I am usually between 5 and 10 days late every single month for the past year, with one exception (the month after I got my tax return last spring). MOST landlords, especially management company types (the ones most likely to use plastic, if any), make no exceptions and if you don’t pay the rent IN FULL the late fees apply. Partial rent payments will not save you. The only time I ever managed to negotiate a pass on a late fee (outside my current arrangement) was when both my parents were in the hospital, in intensive care, with pneumonia (one unconscious and one delirious) and I had to travel 250 miles from another state to pay the damn rent a day late… in THAT case they said, alright, we won’t charge you a late fee. Exceptional circumstances and all.
This is a problem with the very poor who have chronic cash-flow problems. They get charged late fees a lot. It’s not that they don’t want to pay, it’s because they can’t - you can’t give someone money you don’t have. If the money is coming the day after rent is due you’re SOL, you’re paying a late fee.
Is it an option to have it deposited to a checking account? So you’re fine with the poor losing 14.45 per month- would you be willing to throw an equivalent amount for yourself- say $200 per month- into some banker’s pocket? It’s price gouging, something the poor know all too well.
Most poor know better than to spend their money at a fortune teller. Are you channeling Ronald Reagan and his old welfare queen stories?
I don’t see how a checking account solves this problem. How are you getting the funds from TANF into your checking account? You’re visiting the ATM and pulling out cash and then depositing it into your checking account. Only now you’re doing it $25 a day, with daily fees, instead of $250 (or whatever) all at once.
I also don’t see how this thwarts our hypothetical gamblers and fortune teller seekers. It may slow them down a bit, and cost more, but if they can get cash, albeit slowly, they can still blow it on activities you don’t approve of.
(Also, has anyone run into a plethora of ATMs that will actually dispense $25? All the ones I know work in $20 increments. I think I did find one once that would do $10s. So this $25 limit is, in reality, a $20 limit.)
Have you tried to open a checking account lately? It’s quite common for banks to require a minimum balance. Not always, but far from unheard of. Keeping an untouched $100 in the bank at all times can be a problem for poor people, is it that hard to understand?
No one is objecting to THAT part of the bill… what most of us are objecting to are the bank fees. Yes, they’re small, but it’s the principal of the thing, why are the banks profiting off government benefits that are supposed to be going to the poor?
Prevent the poor from spending money at fortune tellers and gambling. WITHOUT imposing bank fees and you’ll hear a lot fewer objections. Seriously, it’s like trying to find someone who objects to the ban on using food stamps for alcohol - no one objects to that restriction. But charging people on food stamps a bank fee every time they buy food would be seen as outrageous by a non-zero portion of the populace. Likewise, if you’re making a cash benefit available to people (which is what TANF is, or at least it can be utilized in that fashion) then charging poor people a fee that goes to the bank for using those benefits is disgusting. Why are the banks getting that welfare money? At least the shopkeepers are handing over needed goods.
IF there’s a cost to the banking end of this have the frickin’ STATE pay for it (that’s what my state does… you know, another one of those conservative Red States) as a budgeted item instead of sucking at the benefits of the poor.
How close is your nearest ATM? The closest to me is 9 miles away. A lot of poor people have problems with checking accounts–you don’t keep close track of the money in your account–and there is a $15 fee for bouncing a check–and then another one and another one.
The big problem with TANF in the last few years is that most states have frozen the benefit levels since 1996–and virtually none have increased benefits to match inflation:
Personally, I think living in $420 a month is the best incentive not to waste money. The Kansas proposal like giving someone five cans of beans to feed them for an entire month, but also forcing them to use chopsticks so they don’t eat too quickly.
In my area $420/month means you’re in a homeless shelter - you can’t rent a single room in this area for under $500/month and, as noted, there’s a 10 year waiting list for rent assistance.
I didn’t say there were posts here saying that. But now there are, see below.
I’m not into those things. Stop me or don’t, the result is the same.
Here’s one thing I also do not do: ask for anyone else to cover the cost of my food, clothing or housing. I am happy to contribute to feeding, clothing, and housing those who are in need of such things, but if your “need” is for help covering the cost of fortune tellers or you are in need of help to buy food because you squandered your funds on gambling, I’m not seeing why the rest of us should participate in your horrendous financial choices. Freeing up cash and enabling poor people to spend money on things that are financially detrimental to their lives is not helpful.
I am basing my assumption that one may get the funds deposited into a bank account on the Liz Schott quote in the article: “This makes it nearly impossible for a recipient who does not have a checking account to pay rent.” I do not know for a fact that it is an option, but I think that’s what she is saying.
$200 is not an equivalent amount for me, but I spend quite a bit on bank account maintenance fees and such, and could avoid this entirely by juggling accounts around. Since I don’t care enough to do so, yes, lining my bank’s pockets is not an issue for me.
They aren’t “activities I don’t approve of,” but activities that cost money that the recipient ostensibly needs for activities associated with actual well-being, like eating or shelter from the elements.
So choose a bank that doesn’t have those charges–the existence of banks that do is irrelevant. And yes, keeping an untouched $100 in the bank is not necessarily easy, but it IS hard to understand why people defend the practice of living check-to-check indefinitely. We should be helping people get out of that cycle, not propping up their “right” to do so without financial consequence.
Poor people are often in circumstances where massive amounts of cash are thrown away in check cashing “fees” from predatory businesses. An 85 cent charge for using an ATM is trivial.
Wait, so banks are charging fees for banking services? Why I never!
At least so far, we don’t prevent grocery stores from being paid for groceries under food stamps, and we don’t prevent landlords from being paid rent under housing assistance. Why should banks be required to provide services for free? Because banks?
Do you not understand any of the posts so far that have explained the difference between allowing one large withdrawal, with its subsequent single fee, and the new standard of many $25 withdrawals, each one carrying a separate banking fee…or are you pretending not to understand?
I live in a place with stores and banks and I’ve noticed that many other places are similar in this respect, so locating such a place should be doable. I highly recommend relocation to a place with nearby stores and banks if one does not have the funds to stockpile necessities or cover the high cost of commuting.
Yes, a lot of poor people DO have problems with checking accounts, I’m glad you brought that up. Lack of ability to control one’s spending and to keep accurate track of one’s money very often DOES lead to poverty. While this seems obvious and unsurprising, many reject the “maybe a lot of poor people are bad with money” hypothesis out of hand as offensive and unfair. If someone can’t handle a checking account, maybe they should have their purchases restricted somehow? But nooo, that is considered paternalistic and cruel–they have a “right” to free cash to spend as they please. Even the idea that they not be able to purchase soda or candy on foodstamps is met with howls of protest. They “need” to be able to access all of their benefits in cash for free every month, have no bank account, have no spending restrictions, and never have a single penny set aside to prepare themselves for any future need. They are simultaneously exactly like the rest of us, but excused from any expectations of managing or bothering to add and subtract.
I checked out your article, but I don’t agree with the premise. Why am I supposed to care if benefits increase or decrease? I care about whether they are sufficient to meet the needs of the recipients, not their value with relation to purchasing power of the past.
You know what the pro-$25 a day withdrawal limit side is missing?
Any cites or quotes from economists who will say that restricting access to money is an incredibly beneficial thing that will achieve any of your policy aims.
The liberal version of this might be to restrict Wall Street trading so that all buy and sell orders would have to be mailed in, as opposed to electronically trading securities. Slowing down the Wall Street fat cats would surely stop them from doing risky things with debt and stocks that sound awful to us common people.
How is that any different than a currency exchange charging a fee each time a paycheck is cashed or a money order is purchased? People using those services must pay on a per usage basis.