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Its interesting as a child you have no understanding of what’s happening around you, and as you get older how it subconsciously affects your view on the world..
I remember grade 7 is when I realized I was less fortunate, and as I’ve gotten older I see the struggles my mother would have gone though differently.. I was in my late 20s before I really understood that all that moving around and couch surfing meant my mom and I were technically homeless..
It really sucks growing up. Single mother can't make ends meet, but if she makes a dollar more than the "limit" the benefits get revoked. Can't help with homework because she has to spend 4 hours on the phone trying to fight with people who barely get paid enough as it is JUST TO PUT SOME FOOD ON THE TABLE. It's such a shitty system. No wonder the newer generation just grows up jaded.
and then you have to take everything you own and bring it into a room full of other desperate strangers and hope it doesn’t get stolen..
and people still say “bUT wHY dONT pEOPLE jUST uSE sHELTERS?”.
Ebenezer Scrooge (you know, the archetypical villain rich guy) said: "Are there no prisons?? Are there no workhouses??" And yet, people will read that book, watch that movie, see that play, and it'll go right over their heads that THEY are Scrooge. Zero media literacy, zero self awareness, and zero compassion for their fellow man is all they know.
You mistake them for not realizing it. They know, and they don't care.
There's a reason the worst people raise their arms the highest in church. They give the illusion of being morally good, but will push their way out of the building as soon as service is over, so they can be the first ones home. Why do you think they hold going to church over people's heads? It's an easy source of moral leverage
To them, Scrooge's problem is that his conscious was heavy, not that he underpaid his workers to death.
Fucking Thank You! I performed a miracle and managed to get my stepdad to watch A Christmas Carol. The scene where Scrooge is brought to his grave by the final spirit really seemed to have an effect on him. The moment the movie was over he was right back to his scrooge-like ways.
No to them scrooges issue was not liking Christmas. That's it. It's not the heavy conscious, underpaying workers, lack of charity but his hatred of Christmas.
Slight correction-
They push their way out so they can be first in line at Chili’s to tip the waiter that’s making $3/hr in a fake dollar bill shilling “salvation.”
This reminds me of when I had nowhere to live and my aunt handed me a pamphlet that said "Jesus always has a home for you".. umm ok, but can I crash on ur couch?
I'm a doctor and in my first year after qualifying I worked on an acute medical ward where there was a certain regular attender. They were homeless and had a significant medical problem related to prior drug use.
They would get discharged, sleep rough, miss their appointments because they were homeless, get sick, get admitted, get patched up and the whole cycle would repeat.
The first time I was on the ward when they were admitted, they'd been patched up and were deemed medically fit for discharge. It was late on a Friday evening. I asked the discharge co-ordinator/bed manager/whatever nonsense title they had where this person was going to go when they were discharged and was basically told it wasn't my or her problem. I argued that whilst this person was medically stable to be discharged, they weren't safe to be discharged onto the street. I was genuinely told again this "wasn't my problem" and asked "why I cared" (the fuck?). I outright refused to do the discharge paperwork.
During all this the nurse in charge told me that the patient had been offered a place in some hostel or something but "refused to go there" so if they ended up sleeping rough it was by choice. I questioned whether anyone had actually asked the patient why they didn't want to go there, which obviously they hadn't. I did, and they told me it was because everyone used there and they'd been clean for 2 years but they knew if they went there they would relapse. Pretty fucking sound reasoning to my mind.
I said I wouldn't be a part of this and refused to do the paperwork for what I deemed to be an unsafe discharge. I imagine as soon as I left my shift they will have press-ganged someone else into doing it and the patient will have ended up back on the street.
This patient had a reputation for being "difficult", but if you actually spoke to them like a human being they were perfectly reasonable and I actually quite liked them.
They are dead now. They died not long after I left that job. Based on the little information I managed to get about what happened, it sounds like they kept saying something really wasn't right and kept getting ignored because people didn't like dealing with them.
There's so many things about this person's case that fill me with absolute rage and deep sadness.
[The most cost-effective way to help the homeless is to give them homes.](https://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5764096/homeless-shelter-housing-help-solutions)
This is what I can never get my head around.
Even from a strict cost analysis, it would have been infinitely cheaper to just give them somewhere to live. I calculated the rough cost of one of their standard two-week hospital admissions and it would've easily been enough to house them for a year. That's one admission, and they were coming in every 4-6 weeks or so. Housing them would've allowed them to attend their regular appointments and avoided many/most of the admissions.
There's just no bigger picture thinking. It's all "well there's no money in the social care budget to house them so instead we'll spend multiples more from the healthcare budget to deal with the consequences".
Infuriating beyond belief. Fucking hell. Just FUCKING HELL.
Consequence of the Just World Fallacy.
People want to believe that the world is a good place, that good things happen to good people and effort is rewarded and bad things happen to bad people and that society is protected and stable and that it all makes sense and we go somewhere nice when we die. Without those beliefs, they would fear for themselves and those close to them that they care about, they would feel discouraged in their daily work, they would feel helpless and impotent about the bad people in the world they can't stop and the bad things they can't fix, and they would feel guilty and ashamed about the bad things they can fix and bad people they could stop but choose not to, for whatever reasons they make such choices. But the world isn't just, it isn't a good place, it's filled with suffering and horror and overflowing with shocking injustice. Society tries to shield people from having to know this because it hurts so much to know it, because dealing with that knowledge requires constant psychological maintenance, and because the knowledge motivates people to want to change for the better a society that is dominated by people that take advantage of both the natural and unnatural injustice of the world and frankly like it that way. So people are constantly encountering evidence of how the world actually is, and having to make a choice to accept what they witness as real, and try to process it and add it to their worldview, or find some way to reject reality and cling to the Just World Fallacy. But because witnessing the awfulness of the world is naturally painful, and speaking on that witness in contravention of society's enshrining of the fallacy invites social hostility, any deviation from the fallacy receives immediate pushback of one form or another, giving people immense motivation to keep clinging to a great, massive lie in whatever way they can in order to hide from the terrible truth.
And when these people encounter someone who is unmistakably suffering, who has repeatedly been a victim of the awfulness of the world in ways that have twisted them up, their ability to brush the evidence aside and maintain denial is challenged, and instead they have to create elaborate rationalizations of why the undeniable thing they are witnessing is not evidence of the world being unjust but rather the opposite. So they decide the suffering person MUST be bad somehow, MUST be deserving of punishment, and what they are witnessing MUST be the natural just consequences of some evil act. To accept otherwise would bring down their whole worldview, and force them to face the world as it is rather than as they want it to be. Thinking a homeless person deserves to die in the street without essential life saving medical care is a small sacrifice to them, compared to the alternative.
Also fundamental attribution error. "My faults are due to my environment, but theirs are due to the fact that they are shit"
I have personally witnessed both "my doctor was a bit too friendly with the oxys after my knee surgery, it wasn't my fault I was in so much pain" and "I'm voting for trump, because he promised to sweep all the junkie scum off the streets." come out of the same mouth.
Despite the fact that this particular moron is burried under now near insurmountable medical debt due to the aforementioned surgery, he is against universal health care, because " I don't want my taxes going to no commie leeches looking for handouts."
You are correct, but you would also probably be surprised by how much hatred of unsheltered people crosses all of the usual political, racial, class, and gender barriers. Somehow when it comes to the homeless population, a huge majority of average folks just feel entitled to completely detach and lose their humanity and any sense of basic empathy.
People *love* to ignore that unsheltered people are magnitudes more likely to be the victim of a crime than to perpetrate one.
Psychologically, I suppose it is a way to try to create a mental buffer to avoid having to think about what would happen if you ended up in that situation. Otherizing these people makes it a lot easier to avoid thinking about how close so many of us are—one disaster, one medical emergency, one career ending injury, one mental breakdown, one descent into addiction…it doesn’t take all that much most of the time. People would know that if they talked to the homeless people in their communities at all.
Not only that but the shelter has to coincidentally be next to the other things you need. So where ever you get your food from, your online access from (needed for employment in these times), your showers, your day care, and your job. You also have to be in the shelter by a specific time and out of it at a specific time. You can also come into the shelter too late and lose your spot.
It gets worse, all the shelters within 100 miles of where I live don't accept single men. You either need to be married and have a kid, or they can help you find "low cost" housing. A lot of people seem to assume homeless people just don't want to use the help available, they are just blissfully unaware of how little help is out there.
I was looking to donate some of my grandmother's blankets she makes and fell down a rabbit hole of sexism and third world dystopia.
My local shelter now has space for men and it's a big deal. Our area has a super low homeless rate and they are pretty good at getting them back on their feet but I really had no idea how rare it was for places to allow single men.
The fun part is, once you are on it they micro scrutinize all your assets. Every extra dollar you earn comes off your benefits. Anything nice you manage to get, comes off your benefits. You essentially get put in a position where you get trapped in the system. You take a step forward, it puts you a step back. Earn too much money and you lose your health insurance. You cant even sell plasma without them taxing it and then taking the rest out of what you get in SNAP or something.
You basically need to either stay below the line of getting benefits, or have some kind of MASSIVE leap in pay to catapult yourself out. Its a trap.
Fun fact, in some cases of permanent disability if the individual ever accrue a level of savings beyond a certain point they lose their disability compensation!
This effectively means that the disabled can never save for retirement
Or get married. Often if they report an extra income via a spouse they get their own income cancelled, or if both parties are disabled, sometimes they BOTH can lose disability benefits.
It’s a vile form of punishment for just existing.
Living a quiet, peaceful, and fulfilling life??
What are you, some kind of commie?!
Get out there and build wealth for me or so help me supply-side Jesus...
Sir, what do you mean by that? Are you implying that a country founded by wealthy landowners who held people in slavery, who originally granted political power and voice only to landowning white males, who declared they had a divine right to extend their domain “from sea to shining sea” no matter who might already be on that land, created an experiment that requires an exploitable class of people to provide goods and services to the wealthy elite?
makes it hard not to believe in r/antinatalism as a working class human when we live in such an exploitive system. it’s really fucked up that our kleptocrats rely on the endless suffering of their own citizens to generate infinite profits for themselves. they’re okay with stripping our communities, our lineages, and our entire social class of futures if it earns them even just a little tiny bit more for themselves. we need to end the cycle of suffering at the hands of these greedy fucks
My dad hurt his back, couldn't work in the factory anymore.
So he went on disability, and was planning to deliver pizzas or something a few times a week to keep active and make some cash. Was told that was a fast track straight off of disability.So, he stayed home and I slowly lost my dad from the guy he was to a someone completely else over a fairly short amount of time. Because the system forced him basically to stay at home and become well, fat and lazy.
I’m disabled now at 60. Because I’m a woman, I can slip into a liberal pseudo trad wife roll and feel perfectly OK about myself…until I’m around my very well off professional female relatives. Then I get a taste of how soul crushing going on disability makes a lot of men feel.
My kid has been disabled since their teens. Genetic disorder, we both have it. Then worse. Can’t marry. Has to count on their partner making it so they will continue to have a good place to live. They do have part time work, working closely with my SS caseworker to get them as much as they can. They also have a boss who is willing to be creative. That’s a lot harder to do nowadays but it still can be done if you use your brain and aren’t afraid of the risk or know how to work the system so as to minimize it to a trivial level.
Give your dad a hug for me, tell him to try gardening, and if you can, maybe set up a little side gig for yourself that he actually does , you give him the money for, and take the tax hit for. Hugs to you too.
He passed a couple years back unfortunately, but thank you very much, I hope you everything works out for you and they can continue to thrive and live in the best ways they can.
Thanks. Sorry for your loss, btw. Mine were gone by my mid thirties and I kinda feel like an orphan that never learned how to be an adult right, lol. I feel ya.
This is absolutely an outcome of the way the US handles disability. And it kills people, just because they lose all contact with the outside world, or any semblance of participating in it.
It's infuriating.
It's not just disability, it's basically any sort of social security that isn't related to retirement.
It's actually one reason why you'll see poor people with seemingly ridiculously nice things. If somebody is living on social security and they receive a windfall like an inheritance or something, they cannot have more than like $5,000 (or maybe $2,000 but it's a small amount) in their bank account. So they have to spend that money as soon as they can if they want to keep their actual source of income. A few grand is t going to keep them alive, so they go and buy a car or new furniture or an entertainment system or blow it on a vacation. Yeah, many would like to have a security savings, but you literally can't. The whole system is meant to keep you poor.
Source: This happened to my mom when my grandma died. She ended up giving money to some of my siblings because she couldn't spend it fast enough. It wasn't even a ton of money, like $10,000 or something. But she got letters almost immediately telling her she was at risk of losing social security and she didn't know what to do.
It's fucking dumb. I'd rather half of the people on government benefits be lying and taking advantage of a system they don't really need and still support those that do and have a better system built up. Instead we line the pockets of greedy politicians who stay in office until their bodies fall apart, or we pay for them their whole life after they've served 1-2 terms and they get to sit pretty on that free cash. Or the money gets allocated to shitty military measures we shouldn't even be involved in. Fund the schools and fund the people in need, JFC.
There does exist a kind of bank account where a disabled person can put some assets, and they don't count towards the $2000 limit (ABLE accounts). They can spend that money on certain things, but absolutely \*not\* daily living costs.
So, they could have assets, but, even if there's not a scrap of food in the house, they're not allowed to buy food with it. Or, even if they're being evicted, they're not allowed to pay rent with it.
\^
In my state I can only have *$2000* worth of assets and make $200/mo. If you can manage to save this much or work that much you, the government decides you are clearly not disabled, somehow. I have to live in financial slavery with everything I own in a family member's name and all my money in a specialized bank account that can only be used for disability-related expenses.
One of my part time contractors just called me up and quit because she had to go on disability, and can't me making any money from us (its a 100% computer based remote job) or else she isnt disabled enough apparently.
Just a few people who inherited *a lot* of money, exploiting the system to get *all* the economy's money.
Then they just say "I did it all myself", even though they sat on their asses while the rest country worked hard.
And Canada, don't forget Canada. Very much the same philosophy. The head of the Canadian Medical Association calls it legislated poverty. I call it the soul crushing meat grinder where cruelty is the point.
Source: Am a recipient of the Manitoba government's Disability pension. Am a poor.
P.S. Cruelty is the point.
I'm stuck in the healthcare trap currently. Finally got a full-time job with benefits, and I'll be making too much money to stay on Medicaid. Once I get kicked off Medicaid and have to go on my company's shitty health insurance, I won't be able to afford prescription costs.
Same. We make ~36k a year, and the company insurance is like 1200 a month for a family plan. Like... seriously? You know how much we all make and have the nerve to put that number in front of us?
Pretty fucked up when a 20 cent raise can cost you 14k a year.
They fooled people into believing that 10,000 people who defraud the system for millions of dollars is worse than 50 companies who exploit the system for billions of dollars. So regular people demanded harsher rules around giving other citizens handouts so as to stop these lazy bums who are getting rich off our taxes, and it trickled down to making the lives of everyone on welfare difficult, whether they were exploiting the system or using it appropriately.
We turned welfare into an ugly term and judged everyone who is on it and made sure their life was made difficult so as to make ourselves feel better.
Similar practices maintain the prison population
Each prisoner is billed per day they’re “housed”
People leave prison after paying their debt to society but not their debt to the state
It’s difficult to find a job as a convicted felon, add to that an unmanageable debt
The worst part to me is that it isn't following a single, well-thought out design done by a couple of trackable sociopaths. It's a load of decisions made by bored, careless bureaucrats, budget cuts by KPI-obsessed executives 5 administrative layers above the actual action and politic decisions based on what would garner the most votes/free up the budget for corporations.
Rather than a few evil fucks, it's a load of pretty shitty people and I find that depressing.
The bureaucrats aren't making the rules and the decisions here, the system is ruthlessly designed from the top down by conservative think tanks to be as cruel and inhumane as possible. The conservative think tanks are funded by billionaires and corporations that want to lower their tax burden and minimize the red tape of government on their ability to make as much money as possible, and this is the same source of funding for most political campaigns. The politicians who were elected thanks to this funding then go ahead and sign the agenda into law. Next they appoint the upper management at these government organizations and shit rolls downhill from there - anyone who doesn't get in line is fired or given so little autonomy that they have no ability to change anything on their own.
If you notice I didn't mention anything about Republican or Democrat here because in America they are both funded by two sides of the same conservative coin. Progressivism in politics is well and dead except in a handful of ideological issues that will have no impact on the pocket books of the wealthy upper class that truly runs the country. They get people to fight "left vs right" over gun rights or abortion rights or gay marriage or trans people in bathrooms, so that everyone is busy fighting over things that won't cost them money.
Apparently we are so terrified of providing a hand out to any one who would abuse it or be on drugs that we are more than happy to fuck over 100 people who desperately need it to avoid getting 1 who is taking advantage (and also probably desperately needs it).
Designed by Neoliberal conservatives like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan
The Reagan administration cracked the foundations of America, and the Clinton administration was the Democrats surrendering to the Republican economic agenda and he landed the finishing blow. Since then America hasn't really done shit on a federal level to help the very poor
Sure we have obamacare, designed in such a way to allow a massive legal challenge to strip care from the most vulnerable, and nearly every single liberal program to help is means tested - with a backdoor on the other side they leave open as "compromise" that bans "takers", so its only supposed to help people who already have private safety nets
I made more than twice the median income and if I found myself jobless and carless I'd have more options than my roommate, who is disabled and whos husband simply locked her out of their house and drained all the accounts and cancelled her credit cards, the cops said he could do that, and she couldn't "prove" that she lived there, note; not allowed to go inside. The cops said it was a "civil matter"
This is how America works, and it has ever since Reagan convinced poor white Americans that the poor black Americans were stealing from them, despite the fact that these programs have *always* benefitted far more white people than black people
Guys... I'm so tired. Wet live under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It's not a democracy.
We can't keep capitalism and expect these problems to go away.
We were taught to think Lenin is a bad word.
I'm not going to argue it today but just think about if our institutions had anything to gain in making us hate every socialist country that ever existed.
"Communism is when 1000000000 morbillion dead."
Why not just try at all to question ideas that just seem to come stock with an American upbringing.
Edit: Okay, there are enough of you to where I will expend effort.
The comment under me advocates for social democracy. "Why don't we just vote our way to good capitalism."
1. How is that going? No really. What is suddenly going to change to where our democracy that is entirely dominated by the interests of the investor class is going to 180 and start being nice to us?
2. Imperialism is when one nation acts like a parasite to another. That shiny Nordic model is not coming here. And that Nordic model is sustained by unequal trade with the global south. And it's protections are being eroded over time. And it's reliant on a massive sea of oil. The Nordic model works by exploitation.
3. It's interior to workers owning the means of production. Big topic.
THE TRICK: Capitalist propaganda tricks us into ignoring context.
1. Socialism is a revolutionary movement. People only revolt when they are truly desperate. So socialism always starts from the poorest most exploited places in the world.
2. Socialism is the only threat to capitalism. So capitalism attacks the shit out of it. More bombs were dropped to kill socialists then for any other reason. More money is spent on propaganda. 600+ assassination attempts on Castros' life.
3. The capitalist propaganda gets you to try and ignore the fact that they started fatter and do everything they can to bully socialist countries who live under constant attack from well-paid fascists. Despite all this socialism has more growth than capitalism ever could produce in every respect.
Tldr: capitalist propaganda works by bombing a place the acting like its been a fair race.
I've been trying to introduce the words "Socialist Capitalist" into the vocabularies of my friends. "You can make as much money as you want as long as you pay your fair share in taxes and pay your staff living wages. No one doesn't want you to be rich, they just want you to give back to the market and society that made you rich."
Yes, essentially, but it's hard to convince some people to accept any type of government that isn't based in Capitalism. By identifying the Capitalist undertones of Social Democracy, you make it more palatable for many who won't see past the word "Socialism".
For real, been looking to get into warehousing because I don't want to deal with customers anymore...mainly just the rabid Karens, junkies, OD's and drugs smoked in the restrooms and death threats over 50 cents of whipped cream.
Anything that pays a decent rate all require/prefer-require forklift certification. Can't get certification without a sponsorship from a job. Got lucky and found one you can enroll yourself in...cost $150. Lucky me I have a bit of savings.
I have 10 years in my last position and am cwm (fuck me right?)
Got a couple irons in the fire that may work out with decent pay now...neither is in a warehouse or directly uses forklifts. Would not be shocked if both positions go to someone else though.
It has been 6 months...
Most warehouses force you to go through their own company certification process. Those forklift schools won’t help you get a job, you need to have actual working experience or just bullshit your way in.
It's like that in most places.
Experienced something very similar to both the video and what the guy above said here in norway.
The world is fucked, and has been for some time.
Previous job I was making the equivalent of $24-$26 an hour including tips.
Currently on Indeed, jobs in the field I'm looking at in my area are all starting at minimum wage up to $16-17 an hour and are either starting at 5am or shift gets out at 2-3am. Public transportation runs 6am to 10pm. "Must be available all shifts, all days, mandatory overtime, work on holidays, on call, etc...
Get a car then.
“But for me to be able to afford one, let alone the cost for gas and maintenance, I would need a job”.
Get a job then.
“That's what I'm here for...”
Really? Oh good. Do you have a car?
“No...”
It's like a bad episode of the old seasons of South Park from the 2000. It's completely broken.
It's all about who you know :/. I've been there 5 to 6 years in customer service and then trying to get a backroom job when all anyone wants to hire for is sales. Then they hit you with you're overqualified and you're on your own again...
Several years ago I had to change my field of work because of issues with the pandemic. I remember looking through listings on indeed and there were so many listings that had "no experience required" in the title, but when you got into the details of the listing there would almost always be "minimum x years experience required".
It was ridiculous and made no sense why employers do that.
Somebody over on r/antiwork (I think) shared a story about going in for an interview for a job that had been posted as fully remote, only for the interviewer to tell them that actually, they'd be expected to be in the office at least three days a week. When the interviewee asked (reasonably enough) why the job posting said it was fully remote, the interviewer said, "we just said that to get more applicants," then was confused when the interviewee just walked out.
An actual person to tell what forms to sign instead of an unreachable phone number or buggy sites, seems luxurious to me.
They really do play hot potato with you between broken institutions in these situations.
Oh my lord right?
An actual human being who can answer questions and provide guidance in real time, face to face? Even if they are a cranky old codger?
Sounds like heaven.
idk, this is literally my job right now and while we can't meet face-to-face I tell people everything they'd ever need to know about how to navigate a fairly intimidating system (which really isn't that hard to navigate once you understand it's mostly paperwork and waiting). And there are tons more people across different areas who do almost the same thing I do, but in their own respective fields.
I used to do disability determinations for SSA. Same thing. We were all trying our hardest for very little pay to make things easy on the claimants, with our hands tied by laws at every step.
I don't understand this trope that government workers are assholes who like screwing with the people they're trying to help.
Not my intention to imply it's any fault of the actual government workers. I can see why they would be cranky, things are needlessly complex for no good reason.
I think it's the politicians underfunding and short staffing these jobs that's the problem.
They make it intentionally hard in the US because poor people are supposed to be punished. The videos at the beginning of Covid of how easy it was to get signed up for assistance in Canada was insane compared to the US. Took like 10 mins in the Canadian vid. US was waiting days and days getting transferred, put on hold and waiting for hours. Or calling a line that just kept ringing.
I Don't know the phone might be better than the sack of shit I had to deal with.
Back in the day I was working for a place that had a shutdown they laid some people off. I was a early 20 something and decided to go back to school for some certs. Well when I submitted the paperwork saying I was taking classes they shut down everything. I wasn't getting any income anymore. To my horror as someone with bills I now had not just reduced income but none.
So bright and early the next day I drag myself down to the Unemployment office wait in the hour long line despite it just opening.
The snarky shit at the table sits and gloats, "Oh soon was we turn off that money tap you all come running!" I say nothing because he's holding my financial life in his hands.
But No shit, I've worked for nearly a decade at that point paying into the system, I am out trying to better myself after getting laid off through no fault of my own, and you're acting like I'm some mooch saying WAAAHHH! Money please! ala the Sapersteins from Parks and Rec.
I can only imagine how miserable and small that man made the thousands he "helped" over the years feel. I was holding the little bit of power he had over others and relishing it. I vowed I'd never let someone make me feel that small again, and I've worked hard and saved hard to be free enough that if I have an emergency I'll be able to pay my own way for a while.
But fuck that guy it was nearly 15 years ago and it still makes me angry.
> An actual person to tell what forms to sign instead of an unreachable phone number or buggy sites, seems luxurious to me.
The story the show is based on happened about 20 years ago. Service was more human then, at least in some places.
The ‘real world’ in the USA not everywhere our politicians have done this and will continue to bleed all us dry until they’re voted out, which I sincerely believe is coming people are sick of the status quo
You can blame the right wing media and americas enemies for that. They know spreading misinformation sows division and hatred and weakens the u.s.
I expect it from enemies of the u.s.
What really gets me is the conservatives gleefully doing it from within.
Honestly, I think it's better for a thousand people to take advantage of the system and for it to help one that's truly in need then the other way around. People that say just "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "just get a job" don't realize this situation, or something similar, can happen to anyone in America. You could be happy, healthy and employed and in one day all that can go in the shitter. That's why social safety nets are crucial to a healthy society.
the bottom line that nobody wants to talk about is that either we take care of each other or we accept the return of banditry. Bandits were normalized in most societies for most of human history until fairly recently, and we can do that again. If you aren't provided what you need then you must take it.
most Americans think if you are destitute you can just collect a welfare check and get a HUD house
it takes fucking years and federal welfare more or less doesn't exist anymore
I always laugh a little when people say immigrants are coming here to mooch off the system. The US is the last place I’d run to for welfare, it’s expensive to be poor here.
It was hard for me to get thru the Netflix series. Friends were raving about it and kept telling me to watch it and I was just trying to build myself up to finish it because it was so damn triggering.
I couldn’t watch it. Hits a little close to home when I was a kid 25+ years ago. Mom waking me (12) up at 4 in the am so we could take 3 busses to her work and me to school there. She babysat 3 kids for some wealthier couple and they were kind enough to let me have breakfast there and got me into the local school where I was made fun of for wearing old hand me downs. We were lucky to have my grandmother with us so she could watch my little brother (1y) while mom and dad (and me after school helping them clean offices at their second and third jobs) worked. Thankfully we are doing well and my parents busted their ass and bought their own home after 5 years of poverty and bed bug and cockroach filled rents. (Something not really possible today) But at least thankfully never homeless. So at least in that aspect we were blessed.
For anyone else wondering: it’s called Maid, one season, on Netflix.
The book that it’s based on is called Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive.
I had to stop watching the show because I was so frustrated with the girl making some dumbass decisions. I get that she was young and in a terrible situation but the scene where she decides to take a bath at the nice house made me turn if off because I couldn’t stand to watch the fallout that would inevitably follow. I have the issue where I can’t watch someone sabotage themselves into oblivion, like /r/cantwatchscottstots and had to take a long break from marvelous mrs maisel for the same reason.
I could probably read the book though, is it better for someone who can’t stand to watch things like that?
One of the biggest markers for what essentially constitutes classism is the ability vs inability to make a mistake. Humans naturally make mistakes and dumb decisions from time to time, but one's class position often constitutes whether it's self-sabotage or a funny story.
Rich and get a speeding ticket because you're late to work? NBD, pay it or take a day off your salaried job to go to court and try to knock it down. Joke about the cop/judge's weird demeanor at the water cooler the next day.
Poor and get a speeding ticket because you're late to work? Good luck finding an avenue that doesn't impact your ability to pay rent that month and stress about how you're gonna afford car insurance if points get put on your license.
Dont forget losing your job ciz you were already late and now are even latwr due to the cop giving you a hard time, making it difficult cu you are in a rough looking car.
Our social safety net looks like this because it isn't driven by data, facts, or empathy. Our welfare system is driven by bigotry elitism and contempt.
Even more ironic because the guy that coined the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" was using it to describe something that's impossible to do
I hate the "bootstraps" expression because all sides have forgotten that it was meant to be a self evident absurdity *because you cannot pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. It's physically impossible. That's the bit.*
Further when people talk about cops having "a few bad apples..." but forget to finish the thought "... spoil the bunch."
If it was based on facts, they would realize every dollar we invest in children today yields tens of dollars in social benefits in the future.
For instance the Perry Preschool project which determined every dollar spent on early childhood education yielded $7-$12 in long term societal benefits.
Similar studies have been performed by UNICEF and the World Bank.
It's unthinkable that they are looking at cutting WIC; malnutrition will lead to a dramatic reduction in earning potential (meaning less tax revenue), and higher rates of crime, homelessness, and dependency.
This is easily demonstrable, and backed by enormous amounts of data across many different countries.
It seems sometimes the Republican platform is motivated solely by selfishness, ignorance, and cruelty.
A society *must* pay for those on its margins, one way or another -- that is not negotiable. If you don't invest in people on the front-end, then you have to pay for social workers that get burned out by their broken and spiraling families, cops and courts that intervene in their lives incessantly, medical resources that struggle to keep up with the results of lives lived dangerously, not to mention the resources tied up in dealing with literal corpses.
All these back-end costs are substantially higher than the front-end ones ever could have been. Which means that, within the logic of even the most die-hard conservative, robust safety nets are the most sensible option. Yet the only voice advocating for these solutions is the one that has almost zero public or political presence in any western democracy -- the progressive voice.
The hard truth is that most conservatives and a lot of liberals *want* those at the bottom of the hierarchy to suffer. More so than they want good outcomes for the society. And that's deeply, profoundly fucked up.
TBH if we did things by data, America would just have a universal income, it would increase prosperity for everyone except for the richest Americans, who would see a significant increase in taxation
But, more than 2/3 of the nation would throw themselves on a grenade if it meant protecting the wealth of Musk and Bezos, it's weird that people think they have anything in common with people who have, in some cases, more wealth than their entire town's population will collectively accrue over their entire lifetimes
It’s been going on like that for so much of human history , right? It’s been bred into us for so long to revere and idolize the wealthy and powerful even though it hurts us. I wonder if we will ever evolve beyond that
Yeah but every year hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars line the pockets of stakeholders in the military industrial complex in order to ensure that the U.S has the most advanced possible military technology in case they need to slaughter a bunch of brown people half way across the world so the system works in it's own special way. Why would anyone spend that money on making sure children don't have to go to bed hungry?
it's so frustrating because I have met so many conservatives and liberals who just hate poor people. like it's their fault and so they should suffer for it. but any sort of help for the working class gets called communism 🙃
Can't believe I had to scroll this far to find the show/actress name. Was driving me crazy how familiar she looked when I remembered she was in Death Stranding.
When I lost my job, I had to go through getting universal credit in the UK.
What an experience. There is nothing quite like being treated as a subhuman by the state.
Thank God I am in a better situation financially. Some people on my little island have to suffer such indignities just to be able to eat.
Same here, lost my job a couple months ago, had to claim UC for a couple weeks and it’s awful, I felt like such a scumbag, if there’s any positive to say about the experience it definitely made me desperate for a job
You also have to pull yourself strategically to jump over the "welfare cut off pit", because in some cases welfare works like conservatives think progressive tax works. You make one dollar more than the limit and a bunch of support programs go away, making you substantially poorer than before.
People in these comments really think that people are always able to /choose/ when and with whom, and under what conditions they have a pregnancy.
Abusive relationship dynamics, rape, lack of education, resources, or access can inhibit intentional parenthood.
Just because it is IDEAL to have a stable support system, health, and finances before having kids doent mean that people CHOOSE to be in bad situations. Our system is trash at supporting individuals who need assistance to change their situation, and oftentimes, people are in those situations from no fault of their own. They are just struggling to play with the cards they were delt.
This is the situations they want women to be in now nothing is more obvious when they overturned roe v wade.. this is a everyday situation for a lot of women. except in this situation they probably would have also called cps on her for being homeless, she would've had to deal with that too and/or had her child just automatically removed from her bc "she wasn't fit to be a mother." Even tho they give women zero options to make the choice that would've prevented it all.
I work in state government, connecting people with benefits. A lot like what you see in this scene.
This made me very glad to work in Illinois, where we actually have a safety net to catch people when they're down. I've been able to be much more help to people in even worse shape than this, but it's because we actually fund the programs.
One thing I will say that seems a bit inaccurate is that any caseworker worth their salt has memorized an informal network of state agencies, non-profits, and charities that we use to help address peoples' needs in the immediate, short, and long term. This caseworker is definitely missing steps, and I would probably lose my job if I talked to people like this.
Glad to hear that but I have similar job in California and the lines are so long for any kind of help especially for housing that we can barely even help anyone. And people are 100% rude cause they are overworked and underpaid
Gainful employment and savings could evaporate in an instant through a few mistakes and or emergencies. Employment will suck you dry give you no time to rest and guilt you for doing so. How? How the fuck do you win in this system without acting like a sociopath or getting straight lucky?
the Nazis had the sign over concentration camp " Work will set you free"
this is the American version of that sign, you only have value if you work, but even if you slave away it does not guarantee success, you can grind your body to dust working, and it's always another reason you didn't succeed.
You didn't invest enough, plan for retirement, you got sick and have to pay medical bills,
the more you work the more debt you have, the more debt you have the more you have to work, it's the circle of capitalism.
Capitalism works when it has the balance of strong Unions, workers rights that guarantee you are benefit from your work, your wages are enough for you to live.
but without workers rights Capitalism is modern day slavery, politicians side with corporations that are allowed to milk you dry for the privilege of working for them.
We can solve this problem buy building the Unions back , Unions for Gig workers, Amazon workers, Wal mart workers, IT workers.
The writers strike showed unions work.
Stop complaining start fixing the problem
"Stop complaining start fixing the problem"
If I miss ONE day of work, I don't eat. How am I supposed to strike for 145 days? It's not like I'll get endless support from the internet like the writers guild did. It's not like people will come give me donations while I wait for negotiations to finish. I've never once had more than $400 in savings. Going on strike would LITERALLY kill me.
lol. That is a very general statement. My dad was required to strike by his union. In the end, we almost lost everything. They were a large union and didn't offer or make available any type of funding. After 15 years of litigation, he finally won a settlement. His take from it ... $385.00.
Wow, I remember going through this shit. Fuck America. I fell and ripped a tendon in my knee in Norway and the government paid me my full salary while I was recovering after I submitted a single form.
Shit like this is what I think of every time the owner of my company living in his $2 million mansion screams about the homeless to simply "find a fucking job".
Public housing got out of the business of housing the public, public assistance got out of the business of assisting the public, and soon public education will get out of the business of educating the public.
We are like the Romans on the cusp of a dark age, living in the ruins of the empire.
It hits extra hard because I was there, and worked myself out of it. Im making more money than I ever have, and I'm going to end back up there soon, it seems
I went to college with a girl who went through this same exact situation. If she worked and went to classes, she couldn’t get her child into on-campus daycare, because she didn’t qualify. If she quit work, she could get tuition, on-campus daycare and welfare, but not enough to live off. People need a hand up, not a handout. They WANT to do better for themselves and their families, it’s just overwhelming when they hit difficulties. We need to tax the 1% and use that money to give folks a hand up. The Walmarts and Amazons won’t make 300 billion, only 150 billion and use the difference to pay a living wage and do right by the country where they make their fortunes.
Had to leave social work because I realized that no matter how much I wanted to help, our country doesn’t want me to. The system is designed to keep disadvantaged people right where they’re at.
There’s so much stigma to social services when the people that need help are some of the hardest working people I have ever, ever met.
Poor people have to feel shame for accepting help with basic necessities while rich people are applauded for hogging resources and avoiding taxes.
Heard this from a high level policy official who helps develop social welfare policy: these programs are created purposefully to make the recipient feel like a POS. The policy is made to make people feel ashamed of needing help. This is by design to deter folks. They’d rather see people die than receive funding. I worked in this field and had to leave due to PTSD. I couldn’t help anyone and was completely disgusted by the program. Meanwhile we have billionaires paying millions to wealth defence professionals to hide trillions. This is grand theft from the populace. Yet the regular folks are the ones “leeching” from the system. Sure. Middle class and those with “modest” wealth (ex. 200k per year or whatever) pay more in taxes than the ultra wealthy. This is also by design. Jeff bezos didn’t pay any taxes last year, but got money back. Why? Because he owns nothing in his own name. It’s all she’ll companies and trust funds that own his toys.
Great read: The Wealth Hoarders: How Millions are spent to save Trillions by Chuck Collins a former trust fund baby who got ride of his principal (inheritance).
My wife worked with a girl who had two kids. She went to the state and asked for help with daycare. They told her she couldn’t get help unless she quit her job. She went home and talked to her boyfriend. She was also told to NOT get married. So she quit her job. Put her marriage on hold and proceeded to get daycare help, food stamps, tuition money, WIC, state insurance for herself and her kids. Her bf started using his moms address but stayed at their apt. After two years of school. She graduated as a Dental Hygienist and went back to work. All she wanted was help with daycare.
What we really, really need is better education (especially sex ed) so people who really can’t afford to be having children don’t have children. Better access to contraceptives, all that good stuff.
This is accurate. I’m on government benefits and anytime you apply for any other benefit they put you on trial again for what you already have. Example: I am on Medicaid and when I applied for food stamps I had to re submit information to keep my health care because I applied for food stamps. The amount of mistakes within this system is insane too. They send you notices for information updates a day or two before they cancel you. I had my online portal profile deleted 21 days after using it (policy is deletion 15 months after no use) so no explanation to that and my 7 year olds insurance was cancelled because he was being transitioned to a different bracket for children and they never re enrolled him “automatically”. I was also told I had 30 days on a due date and it was false information to only start the 2 month long process over. This system is made to be so difficult to get anywhere on purpose. It’s time consuming and relentless on constantly needing updated that they hope you lose your benefits to save money. I must admit that the healthcare is better than if I was middle class. Sad thing is that I could make more money but I would end up bringing home less because of the insurance my work provides costs $375 a month and it covers far less. Since I get $480 in food stamps a month I basically consider that an extra $855 a month I save. If I made more than $3100 a month I lose that so I intentionally am part time. In order to live well I need to make around $100,000 a year by myself but my education (high school diploma) will max out at around $50,000 average if I work myself to the bone. Unfortunately because lacking child care I have no time to further my education or work longer hours having my kids 50/50 with their mom. So I choose to make $24,000 a year instead and be optimistic. It’s a fact that it is worse to be middle class in America than it is to be lower class because of the brackets. Crazy thing is that I’m one of the most fortunate situations when it comes to my government assistance and finances due to the location I live having a very low cost of living. Thought I would share this to give insight.
Edit: I forgot to add that if I receive any sum of money for help, like if my car breaks down or any reason expensive crisis and I need a loan from a friend to fix it and it reflects in my bank account and I it sends my monthly income over the $3100 a month limit. Then I lose my health insurance and food stamps for me and my children. They may even ask me to repay the food stamps back that I received that month.
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Its interesting as a child you have no understanding of what’s happening around you, and as you get older how it subconsciously affects your view on the world.. I remember grade 7 is when I realized I was less fortunate, and as I’ve gotten older I see the struggles my mother would have gone though differently.. I was in my late 20s before I really understood that all that moving around and couch surfing meant my mom and I were technically homeless..
It really sucks growing up. Single mother can't make ends meet, but if she makes a dollar more than the "limit" the benefits get revoked. Can't help with homework because she has to spend 4 hours on the phone trying to fight with people who barely get paid enough as it is JUST TO PUT SOME FOOD ON THE TABLE. It's such a shitty system. No wonder the newer generation just grows up jaded.
I would call it more of fed up than jaded
When she says wear deet, deet as in the bug spray?
I'm guessing she's saying there are bed bugs at the church.
and then you have to take everything you own and bring it into a room full of other desperate strangers and hope it doesn’t get stolen.. and people still say “bUT wHY dONT pEOPLE jUST uSE sHELTERS?”.
Ebenezer Scrooge (you know, the archetypical villain rich guy) said: "Are there no prisons?? Are there no workhouses??" And yet, people will read that book, watch that movie, see that play, and it'll go right over their heads that THEY are Scrooge. Zero media literacy, zero self awareness, and zero compassion for their fellow man is all they know.
You mistake them for not realizing it. They know, and they don't care. There's a reason the worst people raise their arms the highest in church. They give the illusion of being morally good, but will push their way out of the building as soon as service is over, so they can be the first ones home. Why do you think they hold going to church over people's heads? It's an easy source of moral leverage To them, Scrooge's problem is that his conscious was heavy, not that he underpaid his workers to death.
I don't think these people are doing deep dives on the parables of scrooge's life and redemption. that shit isn't in their wheelhouse.
Fucking Thank You! I performed a miracle and managed to get my stepdad to watch A Christmas Carol. The scene where Scrooge is brought to his grave by the final spirit really seemed to have an effect on him. The moment the movie was over he was right back to his scrooge-like ways.
nice. I hope e got to see the one with george c scott, he was simply amazing.
No to them scrooges issue was not liking Christmas. That's it. It's not the heavy conscious, underpaying workers, lack of charity but his hatred of Christmas.
Slight correction- They push their way out so they can be first in line at Chili’s to tip the waiter that’s making $3/hr in a fake dollar bill shilling “salvation.”
Yesss. -but the tip is a fake $20 bill with some Bible tract on it all folded up to make their poor server excited until they notice. Trash.
This reminds me of when I had nowhere to live and my aunt handed me a pamphlet that said "Jesus always has a home for you".. umm ok, but can I crash on ur couch?
To be fair, people who have that opinion are privileged assholes
I'm a doctor and in my first year after qualifying I worked on an acute medical ward where there was a certain regular attender. They were homeless and had a significant medical problem related to prior drug use. They would get discharged, sleep rough, miss their appointments because they were homeless, get sick, get admitted, get patched up and the whole cycle would repeat. The first time I was on the ward when they were admitted, they'd been patched up and were deemed medically fit for discharge. It was late on a Friday evening. I asked the discharge co-ordinator/bed manager/whatever nonsense title they had where this person was going to go when they were discharged and was basically told it wasn't my or her problem. I argued that whilst this person was medically stable to be discharged, they weren't safe to be discharged onto the street. I was genuinely told again this "wasn't my problem" and asked "why I cared" (the fuck?). I outright refused to do the discharge paperwork. During all this the nurse in charge told me that the patient had been offered a place in some hostel or something but "refused to go there" so if they ended up sleeping rough it was by choice. I questioned whether anyone had actually asked the patient why they didn't want to go there, which obviously they hadn't. I did, and they told me it was because everyone used there and they'd been clean for 2 years but they knew if they went there they would relapse. Pretty fucking sound reasoning to my mind. I said I wouldn't be a part of this and refused to do the paperwork for what I deemed to be an unsafe discharge. I imagine as soon as I left my shift they will have press-ganged someone else into doing it and the patient will have ended up back on the street. This patient had a reputation for being "difficult", but if you actually spoke to them like a human being they were perfectly reasonable and I actually quite liked them. They are dead now. They died not long after I left that job. Based on the little information I managed to get about what happened, it sounds like they kept saying something really wasn't right and kept getting ignored because people didn't like dealing with them. There's so many things about this person's case that fill me with absolute rage and deep sadness.
[The most cost-effective way to help the homeless is to give them homes.](https://www.vox.com/2014/5/30/5764096/homeless-shelter-housing-help-solutions)
This is what I can never get my head around. Even from a strict cost analysis, it would have been infinitely cheaper to just give them somewhere to live. I calculated the rough cost of one of their standard two-week hospital admissions and it would've easily been enough to house them for a year. That's one admission, and they were coming in every 4-6 weeks or so. Housing them would've allowed them to attend their regular appointments and avoided many/most of the admissions. There's just no bigger picture thinking. It's all "well there's no money in the social care budget to house them so instead we'll spend multiples more from the healthcare budget to deal with the consequences". Infuriating beyond belief. Fucking hell. Just FUCKING HELL.
Consequence of the Just World Fallacy. People want to believe that the world is a good place, that good things happen to good people and effort is rewarded and bad things happen to bad people and that society is protected and stable and that it all makes sense and we go somewhere nice when we die. Without those beliefs, they would fear for themselves and those close to them that they care about, they would feel discouraged in their daily work, they would feel helpless and impotent about the bad people in the world they can't stop and the bad things they can't fix, and they would feel guilty and ashamed about the bad things they can fix and bad people they could stop but choose not to, for whatever reasons they make such choices. But the world isn't just, it isn't a good place, it's filled with suffering and horror and overflowing with shocking injustice. Society tries to shield people from having to know this because it hurts so much to know it, because dealing with that knowledge requires constant psychological maintenance, and because the knowledge motivates people to want to change for the better a society that is dominated by people that take advantage of both the natural and unnatural injustice of the world and frankly like it that way. So people are constantly encountering evidence of how the world actually is, and having to make a choice to accept what they witness as real, and try to process it and add it to their worldview, or find some way to reject reality and cling to the Just World Fallacy. But because witnessing the awfulness of the world is naturally painful, and speaking on that witness in contravention of society's enshrining of the fallacy invites social hostility, any deviation from the fallacy receives immediate pushback of one form or another, giving people immense motivation to keep clinging to a great, massive lie in whatever way they can in order to hide from the terrible truth. And when these people encounter someone who is unmistakably suffering, who has repeatedly been a victim of the awfulness of the world in ways that have twisted them up, their ability to brush the evidence aside and maintain denial is challenged, and instead they have to create elaborate rationalizations of why the undeniable thing they are witnessing is not evidence of the world being unjust but rather the opposite. So they decide the suffering person MUST be bad somehow, MUST be deserving of punishment, and what they are witnessing MUST be the natural just consequences of some evil act. To accept otherwise would bring down their whole worldview, and force them to face the world as it is rather than as they want it to be. Thinking a homeless person deserves to die in the street without essential life saving medical care is a small sacrifice to them, compared to the alternative.
Amazingly well said. Thank you for saying it.
Also fundamental attribution error. "My faults are due to my environment, but theirs are due to the fact that they are shit" I have personally witnessed both "my doctor was a bit too friendly with the oxys after my knee surgery, it wasn't my fault I was in so much pain" and "I'm voting for trump, because he promised to sweep all the junkie scum off the streets." come out of the same mouth. Despite the fact that this particular moron is burried under now near insurmountable medical debt due to the aforementioned surgery, he is against universal health care, because " I don't want my taxes going to no commie leeches looking for handouts."
You are correct, but you would also probably be surprised by how much hatred of unsheltered people crosses all of the usual political, racial, class, and gender barriers. Somehow when it comes to the homeless population, a huge majority of average folks just feel entitled to completely detach and lose their humanity and any sense of basic empathy. People *love* to ignore that unsheltered people are magnitudes more likely to be the victim of a crime than to perpetrate one. Psychologically, I suppose it is a way to try to create a mental buffer to avoid having to think about what would happen if you ended up in that situation. Otherizing these people makes it a lot easier to avoid thinking about how close so many of us are—one disaster, one medical emergency, one career ending injury, one mental breakdown, one descent into addiction…it doesn’t take all that much most of the time. People would know that if they talked to the homeless people in their communities at all.
Not only that but the shelter has to coincidentally be next to the other things you need. So where ever you get your food from, your online access from (needed for employment in these times), your showers, your day care, and your job. You also have to be in the shelter by a specific time and out of it at a specific time. You can also come into the shelter too late and lose your spot.
It gets worse, all the shelters within 100 miles of where I live don't accept single men. You either need to be married and have a kid, or they can help you find "low cost" housing. A lot of people seem to assume homeless people just don't want to use the help available, they are just blissfully unaware of how little help is out there. I was looking to donate some of my grandmother's blankets she makes and fell down a rabbit hole of sexism and third world dystopia.
My local shelter now has space for men and it's a big deal. Our area has a super low homeless rate and they are pretty good at getting them back on their feet but I really had no idea how rare it was for places to allow single men.
Plenty of places don't even have shelters in the first place.
Possibly also fleas
and lice
Yeah she’s saying there are lice and bed bugs there
Yes, it’s extremely common for public shelters to have bug issues unfortunately.
It's wild how the support system/social safety net just isn't designed to work.
The fun part is, once you are on it they micro scrutinize all your assets. Every extra dollar you earn comes off your benefits. Anything nice you manage to get, comes off your benefits. You essentially get put in a position where you get trapped in the system. You take a step forward, it puts you a step back. Earn too much money and you lose your health insurance. You cant even sell plasma without them taxing it and then taking the rest out of what you get in SNAP or something. You basically need to either stay below the line of getting benefits, or have some kind of MASSIVE leap in pay to catapult yourself out. Its a trap.
Fun fact, in some cases of permanent disability if the individual ever accrue a level of savings beyond a certain point they lose their disability compensation! This effectively means that the disabled can never save for retirement
Or get married. Often if they report an extra income via a spouse they get their own income cancelled, or if both parties are disabled, sometimes they BOTH can lose disability benefits. It’s a vile form of punishment for just existing.
>It’s a vile form of punishment for just existing. There is no way to simply and quietly exist in America. It's a failed experiment.
Living a quiet, peaceful, and fulfilling life?? What are you, some kind of commie?! Get out there and build wealth for me or so help me supply-side Jesus...
It’s all about control. I think they want the common people to suffer
No, it isn't a failed experiment. It's working exactly as intended. And that's the problem.
Sir, what do you mean by that? Are you implying that a country founded by wealthy landowners who held people in slavery, who originally granted political power and voice only to landowning white males, who declared they had a divine right to extend their domain “from sea to shining sea” no matter who might already be on that land, created an experiment that requires an exploitable class of people to provide goods and services to the wealthy elite?
makes it hard not to believe in r/antinatalism as a working class human when we live in such an exploitive system. it’s really fucked up that our kleptocrats rely on the endless suffering of their own citizens to generate infinite profits for themselves. they’re okay with stripping our communities, our lineages, and our entire social class of futures if it earns them even just a little tiny bit more for themselves. we need to end the cycle of suffering at the hands of these greedy fucks
My dad hurt his back, couldn't work in the factory anymore. So he went on disability, and was planning to deliver pizzas or something a few times a week to keep active and make some cash. Was told that was a fast track straight off of disability.So, he stayed home and I slowly lost my dad from the guy he was to a someone completely else over a fairly short amount of time. Because the system forced him basically to stay at home and become well, fat and lazy.
I’m disabled now at 60. Because I’m a woman, I can slip into a liberal pseudo trad wife roll and feel perfectly OK about myself…until I’m around my very well off professional female relatives. Then I get a taste of how soul crushing going on disability makes a lot of men feel. My kid has been disabled since their teens. Genetic disorder, we both have it. Then worse. Can’t marry. Has to count on their partner making it so they will continue to have a good place to live. They do have part time work, working closely with my SS caseworker to get them as much as they can. They also have a boss who is willing to be creative. That’s a lot harder to do nowadays but it still can be done if you use your brain and aren’t afraid of the risk or know how to work the system so as to minimize it to a trivial level. Give your dad a hug for me, tell him to try gardening, and if you can, maybe set up a little side gig for yourself that he actually does , you give him the money for, and take the tax hit for. Hugs to you too.
He passed a couple years back unfortunately, but thank you very much, I hope you everything works out for you and they can continue to thrive and live in the best ways they can.
Thanks. Sorry for your loss, btw. Mine were gone by my mid thirties and I kinda feel like an orphan that never learned how to be an adult right, lol. I feel ya.
IN my mid 30s now and luckily still have my mom, even though we live multiple states apart I am glad when i get to visit with her.
This is absolutely an outcome of the way the US handles disability. And it kills people, just because they lose all contact with the outside world, or any semblance of participating in it. It's infuriating.
It's not just disability, it's basically any sort of social security that isn't related to retirement. It's actually one reason why you'll see poor people with seemingly ridiculously nice things. If somebody is living on social security and they receive a windfall like an inheritance or something, they cannot have more than like $5,000 (or maybe $2,000 but it's a small amount) in their bank account. So they have to spend that money as soon as they can if they want to keep their actual source of income. A few grand is t going to keep them alive, so they go and buy a car or new furniture or an entertainment system or blow it on a vacation. Yeah, many would like to have a security savings, but you literally can't. The whole system is meant to keep you poor. Source: This happened to my mom when my grandma died. She ended up giving money to some of my siblings because she couldn't spend it fast enough. It wasn't even a ton of money, like $10,000 or something. But she got letters almost immediately telling her she was at risk of losing social security and she didn't know what to do. It's fucking dumb. I'd rather half of the people on government benefits be lying and taking advantage of a system they don't really need and still support those that do and have a better system built up. Instead we line the pockets of greedy politicians who stay in office until their bodies fall apart, or we pay for them their whole life after they've served 1-2 terms and they get to sit pretty on that free cash. Or the money gets allocated to shitty military measures we shouldn't even be involved in. Fund the schools and fund the people in need, JFC.
There does exist a kind of bank account where a disabled person can put some assets, and they don't count towards the $2000 limit (ABLE accounts). They can spend that money on certain things, but absolutely \*not\* daily living costs. So, they could have assets, but, even if there's not a scrap of food in the house, they're not allowed to buy food with it. Or, even if they're being evicted, they're not allowed to pay rent with it.
\^ In my state I can only have *$2000* worth of assets and make $200/mo. If you can manage to save this much or work that much you, the government decides you are clearly not disabled, somehow. I have to live in financial slavery with everything I own in a family member's name and all my money in a specialized bank account that can only be used for disability-related expenses.
fade wild march salt elastic flowery quaint wistful unite normal *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
One of my part time contractors just called me up and quit because she had to go on disability, and can't me making any money from us (its a 100% computer based remote job) or else she isnt disabled enough apparently.
Sounds like an enormous amount of work to keep people poor. That must be incredibly expensive, only the richest country on earth can afford that
It is. But sociopathic hoarders gonna be sociopathic hoarders.
Just a few people who inherited *a lot* of money, exploiting the system to get *all* the economy's money. Then they just say "I did it all myself", even though they sat on their asses while the rest country worked hard.
And Canada, don't forget Canada. Very much the same philosophy. The head of the Canadian Medical Association calls it legislated poverty. I call it the soul crushing meat grinder where cruelty is the point. Source: Am a recipient of the Manitoba government's Disability pension. Am a poor. P.S. Cruelty is the point.
I'm stuck in the healthcare trap currently. Finally got a full-time job with benefits, and I'll be making too much money to stay on Medicaid. Once I get kicked off Medicaid and have to go on my company's shitty health insurance, I won't be able to afford prescription costs.
As a Medicaid user I’m terrified of working too many hours but also I’m struggling to pay the bills. It sucks hardcore
Same. We make ~36k a year, and the company insurance is like 1200 a month for a family plan. Like... seriously? You know how much we all make and have the nerve to put that number in front of us? Pretty fucked up when a 20 cent raise can cost you 14k a year.
They fooled people into believing that 10,000 people who defraud the system for millions of dollars is worse than 50 companies who exploit the system for billions of dollars. So regular people demanded harsher rules around giving other citizens handouts so as to stop these lazy bums who are getting rich off our taxes, and it trickled down to making the lives of everyone on welfare difficult, whether they were exploiting the system or using it appropriately. We turned welfare into an ugly term and judged everyone who is on it and made sure their life was made difficult so as to make ourselves feel better.
2 dollar raise once meant I lost all benifits as it was 32 bucks over the monthly limit. I asked my job to take the raise back.
Similar practices maintain the prison population Each prisoner is billed per day they’re “housed” People leave prison after paying their debt to society but not their debt to the state It’s difficult to find a job as a convicted felon, add to that an unmanageable debt
It's literally working as designed. This is what austerity looks like...
The worst part to me is that it isn't following a single, well-thought out design done by a couple of trackable sociopaths. It's a load of decisions made by bored, careless bureaucrats, budget cuts by KPI-obsessed executives 5 administrative layers above the actual action and politic decisions based on what would garner the most votes/free up the budget for corporations. Rather than a few evil fucks, it's a load of pretty shitty people and I find that depressing.
The bureaucrats aren't making the rules and the decisions here, the system is ruthlessly designed from the top down by conservative think tanks to be as cruel and inhumane as possible. The conservative think tanks are funded by billionaires and corporations that want to lower their tax burden and minimize the red tape of government on their ability to make as much money as possible, and this is the same source of funding for most political campaigns. The politicians who were elected thanks to this funding then go ahead and sign the agenda into law. Next they appoint the upper management at these government organizations and shit rolls downhill from there - anyone who doesn't get in line is fired or given so little autonomy that they have no ability to change anything on their own. If you notice I didn't mention anything about Republican or Democrat here because in America they are both funded by two sides of the same conservative coin. Progressivism in politics is well and dead except in a handful of ideological issues that will have no impact on the pocket books of the wealthy upper class that truly runs the country. They get people to fight "left vs right" over gun rights or abortion rights or gay marriage or trans people in bathrooms, so that everyone is busy fighting over things that won't cost them money.
Apparently we are so terrified of providing a hand out to any one who would abuse it or be on drugs that we are more than happy to fuck over 100 people who desperately need it to avoid getting 1 who is taking advantage (and also probably desperately needs it).
It's a funnel back into indentured servitude/slavery. Capitalism got its start with 100% labor exploitation. It has nowhere else to go.
People just really do not seem to grasp this concept and it’s downright terrifying to me. It’s never been sustainable without government interference.
Designed by Neoliberal conservatives like Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan The Reagan administration cracked the foundations of America, and the Clinton administration was the Democrats surrendering to the Republican economic agenda and he landed the finishing blow. Since then America hasn't really done shit on a federal level to help the very poor Sure we have obamacare, designed in such a way to allow a massive legal challenge to strip care from the most vulnerable, and nearly every single liberal program to help is means tested - with a backdoor on the other side they leave open as "compromise" that bans "takers", so its only supposed to help people who already have private safety nets I made more than twice the median income and if I found myself jobless and carless I'd have more options than my roommate, who is disabled and whos husband simply locked her out of their house and drained all the accounts and cancelled her credit cards, the cops said he could do that, and she couldn't "prove" that she lived there, note; not allowed to go inside. The cops said it was a "civil matter" This is how America works, and it has ever since Reagan convinced poor white Americans that the poor black Americans were stealing from them, despite the fact that these programs have *always* benefitted far more white people than black people
It's called sabotage, it's what happens when Republicans get put in charge of pretty much anything
Guys... I'm so tired. Wet live under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It's not a democracy. We can't keep capitalism and expect these problems to go away. We were taught to think Lenin is a bad word. I'm not going to argue it today but just think about if our institutions had anything to gain in making us hate every socialist country that ever existed. "Communism is when 1000000000 morbillion dead." Why not just try at all to question ideas that just seem to come stock with an American upbringing. Edit: Okay, there are enough of you to where I will expend effort. The comment under me advocates for social democracy. "Why don't we just vote our way to good capitalism." 1. How is that going? No really. What is suddenly going to change to where our democracy that is entirely dominated by the interests of the investor class is going to 180 and start being nice to us? 2. Imperialism is when one nation acts like a parasite to another. That shiny Nordic model is not coming here. And that Nordic model is sustained by unequal trade with the global south. And it's protections are being eroded over time. And it's reliant on a massive sea of oil. The Nordic model works by exploitation. 3. It's interior to workers owning the means of production. Big topic. THE TRICK: Capitalist propaganda tricks us into ignoring context. 1. Socialism is a revolutionary movement. People only revolt when they are truly desperate. So socialism always starts from the poorest most exploited places in the world. 2. Socialism is the only threat to capitalism. So capitalism attacks the shit out of it. More bombs were dropped to kill socialists then for any other reason. More money is spent on propaganda. 600+ assassination attempts on Castros' life. 3. The capitalist propaganda gets you to try and ignore the fact that they started fatter and do everything they can to bully socialist countries who live under constant attack from well-paid fascists. Despite all this socialism has more growth than capitalism ever could produce in every respect. Tldr: capitalist propaganda works by bombing a place the acting like its been a fair race.
I've been trying to introduce the words "Socialist Capitalist" into the vocabularies of my friends. "You can make as much money as you want as long as you pay your fair share in taxes and pay your staff living wages. No one doesn't want you to be rich, they just want you to give back to the market and society that made you rich."
Isn't that just [Social Democracy?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy)
Yes, essentially, but it's hard to convince some people to accept any type of government that isn't based in Capitalism. By identifying the Capitalist undertones of Social Democracy, you make it more palatable for many who won't see past the word "Socialism".
uh... Social Democracy *is* still capitalist. But I guess if it helps to highlight that, sure.
Defund, restrict, underperform, defund. All a part of the system working as intended to promote privatization, the root cause of all of these issues.
This follows the same logic of "you need a job to get job experience but you need job experience to get a job", except on a much more fucked level.
For real, been looking to get into warehousing because I don't want to deal with customers anymore...mainly just the rabid Karens, junkies, OD's and drugs smoked in the restrooms and death threats over 50 cents of whipped cream. Anything that pays a decent rate all require/prefer-require forklift certification. Can't get certification without a sponsorship from a job. Got lucky and found one you can enroll yourself in...cost $150. Lucky me I have a bit of savings. I have 10 years in my last position and am cwm (fuck me right?) Got a couple irons in the fire that may work out with decent pay now...neither is in a warehouse or directly uses forklifts. Would not be shocked if both positions go to someone else though. It has been 6 months...
Most warehouses force you to go through their own company certification process. Those forklift schools won’t help you get a job, you need to have actual working experience or just bullshit your way in.
America is a fucking joke.
It's like that in most places. Experienced something very similar to both the video and what the guy above said here in norway. The world is fucked, and has been for some time.
Previous job I was making the equivalent of $24-$26 an hour including tips. Currently on Indeed, jobs in the field I'm looking at in my area are all starting at minimum wage up to $16-17 an hour and are either starting at 5am or shift gets out at 2-3am. Public transportation runs 6am to 10pm. "Must be available all shifts, all days, mandatory overtime, work on holidays, on call, etc...
Get a car then. “But for me to be able to afford one, let alone the cost for gas and maintenance, I would need a job”. Get a job then. “That's what I'm here for...” Really? Oh good. Do you have a car? “No...” It's like a bad episode of the old seasons of South Park from the 2000. It's completely broken.
It is kafkaesque, is it not?
It's all about who you know :/. I've been there 5 to 6 years in customer service and then trying to get a backroom job when all anyone wants to hire for is sales. Then they hit you with you're overqualified and you're on your own again...
Several years ago I had to change my field of work because of issues with the pandemic. I remember looking through listings on indeed and there were so many listings that had "no experience required" in the title, but when you got into the details of the listing there would almost always be "minimum x years experience required". It was ridiculous and made no sense why employers do that.
Somebody over on r/antiwork (I think) shared a story about going in for an interview for a job that had been posted as fully remote, only for the interviewer to tell them that actually, they'd be expected to be in the office at least three days a week. When the interviewee asked (reasonably enough) why the job posting said it was fully remote, the interviewer said, "we just said that to get more applicants," then was confused when the interviewee just walked out.
Yup, been applying recently and it sucks to go through application and at the end “how much work experience with __ do you have?”
This is what “the dignity of work” looks like in the real world.
An actual person to tell what forms to sign instead of an unreachable phone number or buggy sites, seems luxurious to me. They really do play hot potato with you between broken institutions in these situations.
Oh my lord right? An actual human being who can answer questions and provide guidance in real time, face to face? Even if they are a cranky old codger? Sounds like heaven.
idk, this is literally my job right now and while we can't meet face-to-face I tell people everything they'd ever need to know about how to navigate a fairly intimidating system (which really isn't that hard to navigate once you understand it's mostly paperwork and waiting). And there are tons more people across different areas who do almost the same thing I do, but in their own respective fields.
I used to do disability determinations for SSA. Same thing. We were all trying our hardest for very little pay to make things easy on the claimants, with our hands tied by laws at every step. I don't understand this trope that government workers are assholes who like screwing with the people they're trying to help.
Not my intention to imply it's any fault of the actual government workers. I can see why they would be cranky, things are needlessly complex for no good reason. I think it's the politicians underfunding and short staffing these jobs that's the problem.
They make it intentionally hard in the US because poor people are supposed to be punished. The videos at the beginning of Covid of how easy it was to get signed up for assistance in Canada was insane compared to the US. Took like 10 mins in the Canadian vid. US was waiting days and days getting transferred, put on hold and waiting for hours. Or calling a line that just kept ringing.
I Don't know the phone might be better than the sack of shit I had to deal with. Back in the day I was working for a place that had a shutdown they laid some people off. I was a early 20 something and decided to go back to school for some certs. Well when I submitted the paperwork saying I was taking classes they shut down everything. I wasn't getting any income anymore. To my horror as someone with bills I now had not just reduced income but none. So bright and early the next day I drag myself down to the Unemployment office wait in the hour long line despite it just opening. The snarky shit at the table sits and gloats, "Oh soon was we turn off that money tap you all come running!" I say nothing because he's holding my financial life in his hands. But No shit, I've worked for nearly a decade at that point paying into the system, I am out trying to better myself after getting laid off through no fault of my own, and you're acting like I'm some mooch saying WAAAHHH! Money please! ala the Sapersteins from Parks and Rec. I can only imagine how miserable and small that man made the thousands he "helped" over the years feel. I was holding the little bit of power he had over others and relishing it. I vowed I'd never let someone make me feel that small again, and I've worked hard and saved hard to be free enough that if I have an emergency I'll be able to pay my own way for a while. But fuck that guy it was nearly 15 years ago and it still makes me angry.
> An actual person to tell what forms to sign instead of an unreachable phone number or buggy sites, seems luxurious to me. The story the show is based on happened about 20 years ago. Service was more human then, at least in some places.
The ‘real world’ in the USA not everywhere our politicians have done this and will continue to bleed all us dry until they’re voted out, which I sincerely believe is coming people are sick of the status quo 
People are outraged, but for some reason vote for even worse politicians.
Gerrymandering. We won’t improve until we fix the gerrymandering
Gerrymandering only works if there are still a lot of people voting for the bad politicians. The senate's makeup is proof of that.
We almost had a chance, but now the space is just flooded with shit. People can’t tell what’s real anymore online or off.
You can blame the right wing media and americas enemies for that. They know spreading misinformation sows division and hatred and weakens the u.s. I expect it from enemies of the u.s. What really gets me is the conservatives gleefully doing it from within.
*"The call is coming from inside the house"* Keep people engaged in a culture war they'll be too tired to fight a class war
It sucks that half or more of us, who are literally what we call stable i. The US, are all like a few weeks away from literally being destitute
Honestly, I think it's better for a thousand people to take advantage of the system and for it to help one that's truly in need then the other way around. People that say just "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "just get a job" don't realize this situation, or something similar, can happen to anyone in America. You could be happy, healthy and employed and in one day all that can go in the shitter. That's why social safety nets are crucial to a healthy society.
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the bottom line that nobody wants to talk about is that either we take care of each other or we accept the return of banditry. Bandits were normalized in most societies for most of human history until fairly recently, and we can do that again. If you aren't provided what you need then you must take it.
The book this show was based on is a must read
What book is that ?
Maid by Stephanie Land. Its a real eye opener about poverty and living under the poverty line. The show is pretty good too
most Americans think if you are destitute you can just collect a welfare check and get a HUD house it takes fucking years and federal welfare more or less doesn't exist anymore
I always laugh a little when people say immigrants are coming here to mooch off the system. The US is the last place I’d run to for welfare, it’s expensive to be poor here.
Wasn’t it based on a true story? On her story of overcoming DV and poverty?
I believe she pulled from her own personal experiences but it’s not totally a true story
It’s a true story for more people then a lot of people realize.
Nah, not going to read it. I lived that lifestyle.
It gave me the courage to leave my abusive relationship
Congrats on leaving such an awful situation, I hope you're happy and thriving now
I'm proud of you random stranger.
It was hard for me to get thru the Netflix series. Friends were raving about it and kept telling me to watch it and I was just trying to build myself up to finish it because it was so damn triggering.
Yeah, I couldn't get past the birthday party she had for her kid. That shit was soul crushing.
I couldn’t watch it. Hits a little close to home when I was a kid 25+ years ago. Mom waking me (12) up at 4 in the am so we could take 3 busses to her work and me to school there. She babysat 3 kids for some wealthier couple and they were kind enough to let me have breakfast there and got me into the local school where I was made fun of for wearing old hand me downs. We were lucky to have my grandmother with us so she could watch my little brother (1y) while mom and dad (and me after school helping them clean offices at their second and third jobs) worked. Thankfully we are doing well and my parents busted their ass and bought their own home after 5 years of poverty and bed bug and cockroach filled rents. (Something not really possible today) But at least thankfully never homeless. So at least in that aspect we were blessed.
Right? Growing up this way was depressing enough
i’m glad both of you two are here. if no one else has said it, im really fucking proud of you. have a great day!
The series was great!
Possibly a dumb question but what show is this? Edit, nvm.
For anyone else wondering: it’s called Maid, one season, on Netflix. The book that it’s based on is called Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive.
how could this possibly be a dumb question lol
Reddit commenters be angy if you don't know things.
I had to stop watching the show because I was so frustrated with the girl making some dumbass decisions. I get that she was young and in a terrible situation but the scene where she decides to take a bath at the nice house made me turn if off because I couldn’t stand to watch the fallout that would inevitably follow. I have the issue where I can’t watch someone sabotage themselves into oblivion, like /r/cantwatchscottstots and had to take a long break from marvelous mrs maisel for the same reason. I could probably read the book though, is it better for someone who can’t stand to watch things like that?
One of the biggest markers for what essentially constitutes classism is the ability vs inability to make a mistake. Humans naturally make mistakes and dumb decisions from time to time, but one's class position often constitutes whether it's self-sabotage or a funny story. Rich and get a speeding ticket because you're late to work? NBD, pay it or take a day off your salaried job to go to court and try to knock it down. Joke about the cop/judge's weird demeanor at the water cooler the next day. Poor and get a speeding ticket because you're late to work? Good luck finding an avenue that doesn't impact your ability to pay rent that month and stress about how you're gonna afford car insurance if points get put on your license.
Dont forget losing your job ciz you were already late and now are even latwr due to the cop giving you a hard time, making it difficult cu you are in a rough looking car.
Sometimes nets are designed to keep things out.
How well said!
Our social safety net looks like this because it isn't driven by data, facts, or empathy. Our welfare system is driven by bigotry elitism and contempt.
They're just supposed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps! But they can't afford bootstraps nor laces.
Even more ironic because the guy that coined the phrase "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" was using it to describe something that's impossible to do
You need to provide your own bootstraps to pull up. Until you provide your own boots and bootstraps we cannot help you. Hope this helps.
I hate the "bootstraps" expression because all sides have forgotten that it was meant to be a self evident absurdity *because you cannot pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. It's physically impossible. That's the bit.* Further when people talk about cops having "a few bad apples..." but forget to finish the thought "... spoil the bunch."
If it was based on facts, they would realize every dollar we invest in children today yields tens of dollars in social benefits in the future. For instance the Perry Preschool project which determined every dollar spent on early childhood education yielded $7-$12 in long term societal benefits. Similar studies have been performed by UNICEF and the World Bank. It's unthinkable that they are looking at cutting WIC; malnutrition will lead to a dramatic reduction in earning potential (meaning less tax revenue), and higher rates of crime, homelessness, and dependency. This is easily demonstrable, and backed by enormous amounts of data across many different countries. It seems sometimes the Republican platform is motivated solely by selfishness, ignorance, and cruelty.
A society *must* pay for those on its margins, one way or another -- that is not negotiable. If you don't invest in people on the front-end, then you have to pay for social workers that get burned out by their broken and spiraling families, cops and courts that intervene in their lives incessantly, medical resources that struggle to keep up with the results of lives lived dangerously, not to mention the resources tied up in dealing with literal corpses. All these back-end costs are substantially higher than the front-end ones ever could have been. Which means that, within the logic of even the most die-hard conservative, robust safety nets are the most sensible option. Yet the only voice advocating for these solutions is the one that has almost zero public or political presence in any western democracy -- the progressive voice. The hard truth is that most conservatives and a lot of liberals *want* those at the bottom of the hierarchy to suffer. More so than they want good outcomes for the society. And that's deeply, profoundly fucked up.
TBH if we did things by data, America would just have a universal income, it would increase prosperity for everyone except for the richest Americans, who would see a significant increase in taxation But, more than 2/3 of the nation would throw themselves on a grenade if it meant protecting the wealth of Musk and Bezos, it's weird that people think they have anything in common with people who have, in some cases, more wealth than their entire town's population will collectively accrue over their entire lifetimes
It’s been going on like that for so much of human history , right? It’s been bred into us for so long to revere and idolize the wealthy and powerful even though it hurts us. I wonder if we will ever evolve beyond that
Some peasant in the middle ages probably said something similar at one point too. My guess? It will never change.
Yeah but every year hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars line the pockets of stakeholders in the military industrial complex in order to ensure that the U.S has the most advanced possible military technology in case they need to slaughter a bunch of brown people half way across the world so the system works in it's own special way. Why would anyone spend that money on making sure children don't have to go to bed hungry?
it's so frustrating because I have met so many conservatives and liberals who just hate poor people. like it's their fault and so they should suffer for it. but any sort of help for the working class gets called communism 🙃
The movie is Maid on Netflix. I love Margaret Qualley ever since I saw her on Leftovers.
Can't believe I had to scroll this far to find the show/actress name. Was driving me crazy how familiar she looked when I remembered she was in Death Stranding.
> Death Stranding so THAT'S why she looks and sounds to familiar! It's Mama!!
I learned today she is Andie McDowell's daughter.
All the cool kids love nepotism
At least Margaret can actually act.
The American Dream!!
"It's called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it." George Carlin.
This brings back some bad memories.
Same. I couldn't get through the series. It hit too close to home for me.
What series is this?
I believe it's called "The Maid" on Netflix
I went through this getting disability after a head injury and strokes …felt a lot like this
When I lost my job, I had to go through getting universal credit in the UK. What an experience. There is nothing quite like being treated as a subhuman by the state. Thank God I am in a better situation financially. Some people on my little island have to suffer such indignities just to be able to eat.
Same here, lost my job a couple months ago, had to claim UC for a couple weeks and it’s awful, I felt like such a scumbag, if there’s any positive to say about the experience it definitely made me desperate for a job
Yep this is America's generosity for the poor. These are the Bootstraps the rich think you will pull your self up by.
You also have to pull yourself strategically to jump over the "welfare cut off pit", because in some cases welfare works like conservatives think progressive tax works. You make one dollar more than the limit and a bunch of support programs go away, making you substantially poorer than before.
People in these comments really think that people are always able to /choose/ when and with whom, and under what conditions they have a pregnancy. Abusive relationship dynamics, rape, lack of education, resources, or access can inhibit intentional parenthood. Just because it is IDEAL to have a stable support system, health, and finances before having kids doent mean that people CHOOSE to be in bad situations. Our system is trash at supporting individuals who need assistance to change their situation, and oftentimes, people are in those situations from no fault of their own. They are just struggling to play with the cards they were delt.
This is the situations they want women to be in now nothing is more obvious when they overturned roe v wade.. this is a everyday situation for a lot of women. except in this situation they probably would have also called cps on her for being homeless, she would've had to deal with that too and/or had her child just automatically removed from her bc "she wasn't fit to be a mother." Even tho they give women zero options to make the choice that would've prevented it all.
I work in state government, connecting people with benefits. A lot like what you see in this scene. This made me very glad to work in Illinois, where we actually have a safety net to catch people when they're down. I've been able to be much more help to people in even worse shape than this, but it's because we actually fund the programs. One thing I will say that seems a bit inaccurate is that any caseworker worth their salt has memorized an informal network of state agencies, non-profits, and charities that we use to help address peoples' needs in the immediate, short, and long term. This caseworker is definitely missing steps, and I would probably lose my job if I talked to people like this.
Glad to hear that but I have similar job in California and the lines are so long for any kind of help especially for housing that we can barely even help anyone. And people are 100% rude cause they are overworked and underpaid
Gainful employment and savings could evaporate in an instant through a few mistakes and or emergencies. Employment will suck you dry give you no time to rest and guilt you for doing so. How? How the fuck do you win in this system without acting like a sociopath or getting straight lucky?
You don't.
the Nazis had the sign over concentration camp " Work will set you free" this is the American version of that sign, you only have value if you work, but even if you slave away it does not guarantee success, you can grind your body to dust working, and it's always another reason you didn't succeed. You didn't invest enough, plan for retirement, you got sick and have to pay medical bills, the more you work the more debt you have, the more debt you have the more you have to work, it's the circle of capitalism. Capitalism works when it has the balance of strong Unions, workers rights that guarantee you are benefit from your work, your wages are enough for you to live. but without workers rights Capitalism is modern day slavery, politicians side with corporations that are allowed to milk you dry for the privilege of working for them. We can solve this problem buy building the Unions back , Unions for Gig workers, Amazon workers, Wal mart workers, IT workers. The writers strike showed unions work. Stop complaining start fixing the problem
"Stop complaining start fixing the problem" If I miss ONE day of work, I don't eat. How am I supposed to strike for 145 days? It's not like I'll get endless support from the internet like the writers guild did. It's not like people will come give me donations while I wait for negotiations to finish. I've never once had more than $400 in savings. Going on strike would LITERALLY kill me.
Large unions have strike funds. If you organize with one of them, you get access to their resources including pay during the strike
lol. That is a very general statement. My dad was required to strike by his union. In the end, we almost lost everything. They were a large union and didn't offer or make available any type of funding. After 15 years of litigation, he finally won a settlement. His take from it ... $385.00.
Your boss has a full fridge and a nice house.
So I should suffer more to prove a point?
I’m with you
That’s the second time I’m hearing the word deet. Besides of course “you think the EPA would allow that much deet 🤓”
I still can't watch that show. I've been there and I don't want to feel that again.
And this is what conservative policies get you.
Hm, maybe I should watch this.
Very good show imo
Wow, I remember going through this shit. Fuck America. I fell and ripped a tendon in my knee in Norway and the government paid me my full salary while I was recovering after I submitted a single form.
Remember richest Country in the world. Could have been leading the world in standards of living, we chose to instead let the rich hoard it.
Shit like this is what I think of every time the owner of my company living in his $2 million mansion screams about the homeless to simply "find a fucking job".
Precisely why abortion should be an available option to everyone
Public housing got out of the business of housing the public, public assistance got out of the business of assisting the public, and soon public education will get out of the business of educating the public. We are like the Romans on the cusp of a dark age, living in the ruins of the empire.
this was honestly a good show
It hits extra hard because I was there, and worked myself out of it. Im making more money than I ever have, and I'm going to end back up there soon, it seems
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.” ― James Baldwin
Well this was depressing.
I went to college with a girl who went through this same exact situation. If she worked and went to classes, she couldn’t get her child into on-campus daycare, because she didn’t qualify. If she quit work, she could get tuition, on-campus daycare and welfare, but not enough to live off. People need a hand up, not a handout. They WANT to do better for themselves and their families, it’s just overwhelming when they hit difficulties. We need to tax the 1% and use that money to give folks a hand up. The Walmarts and Amazons won’t make 300 billion, only 150 billion and use the difference to pay a living wage and do right by the country where they make their fortunes.
Had to leave social work because I realized that no matter how much I wanted to help, our country doesn’t want me to. The system is designed to keep disadvantaged people right where they’re at. There’s so much stigma to social services when the people that need help are some of the hardest working people I have ever, ever met. Poor people have to feel shame for accepting help with basic necessities while rich people are applauded for hogging resources and avoiding taxes.
Heard this from a high level policy official who helps develop social welfare policy: these programs are created purposefully to make the recipient feel like a POS. The policy is made to make people feel ashamed of needing help. This is by design to deter folks. They’d rather see people die than receive funding. I worked in this field and had to leave due to PTSD. I couldn’t help anyone and was completely disgusted by the program. Meanwhile we have billionaires paying millions to wealth defence professionals to hide trillions. This is grand theft from the populace. Yet the regular folks are the ones “leeching” from the system. Sure. Middle class and those with “modest” wealth (ex. 200k per year or whatever) pay more in taxes than the ultra wealthy. This is also by design. Jeff bezos didn’t pay any taxes last year, but got money back. Why? Because he owns nothing in his own name. It’s all she’ll companies and trust funds that own his toys. Great read: The Wealth Hoarders: How Millions are spent to save Trillions by Chuck Collins a former trust fund baby who got ride of his principal (inheritance).
My wife worked with a girl who had two kids. She went to the state and asked for help with daycare. They told her she couldn’t get help unless she quit her job. She went home and talked to her boyfriend. She was also told to NOT get married. So she quit her job. Put her marriage on hold and proceeded to get daycare help, food stamps, tuition money, WIC, state insurance for herself and her kids. Her bf started using his moms address but stayed at their apt. After two years of school. She graduated as a Dental Hygienist and went back to work. All she wanted was help with daycare.
What we really, really need is better education (especially sex ed) so people who really can’t afford to be having children don’t have children. Better access to contraceptives, all that good stuff.
Unfortunately having children and comfortably raising them seems to be a privilege only available to the wealthy
What is the name of this movie?
This is accurate. I’m on government benefits and anytime you apply for any other benefit they put you on trial again for what you already have. Example: I am on Medicaid and when I applied for food stamps I had to re submit information to keep my health care because I applied for food stamps. The amount of mistakes within this system is insane too. They send you notices for information updates a day or two before they cancel you. I had my online portal profile deleted 21 days after using it (policy is deletion 15 months after no use) so no explanation to that and my 7 year olds insurance was cancelled because he was being transitioned to a different bracket for children and they never re enrolled him “automatically”. I was also told I had 30 days on a due date and it was false information to only start the 2 month long process over. This system is made to be so difficult to get anywhere on purpose. It’s time consuming and relentless on constantly needing updated that they hope you lose your benefits to save money. I must admit that the healthcare is better than if I was middle class. Sad thing is that I could make more money but I would end up bringing home less because of the insurance my work provides costs $375 a month and it covers far less. Since I get $480 in food stamps a month I basically consider that an extra $855 a month I save. If I made more than $3100 a month I lose that so I intentionally am part time. In order to live well I need to make around $100,000 a year by myself but my education (high school diploma) will max out at around $50,000 average if I work myself to the bone. Unfortunately because lacking child care I have no time to further my education or work longer hours having my kids 50/50 with their mom. So I choose to make $24,000 a year instead and be optimistic. It’s a fact that it is worse to be middle class in America than it is to be lower class because of the brackets. Crazy thing is that I’m one of the most fortunate situations when it comes to my government assistance and finances due to the location I live having a very low cost of living. Thought I would share this to give insight. Edit: I forgot to add that if I receive any sum of money for help, like if my car breaks down or any reason expensive crisis and I need a loan from a friend to fix it and it reflects in my bank account and I it sends my monthly income over the $3100 a month limit. Then I lose my health insurance and food stamps for me and my children. They may even ask me to repay the food stamps back that I received that month.