Being patient, kind to others, and consciously making an effort to not be selfish seem to be my themes this year. Funny how these lessons really sink in as you try to teach them to a child. I find myself being convicted frequently by my own words.
Aly has been having a rough time traveling in the car lately. Even though she's not quite hit 25lbs yet (but she's close!!), she did hit the height limit for rear-facing in her car seat this month. I was hoping that turning her seat around would make traveling more pleasant. But I am learning that my daughter is just as impatient as I am. Red lights make her WAIL and scream until the car starts moving again. It was very difficult when she was rear-facing and couldn't see the lights, but now that she can see them with me, we've started to make a game of it.
Me: Aly, what color is the light up there?
Aly: It's red!!
Me: And what does red mean?
Aly: It means: Be Patient. Wait your turn!
Me: That's right :) Look at all the other cars going. They waited patiently for their turn, and now they get to go. Oh look, now our light is green!! What does that mean?
Aly: It's our turn! We can go!
We have this conversation almost every time we come to a traffic light. And even when Aly is not in the car with me, I find myself repeating the same information. It's not my turn, I have to be patient. Take a minute to just relax. It will be my turn in a minute, but for now I get to sit still and be quiet.
This has also transferred over in to how I view the other drivers around me. When I am in a hurry and someone JUST WONT MOVE OUT OF MY WAY, I am immediately reminded that I need to slow down and not speed, that there are other people on the road with places to go and people to see and my personal journey is not any more important than theirs is. And that jerk that just cut me off? Maybe that person is having the worst day of their life and completely zoned out, not thinking about traffic. Lord knows I was in that same place many times over the past six months. Or maybe that person is late to work, or needs to rush home to something very urgent. I find myself thinking more about the other PEOPLE on the road, and praying for whatever circumstances may be happening in their lives right now.
It's amazing to me how our minds can be trained to think like this. At first it was such a conscious effort to stop and redirect my thoughts towards compassion and patience. But slowly over time it is becoming a habit. I hope that I can help to teach Aly to be patient and caring for those around her. And the best way to teach her is to model it myself.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Why I Gladly Pay Taxes To Support Welfare
"I am tired of other people living better than I do, on MY dime!"
Ughghg. I am so sick of hearing this (mainly from my Republican/Tea Party friends). They perceive that people living on assistance have an easy life. After all, they are obviously not working, right? If I didn't have to go to work and could sit on my bum eating bon bons all day, life would be awesome!
But that's not what life on assistance is like. Sure, there may be a scammer here or there, but the reality is not pretty for most people on assistance. We like to hold up the example of the fraudsters and claim everyone is just like them. But that would be like saying Fred Phelps represents most Christians, or that Lady Gaga is a what most 30-yr old women are like.
I would hope we can all agree on assistance for the elderly and disabled. As a civilized society, I don't feel we should be seeing our elders living on the streets, or our disabled locked away in institutions. What seems to really burn people up are the "fraudsters" and "moochers." So how many people on assistance are scamming the system? This federal study says 91% of all assistance recipients are either 1) elderly (53%), 2) disabled (20%), or 3) working-poor (18%). Ok, then that means 9% of the recipients are able-bodied and should be working, right? Except the majority of that 9% is receiving unemployment benefits (meaning they did work at some point), receiving medical assistance, Social Security survivor's benefits, or Social Security retirement benefits for those 62-64 years old. It is approximately 2% or less that are receiving some kind of assistance that are otherwise able-bodied and able to find employment.
It is easy to hid behind generic statistics and not see the reality of a situation. So I will break down my "reality" using actual data for the county where I live. I am in Jackson County, MO. The average household income for four people is $71,200. Typically this means two adults earning $35,600 ($17/hr roughly) each and two children. To qualify for assistance, the entire household must be earning much less than the average. Let's say we have two adults each working for minimum wage and together they earn $30,576 per year. This is less than half of the average, so surely they would qualify for some assistance. Let's see:
1. Housing - The average two-bedroom apartment in this county costs $780/month or $9,360 per year. That comes out to 13% of the average household's income. For non elderly/disabled, rent vouchers are available once rent exceeds 40% of the household's income. That means a four-person household has to be earning UNDER $23,400 in our county to even begin to get housing assistance. But for our family working at minimum wage, rent is taking up 30% of their monthly income and they don't come close to qualifying for assistance.
2. Food - To even begin to qualify for food assistance, a four-person household can not have an income higher than $29,064. The household also can not have more than $2,000 in savings. Let's be generous and "give" the family $400/month for food - $100 for each week. To qualify for that assistance, their monthly income can not exceed $893, or a yearly income of $10,716. Our family does not qualify for any assistance, but food is taking up 16% of their monthly income.
3. Utilities - A family of four applying for LIHEAP would have to earn $2593/month or less (so our family would finally qualify for some help here). The max benefit is $800 to help with winter heating bills (available after Nov 1st), and possibly $300 in crisis funding during the summer - but you have to have an active disconnect notice to qualify for this assistance. Let's assume an average electric bill of $75 and an average gas bill of $50 for that two bedroom apartment. That would be $125/month for heating & cooling combined, or $1,500/year. $1,100 in max assistance wouldn't even cover all of the utilities.
This is just barely scratching the surface here. Most of these apartments don't have laundry facilities, so families are in laundromats washing clothes at $2.00/load (that is to WASH - let's assume they take the clothes back home to line-dry). We only have three people in our family and I do four loads of laundry per week. That would be $32.00 per month just to operate the machine at the laundromat. And what about buying those clothes in the first-place?
What about transportation? KC is not the most public-transit friendly place around. I live in a suburb and commute 10 miles each day to work. To find a bus that would take me there, I would have to leave my house two hours before my shift started and I would not arrive back home until at least an hour after my shift had ended. It may be faster just to buy a bike and ride it each day if I couldn't afford to drive.
But let's get back to that average household income. $71,200 for a family of four. How much do they pay in Federal taxes to support these benefits that others are receiving? At $71,200 (assuming NO deductions), they paid $9,854 in federal taxes if they are married and filed jointly, or 14% of their income. But not all of those taxes go to assistance programs. Here's where that money goes:
So breaking down that $9,854 in federal taxes, only 12% is going towards "Welfare" (Safety Net Programs), or $1,182. And our family earning $30,576 working two minimum wage jobs only qualifies for $800 in assistance, but has paid $3,700 in federal taxes, with $444 of that going back to the very assistance programs that helped them.
So do I think that someone living on assistance, on my "dime" of $1,182 per year, is living better than I do on $71,200? Absolutely not! No one denies the fact that fraud exists. But please, let's all give up the stereotype that those on assistance are lazy and just out to scam the system. It does nothing to help the true problem of fraud and merely lets us mask the fact that there is a deep and true need in our society for these programs.
Ughghg. I am so sick of hearing this (mainly from my Republican/Tea Party friends). They perceive that people living on assistance have an easy life. After all, they are obviously not working, right? If I didn't have to go to work and could sit on my bum eating bon bons all day, life would be awesome!
But that's not what life on assistance is like. Sure, there may be a scammer here or there, but the reality is not pretty for most people on assistance. We like to hold up the example of the fraudsters and claim everyone is just like them. But that would be like saying Fred Phelps represents most Christians, or that Lady Gaga is a what most 30-yr old women are like.
I would hope we can all agree on assistance for the elderly and disabled. As a civilized society, I don't feel we should be seeing our elders living on the streets, or our disabled locked away in institutions. What seems to really burn people up are the "fraudsters" and "moochers." So how many people on assistance are scamming the system? This federal study says 91% of all assistance recipients are either 1) elderly (53%), 2) disabled (20%), or 3) working-poor (18%). Ok, then that means 9% of the recipients are able-bodied and should be working, right? Except the majority of that 9% is receiving unemployment benefits (meaning they did work at some point), receiving medical assistance, Social Security survivor's benefits, or Social Security retirement benefits for those 62-64 years old. It is approximately 2% or less that are receiving some kind of assistance that are otherwise able-bodied and able to find employment.
It is easy to hid behind generic statistics and not see the reality of a situation. So I will break down my "reality" using actual data for the county where I live. I am in Jackson County, MO. The average household income for four people is $71,200. Typically this means two adults earning $35,600 ($17/hr roughly) each and two children. To qualify for assistance, the entire household must be earning much less than the average. Let's say we have two adults each working for minimum wage and together they earn $30,576 per year. This is less than half of the average, so surely they would qualify for some assistance. Let's see:
1. Housing - The average two-bedroom apartment in this county costs $780/month or $9,360 per year. That comes out to 13% of the average household's income. For non elderly/disabled, rent vouchers are available once rent exceeds 40% of the household's income. That means a four-person household has to be earning UNDER $23,400 in our county to even begin to get housing assistance. But for our family working at minimum wage, rent is taking up 30% of their monthly income and they don't come close to qualifying for assistance.
2. Food - To even begin to qualify for food assistance, a four-person household can not have an income higher than $29,064. The household also can not have more than $2,000 in savings. Let's be generous and "give" the family $400/month for food - $100 for each week. To qualify for that assistance, their monthly income can not exceed $893, or a yearly income of $10,716. Our family does not qualify for any assistance, but food is taking up 16% of their monthly income.
3. Utilities - A family of four applying for LIHEAP would have to earn $2593/month or less (so our family would finally qualify for some help here). The max benefit is $800 to help with winter heating bills (available after Nov 1st), and possibly $300 in crisis funding during the summer - but you have to have an active disconnect notice to qualify for this assistance. Let's assume an average electric bill of $75 and an average gas bill of $50 for that two bedroom apartment. That would be $125/month for heating & cooling combined, or $1,500/year. $1,100 in max assistance wouldn't even cover all of the utilities.
This is just barely scratching the surface here. Most of these apartments don't have laundry facilities, so families are in laundromats washing clothes at $2.00/load (that is to WASH - let's assume they take the clothes back home to line-dry). We only have three people in our family and I do four loads of laundry per week. That would be $32.00 per month just to operate the machine at the laundromat. And what about buying those clothes in the first-place?
What about transportation? KC is not the most public-transit friendly place around. I live in a suburb and commute 10 miles each day to work. To find a bus that would take me there, I would have to leave my house two hours before my shift started and I would not arrive back home until at least an hour after my shift had ended. It may be faster just to buy a bike and ride it each day if I couldn't afford to drive.
But let's get back to that average household income. $71,200 for a family of four. How much do they pay in Federal taxes to support these benefits that others are receiving? At $71,200 (assuming NO deductions), they paid $9,854 in federal taxes if they are married and filed jointly, or 14% of their income. But not all of those taxes go to assistance programs. Here's where that money goes:
So breaking down that $9,854 in federal taxes, only 12% is going towards "Welfare" (Safety Net Programs), or $1,182. And our family earning $30,576 working two minimum wage jobs only qualifies for $800 in assistance, but has paid $3,700 in federal taxes, with $444 of that going back to the very assistance programs that helped them.
So do I think that someone living on assistance, on my "dime" of $1,182 per year, is living better than I do on $71,200? Absolutely not! No one denies the fact that fraud exists. But please, let's all give up the stereotype that those on assistance are lazy and just out to scam the system. It does nothing to help the true problem of fraud and merely lets us mask the fact that there is a deep and true need in our society for these programs.
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