Disgusted

[pecunium]

I am suffering from the strange sense of abused/ashamed, silly, and angry.

About six weeks ago I shucked foolish pride and applied for food stamps. A about the beginning of Sept. they sent me a letter with an appointment date; today. I collected the various documents to prove that I was, in fact, poor; which was when I saw they had me being interviewed about Medi-Cal. Not only did I not apply for Medi-Cal, I am not eligible (because I am, for the same reaons I was applying for food stamps, completely covered by the VA).

So, at five minutes past eight I called my case worker and she said that wasn't a problem, she'd fix the coding, come in.

So I did. Saw the man at the desk, called her office, told her machine I was there. She came out, about the time my app't was scheduled, and told me they were still working on the food stamps vs. Medi-Cal issue.

About half an hour, and a couple more reassurances, they noticed what I'd not known when I filled out the application. East Palo Alto (where I live) is in San Mateo Cty. I'd applied in Santa Clara. No good. The money comes from the state, but the counties administer it, so my application wasn't valid.

I trundled my (more than a trifle disappointed/frustrated) self to the San Mateo Office, tolerably sure that by the time any benefits were being decided, the GI Bill would have arrived and I'd be collecting enough money that I'd be denied (because this go round has taken something like seven weeks).

But I filled it out, and waited around and got called back (which hadn't happened in Santa Clara; the San Mateo office was much quieter, and less haunted by despair and hopelessness, but I digress).

He's asking me questions (why I'd waited so long, etc.), and it seems I am going to get a fast turnaround grant (they can give you aid in as little as three days...), when I said I was in school.

Oops. Seems going to school, and being unemployed, makes one ineligble. One has to be available for full-time work, and a student is presumptively unable.

The only way around it is to have a job, which pays one a weekly wage equal to 20 hours of the federal minumum wage. The more time I spend at the margins of the system, the more I appreciate the parctical ways in which the poor are forced to stay poor. "Why don't they go to school, and improve themselves?"

Because if they do, they starve.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I have a strong hunch that this is a case of the Law of Unintended Consequences - in other words, that lawmakers' intentions were anything but keeping people stuck in poverty. But when policy is made by people who haven't been in that situation and who don't ever actually talk to those who are, stupid decisions are made.

Unfortunately starving because people are stupid and unimaginative is just as bad as starving because they're malicious.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

No: this is deliberate policy. Getting benefits is hard because it keeps numbers down. And keeping numbers down is good for getting votes.

So there are people who are making these policy decisions to STOP giving people benefits, and they know what it means. They just don't care. They are probably Randites who think that people who are poor are cattle who don't deserve help anyway.

I am a big fan of not attributing to malice what can be explained by stupidity, but this is a kind of wilful stupidity that I have a hard time telling apart from malice. After all nobody thinks they're evil: they rationalize their choices telling themselves that it's tough love, or that taxpayer money should not go to the poor because they are by definition not deserveing and so on: still makes me want to spit on them.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Because I am cold-hearted and convinced that economics actually is a zero-sum game, I actually believe that getting benefits SHOULD be hard, in some ways. I just think they are making hard in entirely the wrong ways.

First of all, it shouldn't be a shaming process. Taking care of those in need is what a civilized society does, or should be.

I have no problem with people being required to go through a bunch of steps or to provide proof of poverty. But the only point of that should be to make sure that you have to be motivated by real need; it should never be impossible. That means the system needs to deal with disabilities and realities, including for example the realization that someone who's poor may not have a (working) car. I don't mind it being a pain in the ass, frankly; I do mind there being loopholes and catch-22s that mean that someone who needs help and is willing to do the work to ask for it, can't get what they need.

Starvation in a rich country is shameful indeed, but not to the person doing the starving.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't use the word "stupidity." I'd call it what it is is: evil. There are too many people who have the "fuck you, Jack, I'm all right" attitude in the United States. I see it all the time in the "vent" column of my local paper. It boils down to "Why should I pay taxes to help anyone, since I work for everything I have?"

The idea that what they (or I) have is the result of a society that ensures that property exists being completely alien to them, as is the idea that unless they contribute to maintaining that society, the order that they think is automatic will collapse. The fact that a "self-regulating" market failed to self-regulate having completely eluded them. Some people, I swear, are too thick to see what is right in front of them.