So, interstate child support collection is anything but adequate. I called Illinois, the state that is garnishing my x's wages. Let me just note that neither I or my x currently live in Illinois. Apparently, their department of family health and services has intercepted the payment. I thought it was California's DPSS but when I called my workers (both calworks and gain) they had absolutely no answers for me. They didn't really know what I was talking about! My calworks worker gave me the number for LA county child support services but it was actually a disconnected number. It was fairly simple for me to go on line and find the number myself. I called and listened to nauseating music on hold for over thirty minutes. Finally, a human being answered, and she had a brain! She looked up my case and informed me that Illinois has not informed California that they were garnishing wages or receiving payments. I told her that I just got off the phone with them and they informed me they were. She told me that she would assign a worker to my case and if I don't hear from that worker, to call back in about a month.
Ummm...Okay? I guess...
I asked if she knew what the deal with CALWORKS is. She says that if I keep my daughter on cash aid (even though my time clock has expired, she still receives $345 in aid, plus food stamps and medical), that I would collect an additional $50 from the child support payments and the rest would "pay back" my welfare. So I would collect $395 per month and it would be called, "aid". And I would have to keep jumping the hoops. Or, I could take my daughter off of aid and collect the child support directly. My question is, if I take us off aid, then will they still claim the back child support? If not, then I would receive $414 per month. If they do, I will only get $345. However, my x could lose his job or go back to getting paid under the table and then this will be a non-issue.
So it's all basically the same amount of money, the problem is what to call it. Right now the money is just sitting in bureaucratic limbo, and I supposed it will stay there for the time being.
Showing posts with label welfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label welfare. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
The State is Taking my Child's Support.
Do you know what they don’t tell you when you apply for public aid? What they don’t tell you is that if the non-custodial parent ever gets their priorities straight and begins to pay support via the child support order the social workers make you file against him, that the state will take that back child support as repayment of the “welfare” you received? That’s right, you could say they charged all of it to my X. However, the reality is that the person really being charged is my child.
The situation is that my CALWORKs 5 year time-clock has expired. However, my child support is disbursed through them. If I don’t fill out their QR7 or comply with giving them whatever, “proof that I am doing what I said I would do,” then they can sanction me and not give me the $345. of the $414. that is being taken out of my X’s paycheck every month, who has finally decided to stop getting paid under the table in order to avoid child support payments. He owes over $20,000 in back child support to my daughter. The state is claiming every penny of it.
I believe that money belongs to my child. That $70 per month could be put in a trust fund for her to give her a chance at a future. How dare they charge her for needing support when her dad wouldn't give it, and then put me through hoops, stigmatize me and call it “welfare.” They should call it, "child support relief loan," or "Fuck you for reproducing." I wouldn’t complain if they did it to others, but only poor single parents and their children get this special treatment. Farmers don’t have to pay back corn subsidies, and their only raising our nation’s food. Mothers are raising our nation’s future population. Executives wine and dine their clients and then get it written off as tax abatement. Trying to make a capitalistic buck gets more respect than nurturing life. Banks get free bailout money from the government and then lend it back to the government with interest. Saving Corporations is more important than saving lives. Poor mothers and children are treated like parasites (in a system that gives them no other choice) and the state feels they have the right to take our child support because we have the audacity to exist and need help raising children on our own.
Just when I think I have the beast by the horns, I realize that the beast actually has me.
Does anyone know of any resources that I could use to fight this?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
The Welfare Queen
The Constructed Identity of the, “Welfare Queen,” and How She Affects Welfare Policy
Oral Presentation at California State University Northridge, Gender and Women's Studies Conference on April 27, 2010
“She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”
This famous quote was spoken by President Ronald Reagan during a campaign speech in 1976. You may have heard of the woman he is describing. This thief, this fraud, this parasite, is the very well known public enemy number one, called the Welfare Queen.
Who is this Welfare Queen? Although she is not any one person in particular, she is used to define the thousands of poor mothers who rely on the state for economic aid in order to support their families. The public identity of the welfare queen situates herself in a particular intersection of society that is determined by race, sex, and class. This identity defines welfare recipients as lazy, immoral women of color, with many children, who are incapable of properly socializing their offspring and seek to use tax payers’ hard earned money to fuel a criminal lifestyle. This public identity has been embraced by many Americans over the years, as well as politicians, who use the identity of the welfare queen to establish punitive policies to control the personal and economical lives of poor mothers.
In 1996, President Clinton passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity And Reconciliation Act. This changed how much public aid families could receive, as well as the ability of the state to interfere and coerce the behaviors of poor mothers. Some of the restrictions outlined in this article are restrictions on eligibility, the 5 year lifetime limit of aid for any individual, severely limits immigrant women’s access to benefits, and requires that over 60% of a state’s welfare recipients be working. Not only do states have to prove that this mandatory quota is being achieved, but, “…each state’s plan must explain how the state plans to discourage out-of-wedlock births.”
One architect of the 1996 welfare reform, Charles Murray, was quoted saying, “The only way to combat the, ‘culture of poverty’ is to end all government welfare supports, forcing impoverished urban single mothers to behave more responsibly, or starve.” Another contributor to the reform was quoted as saying, “goodbye welfare queen, and hello working mom.”
In 2008, the Poverty in America Survey, administered by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family foundation and the Kennedy School of Government, found that 57% of respondents stated that welfare support causes women to have more babies. Indeed, the identity of the welfare queen is still pervasive today, still causing the American public to be reluctant to pay into a welfare system that would propel poor mothers out of poverty, and feel more comfortable paying for a system that monitors and controls poor women’s lives.
Because all Welfare recipients are entrenched in the stigmatized identity of the Welfare Queen, the state promotes and supports what’s called the, “work first” model of motherhood. The “work first” model suggests that any job, no matter how low paying, is better than no job. This is because of the belief that welfare moms aren’t capable of properly socializing their offspring. This model is contrary to the, “intensive mothering,” model, which is the social norm, and declares the utmost importance of the mother’s presence in the child’s socialization process.
However, poor mothers are actively resisting this model, as well as the stigmatized identity attached to it. There is another model of mothering that some poor mothers have created for themselves. This model is called the, “mother as provider,” model and dictates that any job won’t do if it does not pay a livable wage. These women are resisting the state sanctioned, “work first,” model and are instead fighting to get the education needed to properly provide as a head of household. Currently, a state does not have to support a University education, and many recipients who attend higher education must also fulfill compulsory work requirements, as well as the unpaid labor that is parenting.
I wanted to insert myself into my research because I, myself am a welfare recipient. I had a beautiful daughter, and ended up a single mother receiving no child support. In my own navigation of the welfare system here in California, I have noticed that these sexist, racist and classist policies that govern mine as well as hundreds of thousands of other women’s lives are actually counter- productive. Yes! Tax payer dollars, energy, and my precious time are consistently spent trying to prove to the state that I am a decent human being. Social Workers are paid to monitor me and meet federal quotas.
I feel these resources could be used much more effectively. By examining my own thoughts, experiences and feelings about being on welfare, as well as the thoughts, feelings and experiences of other women in my position, I realized that here exists a dire need for our own voice as poor mothers to be inserted into this system that so profoundly affects our lives.
For my research, I desired to search out and examine the voice of the poor mother. To do this I used my own blog and journals as a source for auto-ethnography, as well as the blogs of other women like me. I fortified this data with ethnographic interviews with additional women who receive welfare benefits.
What I found seemed to echo itself with every personal account of every poor mother that I came across. We are made to feel ashamed of ourselves. Because of that, we often hide the fact that we are on welfare from other people. Social workers have numerously made all of us cry tears of frustration at one point or another.
I also found that we do have agency. We are mothers. We want respect. We want to be successful. We don’t want to be poor. We want our children to be proud of us. If given the tools necessary to succeed, we can, and will. Through many conversations, the reality of the need to form a coalition of poor mothers and poor mother allies is not only apparent, but of the utmost importance to the world.
If what Ghandi once said is true, if poverty is truly the worst form of violence, than the state has the responsibility to correct its abusive actions. These degrading policies are based on patriarchal, nuclear family values and mythical norms that are simply not the reality of many families today.
The reality is that being a poor mother is not by nature a character flaw, and we certainly should not be subject to punishment and stigmatization because of who we are. We have something to say. Listen to us, and we will tell you what we need in order to raise happy and healthy children. We are the bringers of the future. legislators, children, and society as a whole would benefit from our voice.
Oral Presentation at California State University Northridge, Gender and Women's Studies Conference on April 27, 2010
“She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”
This famous quote was spoken by President Ronald Reagan during a campaign speech in 1976. You may have heard of the woman he is describing. This thief, this fraud, this parasite, is the very well known public enemy number one, called the Welfare Queen.
Who is this Welfare Queen? Although she is not any one person in particular, she is used to define the thousands of poor mothers who rely on the state for economic aid in order to support their families. The public identity of the welfare queen situates herself in a particular intersection of society that is determined by race, sex, and class. This identity defines welfare recipients as lazy, immoral women of color, with many children, who are incapable of properly socializing their offspring and seek to use tax payers’ hard earned money to fuel a criminal lifestyle. This public identity has been embraced by many Americans over the years, as well as politicians, who use the identity of the welfare queen to establish punitive policies to control the personal and economical lives of poor mothers.
In 1996, President Clinton passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity And Reconciliation Act. This changed how much public aid families could receive, as well as the ability of the state to interfere and coerce the behaviors of poor mothers. Some of the restrictions outlined in this article are restrictions on eligibility, the 5 year lifetime limit of aid for any individual, severely limits immigrant women’s access to benefits, and requires that over 60% of a state’s welfare recipients be working. Not only do states have to prove that this mandatory quota is being achieved, but, “…each state’s plan must explain how the state plans to discourage out-of-wedlock births.”
One architect of the 1996 welfare reform, Charles Murray, was quoted saying, “The only way to combat the, ‘culture of poverty’ is to end all government welfare supports, forcing impoverished urban single mothers to behave more responsibly, or starve.” Another contributor to the reform was quoted as saying, “goodbye welfare queen, and hello working mom.”
In 2008, the Poverty in America Survey, administered by National Public Radio, the Kaiser Family foundation and the Kennedy School of Government, found that 57% of respondents stated that welfare support causes women to have more babies. Indeed, the identity of the welfare queen is still pervasive today, still causing the American public to be reluctant to pay into a welfare system that would propel poor mothers out of poverty, and feel more comfortable paying for a system that monitors and controls poor women’s lives.
Because all Welfare recipients are entrenched in the stigmatized identity of the Welfare Queen, the state promotes and supports what’s called the, “work first” model of motherhood. The “work first” model suggests that any job, no matter how low paying, is better than no job. This is because of the belief that welfare moms aren’t capable of properly socializing their offspring. This model is contrary to the, “intensive mothering,” model, which is the social norm, and declares the utmost importance of the mother’s presence in the child’s socialization process.
However, poor mothers are actively resisting this model, as well as the stigmatized identity attached to it. There is another model of mothering that some poor mothers have created for themselves. This model is called the, “mother as provider,” model and dictates that any job won’t do if it does not pay a livable wage. These women are resisting the state sanctioned, “work first,” model and are instead fighting to get the education needed to properly provide as a head of household. Currently, a state does not have to support a University education, and many recipients who attend higher education must also fulfill compulsory work requirements, as well as the unpaid labor that is parenting.
I wanted to insert myself into my research because I, myself am a welfare recipient. I had a beautiful daughter, and ended up a single mother receiving no child support. In my own navigation of the welfare system here in California, I have noticed that these sexist, racist and classist policies that govern mine as well as hundreds of thousands of other women’s lives are actually counter- productive. Yes! Tax payer dollars, energy, and my precious time are consistently spent trying to prove to the state that I am a decent human being. Social Workers are paid to monitor me and meet federal quotas.
I feel these resources could be used much more effectively. By examining my own thoughts, experiences and feelings about being on welfare, as well as the thoughts, feelings and experiences of other women in my position, I realized that here exists a dire need for our own voice as poor mothers to be inserted into this system that so profoundly affects our lives.
For my research, I desired to search out and examine the voice of the poor mother. To do this I used my own blog and journals as a source for auto-ethnography, as well as the blogs of other women like me. I fortified this data with ethnographic interviews with additional women who receive welfare benefits.
What I found seemed to echo itself with every personal account of every poor mother that I came across. We are made to feel ashamed of ourselves. Because of that, we often hide the fact that we are on welfare from other people. Social workers have numerously made all of us cry tears of frustration at one point or another.
I also found that we do have agency. We are mothers. We want respect. We want to be successful. We don’t want to be poor. We want our children to be proud of us. If given the tools necessary to succeed, we can, and will. Through many conversations, the reality of the need to form a coalition of poor mothers and poor mother allies is not only apparent, but of the utmost importance to the world.
If what Ghandi once said is true, if poverty is truly the worst form of violence, than the state has the responsibility to correct its abusive actions. These degrading policies are based on patriarchal, nuclear family values and mythical norms that are simply not the reality of many families today.
The reality is that being a poor mother is not by nature a character flaw, and we certainly should not be subject to punishment and stigmatization because of who we are. We have something to say. Listen to us, and we will tell you what we need in order to raise happy and healthy children. We are the bringers of the future. legislators, children, and society as a whole would benefit from our voice.
Friday, January 30, 2009
another trip to the welfare office...and off goes my brain.
Last wedensday, I had a 2pm appointment with my CALWORKS worker. After 1 hour and 15 minutes of waiting, I grabbed somebody with a badge and pleaded with them to find my worker. They came back 20 minutes later and told me that he had taken a "late lunch."
I left.
I had to go back there today. This is the "reaffirmation" appointment. Every year we have to fill out the volumes of paperwork that we had to fill out when we first applied. 99% is monitoring, because you know how we welfare mothers are. Greedy. Pathological. Dirty. Spreading our legs and pooping out babies because it gets us so far. Ya. We get off on screwing the system.
Ahem. Anyway, this time I spotted my worker on the way in, so I ran up to him and tugged on his sleeve like I was a 6 year old child. "I'm here! I'm here!" I squealed.
He told me to sign in and pointed me to the huge line consisting of moms, dads, babies in strollers with toddlers hanging off the sides, and seniors. I reluctantly took my place.
I began to eves drop on a conversation taking place close by where I was standing. An African American woman, mid/late 30's robust, wearing a grey sweatshirt and camo pants asks an African American man, early 20's, long legs stretched out and crossed, sitting next to her if he would like to hear a joke. He nods his head and shrugs. I imagine he's thinking there is not much else to do while waiting.
"A black kid asks his mom for a cell phone. She looks at him and says, 'well then, you better go out and get yourself a job, then.' "
The young man nods and furrows his brow a little. He doesn't know where she's going with this and I don't either. I'm trying to not look totally fascinated while straining to hear every word.
"And then a white kid asks his mom for a cell phone. And you know what she says?"
No! Please tell me.
"which one?"
At that, both of them burst out laughing and so does another African American woman sitting across from them. I stood there swimming in my head. Holy shit! Does she realize what a profound statement she has just made? The fact that that is the funniest joke ever and that a white person would never get it. The fact that it is a racial joke, but while African Americans get "Drunk Negro Cookies" served at the local bakery, the joke about white people is that they are privileged.
the woman went on to say that she has a 17 year old, and 11 year old, and a 7 year old. They all know the value of hard work because when they want something, she only gives them 50% of the cost and they have to make up the rest. And this is for Christmas presents. She says they've gotta know the pain, sweat and blood that she expends to give them things.
"Which one?"
I thought about my own daughter. I got her a Nintendo ds, she's had it for a year, and it's already broken. I overdrew my account to get it for her. She drew all over it with a marker. I promised her today that if she got 10 out of 10 homeworks, I would get the brand new Mario Brothers Game for her after school. It costs almost forty dollars. I wondered how hard that woman would have laughed if I told her that I reward my daughter with expensive gifts for doing her homework.
This Christmas she wanted a lap top. At my sharp look, she exclaimed, "But Adela has one!" I told her that I didn't even have a lap top. She still asked Santa for one. I told her that I told Santa he's not allowed to give her a lap top. She told me that she didn't like me anymore.
My daughter passes for white. The only thing mildly Philipina about her is her slightly, almond shaped eyes. Otherwise she is pale skin with freckles and reddish/auburn hair. She feels fully entitled already as a white person at 5 years old.
They must have taught her about race during Martin Luther King day, because she came home every day for a week talking about how her skin was white, and most of the other people in her class are brown, and did I know that they used to make the people with the...here she stops and looks at her arm....Which one is good, and which one is bad? Oh yah, brown is the bad one...did you know mom that they used to have to work for white people? They were slaves! Oh and we played "slave" today at recess.
I was disturbed. I asked her who she played. She told me that all the kids took turns being owners and slaves. I asked her if the teachers knew that they were playing this game. At this point, I think she sensed my discomfort and so shrugged off the question, asking me instead for ice cream in the most annoying, whiney voice she can muster. I don't want to push these things, because other wise she won't tell me anything, so I act nonchalant, hoping to get more information later.
Over fresh, strawberry, organic ice cream at the local shop for three bucks a scoop, she compares her skin to mine. "You're kind of brown, mom," She tells me, "but I love you anyway." But I love you anyway! How the hell is she learning this? Is society's white supremest message so slithering and subtle that it is able to permeate my own daughter, the daughter of a feminist woman of color, that it could penetrate into her being already? Have I raised her with white privilege? I do buy her a lot of things. In my defense, I think that I am trying to make it up to her for her dad not being around. Kids are pros at exploiting any kind of guilt that they know their parents have.
I am not really sure where to go from here.
Oh yes. Sitting at the welfare office today, I realized a few things. I am mostly marginalized, low socio-economic status. I am fat, so I get no societal koodos for being hot, I'm a single mom, I'm on welfare, so I'm stigmatized. I'm a woman of color, so I'm stigmatized. I'm a radical feminist, which is not so cool with the dominant culture. On top of that, I'm a smoker which is now looked upon the same as being a heroine addict.
But in that office today, the one thing I wasn't, was black or mexican. And that is partly the reason I was able to get in and out of there in less than an hour. Less than an hour. There was one woman there who had been waiting for two hours. Finally, she stood in the line again just to ask the receptionist where her worker was. The receptionist told her that her worker never came in today. They couldn't tell her that 2 hours ago? Her eyes filled up with frustration and tears.
Most of the workers are immigrants. Not white. There are very few white people I think who go to or work in the Department of Social Services. However, the majority of the workers that I saw were armenian or persian, and were old men. My worker is an old, armenian man as well. Even though I'm more robust than I used to be I still no how to charm an old man. I owe that to my years working in a bar and working in strip clubs. I projected the image of the damsel who would be in distress if it weren't for her hero, mr. social worker. Seduction and manipulation are both arts of war. Ones that every girl learns before she reaches 12, I imagine. Women have survived extreme oppression for thousands of years because of those concentrations. Those arts of war.
Oh, I only have one child? I'm asian? I think the "model minority" stereo type is working in my favor here. Well I must not be trying to defraud the system. I don't fit the bill for that. I'm not black or mexican. How proud he is of me for going to school. How proud he is of himself. He takes credit for my decision to further my education. He tells me that he loves to help people. My face beams appreciation that floats over a dark sea of resentment. Is that why you took a lunch during that appointment you booked with me last week?
I left.
I had to go back there today. This is the "reaffirmation" appointment. Every year we have to fill out the volumes of paperwork that we had to fill out when we first applied. 99% is monitoring, because you know how we welfare mothers are. Greedy. Pathological. Dirty. Spreading our legs and pooping out babies because it gets us so far. Ya. We get off on screwing the system.
Ahem. Anyway, this time I spotted my worker on the way in, so I ran up to him and tugged on his sleeve like I was a 6 year old child. "I'm here! I'm here!" I squealed.
He told me to sign in and pointed me to the huge line consisting of moms, dads, babies in strollers with toddlers hanging off the sides, and seniors. I reluctantly took my place.
I began to eves drop on a conversation taking place close by where I was standing. An African American woman, mid/late 30's robust, wearing a grey sweatshirt and camo pants asks an African American man, early 20's, long legs stretched out and crossed, sitting next to her if he would like to hear a joke. He nods his head and shrugs. I imagine he's thinking there is not much else to do while waiting.
"A black kid asks his mom for a cell phone. She looks at him and says, 'well then, you better go out and get yourself a job, then.' "
The young man nods and furrows his brow a little. He doesn't know where she's going with this and I don't either. I'm trying to not look totally fascinated while straining to hear every word.
"And then a white kid asks his mom for a cell phone. And you know what she says?"
No! Please tell me.
"which one?"
At that, both of them burst out laughing and so does another African American woman sitting across from them. I stood there swimming in my head. Holy shit! Does she realize what a profound statement she has just made? The fact that that is the funniest joke ever and that a white person would never get it. The fact that it is a racial joke, but while African Americans get "Drunk Negro Cookies" served at the local bakery, the joke about white people is that they are privileged.
the woman went on to say that she has a 17 year old, and 11 year old, and a 7 year old. They all know the value of hard work because when they want something, she only gives them 50% of the cost and they have to make up the rest. And this is for Christmas presents. She says they've gotta know the pain, sweat and blood that she expends to give them things.
"Which one?"
I thought about my own daughter. I got her a Nintendo ds, she's had it for a year, and it's already broken. I overdrew my account to get it for her. She drew all over it with a marker. I promised her today that if she got 10 out of 10 homeworks, I would get the brand new Mario Brothers Game for her after school. It costs almost forty dollars. I wondered how hard that woman would have laughed if I told her that I reward my daughter with expensive gifts for doing her homework.
This Christmas she wanted a lap top. At my sharp look, she exclaimed, "But Adela has one!" I told her that I didn't even have a lap top. She still asked Santa for one. I told her that I told Santa he's not allowed to give her a lap top. She told me that she didn't like me anymore.
My daughter passes for white. The only thing mildly Philipina about her is her slightly, almond shaped eyes. Otherwise she is pale skin with freckles and reddish/auburn hair. She feels fully entitled already as a white person at 5 years old.
They must have taught her about race during Martin Luther King day, because she came home every day for a week talking about how her skin was white, and most of the other people in her class are brown, and did I know that they used to make the people with the...here she stops and looks at her arm....Which one is good, and which one is bad? Oh yah, brown is the bad one...did you know mom that they used to have to work for white people? They were slaves! Oh and we played "slave" today at recess.
I was disturbed. I asked her who she played. She told me that all the kids took turns being owners and slaves. I asked her if the teachers knew that they were playing this game. At this point, I think she sensed my discomfort and so shrugged off the question, asking me instead for ice cream in the most annoying, whiney voice she can muster. I don't want to push these things, because other wise she won't tell me anything, so I act nonchalant, hoping to get more information later.
Over fresh, strawberry, organic ice cream at the local shop for three bucks a scoop, she compares her skin to mine. "You're kind of brown, mom," She tells me, "but I love you anyway." But I love you anyway! How the hell is she learning this? Is society's white supremest message so slithering and subtle that it is able to permeate my own daughter, the daughter of a feminist woman of color, that it could penetrate into her being already? Have I raised her with white privilege? I do buy her a lot of things. In my defense, I think that I am trying to make it up to her for her dad not being around. Kids are pros at exploiting any kind of guilt that they know their parents have.
I am not really sure where to go from here.
Oh yes. Sitting at the welfare office today, I realized a few things. I am mostly marginalized, low socio-economic status. I am fat, so I get no societal koodos for being hot, I'm a single mom, I'm on welfare, so I'm stigmatized. I'm a woman of color, so I'm stigmatized. I'm a radical feminist, which is not so cool with the dominant culture. On top of that, I'm a smoker which is now looked upon the same as being a heroine addict.
But in that office today, the one thing I wasn't, was black or mexican. And that is partly the reason I was able to get in and out of there in less than an hour. Less than an hour. There was one woman there who had been waiting for two hours. Finally, she stood in the line again just to ask the receptionist where her worker was. The receptionist told her that her worker never came in today. They couldn't tell her that 2 hours ago? Her eyes filled up with frustration and tears.
Most of the workers are immigrants. Not white. There are very few white people I think who go to or work in the Department of Social Services. However, the majority of the workers that I saw were armenian or persian, and were old men. My worker is an old, armenian man as well. Even though I'm more robust than I used to be I still no how to charm an old man. I owe that to my years working in a bar and working in strip clubs. I projected the image of the damsel who would be in distress if it weren't for her hero, mr. social worker. Seduction and manipulation are both arts of war. Ones that every girl learns before she reaches 12, I imagine. Women have survived extreme oppression for thousands of years because of those concentrations. Those arts of war.
Oh, I only have one child? I'm asian? I think the "model minority" stereo type is working in my favor here. Well I must not be trying to defraud the system. I don't fit the bill for that. I'm not black or mexican. How proud he is of me for going to school. How proud he is of himself. He takes credit for my decision to further my education. He tells me that he loves to help people. My face beams appreciation that floats over a dark sea of resentment. Is that why you took a lunch during that appointment you booked with me last week?
Monday, December 8, 2008
Gripes of a single mom/student on welfare
Right now I'm supposed to be at work. However, my daughter has a bad stomach flue and has been puking since yesterday. I have a very sensitive gag reflex and aversion to vomit so at one point we were puking in harmony. So I'm home even though I could really use the money. That is because 1 week after I finally get GAIN to approve me going to CSUN I get a letter from CALWORKS saying that they closed my case because I never sent them my QR7. It's a bogus piece of paperwork they use to monitor recipients and I mailed it to them weeks ago. The budget cuts caused my local office to close and merge with the larger DPSS office on Pico and Sepulveda (remember that song from "The Forbidden Zone"?) I have an odd feeling that may be the reason they don't have my paperwork. I've been calling all kinds of DPSS numbers for a week and no one is picking up.
How I found out that my case was closed is that my $580 that I get every month didn't come. Needless to say, Consumer-mas is coming and my bank account is $300 overdrawn. I actually have nightmares about the overdraft notices coming into my account. This year my gift to everyone is to please not buy me a gift. I won't be buying you one.
Another thing I found out is that all of the Cash Aid that I've been getting has been charged to my x-husband as child support. That means that the $13000 that he owes me in child support will now go to the state and I won't see a penny of it. So, to me, it's not really welfare, it's my child support money being advanced to me. So that means I am being forced to work (GAIN is a 32 hour compulsory work program)for my child support?
The way welfare works is that you get 5 years of cash aid for your whole life. I believe that 1 year is exempt from GAIN but after that you have to perform a minimum of 32 hours of "approved activity". They promote minimum wage jobs with little benefits. These jobs may suffice during the 5 years with the help of CALWORKS because child care is paid for, you get food stamps and free health care. However, after the 5 years are up, if your still stuck at that low wage job, you will not receive any help. I believe that this 5 year limit is the main cause that women and children are the #1 rising population of homeless people. While it's the mothers that get the stigma and the blame, these huge corporations, like WALMART, that refuse to pay a living wage or provide benefits to their employees, go unnoticed. They continue to increase their profit margins at the expense of taxpayers who must make up for the damage that is caused by their refusal to pay a wage that people can actually live on.
And GAIN does not promote going to school. Like I said before, it's the last week of the semester and I just got approved for going to school. That means, before now, The hours I spent in college did not count towards my GAIN approved activities. It counted for zero of the 32 mandatory hours per week. It's very important to know that if one is not already registered in college before participating in GAIN, then it is very hard to get approved to go to school. I had to take an 8 hour vocational assessment, and only was approved because "social worker" was one of the jobs that I was able to choose for "vocational education". Some of the other positions that I scored on was "singing messenger" and "food server". Besides sex work, or relying on a partner's financial support, a university education is the only way I can think of to have a chance at the ability to provide for my family. Why wouldn't the Department of Social Services realize that and promote education above minimum wage jobs? Why do they make it extremely hard to get an education while receiving public aid? Why am I society's pariah and not the rich corporate CEO's that enjoy luxury and get hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer's money? I really don't have the answers, I just jump through the hoops.
Bush's solution to the feminization of poverty, that is, the poorest of the poor being women and their children, is marriage. I really hope that this next administration will actively create policy to help mothers in the society given responsibility of raising the future of humanity. The farming industry gets subsidies from the government and they're just raising our food. That is essentially putting corn and cows above human beings. They do this and point a finger at me, Latinos, African Americans and undocumented immigrants as the cause of society's ills.
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