A family friend, a single mom of two small children, just got denied help from Tennessee's Families First, a program that is supposed to, among other things, help offset skyrocketing daycare costs for working families. This program is obviously huge because for lower-income people, the cost of daycare can be equal to or even more than what they make working a job.
For context, the father bailed and has done everything possible to avoid paying child support, even to the extreme of not working. He’s a useless loser, but our friend isn’t, or is trying not to be. She relies on her around $16/hour entry-level full-time job to pay rent, utilities, gas, car, vehicle maintenance, clothing, and other expenses (she does get some help for food and healthcare).
You would think this person would be a prime candidate for childcare help, especially since she is working full-time and genuinely trying to move up the income ladder and make good decisions after somewhat of a troubled past that includes some minor drug charges. That would be assuming the program’s creators meant for it to actually help people and not keep them in poverty. If you thought that, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
The stated reason this program turned her down (try not to laugh) is that she makes slightly more than the allowable net income of ... wait for it ... $1,549. Yes, you read that right. That allowable amount comes to $358 a week to cover rent, utilities, gas, car payment, vehicle maintenance, clothing, and other expenses for three people.
$358. A. Week.
This is the income threshold beyond which the brain trust at the state of Tennessee’s human services department figures a family of three should be able to make it on before the breadwinner gets help with daycare through its Families First program. No graduated scale, just … make a penny more than their insanely low, arbitrary number and you get no help with childcare. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Meaning that our friend and others in her position, who can’t possibly pay for childcare on their own, are forced to cut their hours or quit their current jobs entirely and take something for minimum wage in order to purposely make less money, ironically relying on the government to hopefully make up the difference in other ways. And they have no choice because without childcare (and in hers and many other cases, there is no family to help) they can’t work at all.
Normally, getting a raise or promotion is a good thing, a sliver of hope that better days are ahead. It means you are working hard and getting rewarded for it. But when you’re stuck in poverty and relying on government assistance for help, that good thing actually turns out to be a bad thing. Because when you lose that help, you lose the ability to work at all.
I realize conservatives are supposed to be against government handouts of any sort, and in principle, I am. But the world isn’t always as black and white as we would like it to be. Sure, if someone refuses to work, they should get nothing, obviously. I have zero compassion for laziness. Even the Bible says if you don’t work, you shouldn’t eat. However, U.S. citizens (and yes, I do mean citizens) who are working full-time and genuinely trying to make ends meet in this economy, the economy that the powers-that-be are responsible for creating, unfortunately, need and honestly deserve a hand up.
But everything about any welfare program, especially in a Red state that should know better, should be designed to genuinely help people move up the income ladder, gradually and gently reducing benefits until they don’t need them anymore. Families First, as it is designed now, is the opposite of that. Instead of a hand up, it’s a useless program purposefully designed to KEEP families in poverty. And in a Red State no less.
Sadly, this is just one person, one program, and one predicament. There are so many others tied in with the various welfare systems in our country, and the arcane rules can be tough or almost impossible to navigate. It would sure be nice to see the supposed populists in charge, who pretend to care about ordinary working people, begin to address just a little bit of this insanity.
I’ll leave you with this fascinating article by Michael Green that explains how the official U.S. poverty line is wildly outdated and artificially low, and that if poverty were measured against today’s actual costs for housing, childcare, healthcare, and other essentials, a family of four would need to earn upwards of $150,000, well above any income that qualifies for any sort of help at all, in order to merely survive. Trust me, it will change your entire paradigm on how welfare is distributed in this country.