I read an article sometime ago that asked if welfare, as it’s practiced here in this country, isn’t just a reward for the lazy.
What do you think – is it a reward for the lazy?
Unfortunately, I think yes, in too many cases it has become that – a reward for the lazy, for the deceitful, for those who are adept at conning others and more than anything else a reward to those who refuse to do the hard work of being a responsible parent, a responsible spouse or simply a responsible citizen. It seems that all the systems that our government (in other words, you and me and our tax dollars) has put in place to aid the needy have been over taken by the best liars and boldest contrivers among us while honest poor people – especially children and the elderly are not protected and the benefits we thought we were providing for them are going to these cheats and liars.
As a much younger woman I raised 5 children as a single parent by working 2 minimum wage jobs 7 days a week, with a lot of support from my family. It’s hard to believe now but at that time I did NOT qualify for food stamps. The reason – basically because I had no debt. I bought my kids shoes at the Salvation Army Store but in their words, I had too much disposable income – you figure that one out.
During that same winter in Salina, an older woman died because she was living in an old abandoned car shell during the Kansas winter, trying to stay warm by wearing all the clothes she had until she got gangrene under her armpits and eventually was taken to a hospital where she died.
This proud woman had supported herself her whole life by cleaning other peoples homes for cash so she had NO SS number and paid no taxes, had no drivers license. She also had no family that any one could find and her personal history was mostly a mystery. Almost everyone in town had seen her at one time or another since she walked everywhere she went and Salina’s just not that big a town. She was hard to miss, dressed all in black and more often than not wearing more layers of clothes than the weather called for. Eventually Social workers did get involved with her case, working diligently through all the frustrations involved in trying to get her some kind of public assistance – they had not succeeded at the time of her death.
The story ran in the newspaper after her death when it was too late for anyone to do anything to help her. In this case, perhaps her own stubborn pride was as much a stumbling block to getting her help as was the bureaucratic red tape.
My own years of struggling to get by back then were some of the best years in my life. Looking back at it, that food stamp refusal was the best possible outcome . That was my lucky day.
I had felt shame when applying in the first place and then felt shame again when they determined I wasn’t truly needy. That made me angry and that anger kept me going through all the hard times.
And just for the record, yeah, today is another one of those lucky days!
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This is the cat who came to stay with Granny – he’s an onery little cat. He’s supposed to stay over by the tree but he likes to climb.








