Good morning, Kossacks, or afternoon, or evening, whenever this finds you. As has become my habit (or addiction?), I spend the early morning reading the news and blogs online. As I was reading Eschaton, I ran across the following conversation over at Think Progress, and it started me thinking about something in my life. To be honest, it's a burden, and while the experience has been educational, it is also painful and sorrowful. I think maybe I shouldn't bear it alone anymore. It's just another anecdote, of course, but maybe you will gain a little insight thereby, another piece of fuel for the fire that drives the engine that may help us transform this country into a better place.
Oh, this is my first diary, please be kind.
So, there is a young woman, born to a poor family. She had ambitions. She wanted to improve herself, to get out of the trap of poverty that mired her family. Through hard work, her parents managed to scrape together a little money, and they were able to send her off to the big city to go to college. Unfortunately, the well ran dry two years in. The young woman wasn't able to complete her degree, and was forced to take a job as a department store clerk. This was a fairly stable job, but her manager hated her for her ambitions, and subjected the young woman to mockery and abuse. The young woman lived in the city, in a ratty apartment building with a roommate, and was barely making ends meet.
Now her aunt had struck it lucky many years ago, marrying a middle-class guy who worked his way up to an administrative position at a state university in a small college town. The aunt wasn't terribly well-educated herself, and only worked as a waitress, but the restaurant she worked at was frequented by college faculty and staff, and she was keeping an eye out for good marriage prospects for her niece. Well, the college hired some new faculty to replace retiring members. The aunt soon spied a chubby but reasonably good-looking young man with a pleasant demeanor, and thought "there's the one!" Introductions were made, the young woman and the young professor spent some time together, and several months later, they wed.
The marriage lasted about two years before the young woman and the young professor realized they weren't really compatible. She left him, he filed for divorce, and not long after, he had found another job, at another college, in another town, in a different state. The young woman was now living in the college town, working as a waitress at the same restaurant her aunt worked at. Before the divorce, of course, she had been supported by her husband, and was covered by the college health plan for insurance. Now she was stuck earning half minimum wage plus tips, earning between ten and twelve thousand dollars a year, which isn't that bad, but still well below the poverty line.
There's a complication. At some point, the young woman contracted HPV, and now suffers from Cervical Dysplasia. She's got a pretty bad case, and has to go to the hospital two or three times a year to get pre-cancerous growths removed from her cervix. This requires an out-patient surgical procedure referred to as LEEP, and this costs around two thousand dollars a session. As I mentioned, she has no medical insurance, and if she had to pay for the surgery out of her pocket... well, you imagine trying to afford food and shelter on six thousand dollars a year. Fortunately, the state in which she lives has a program for the poor which provides free dental and medical coverage. But only if she remains poor.
So, here is the Catch-22 of poverty in America. The young woman is unskilled because her college degree was incomplete. She suffers from a chronic and expensive medical condition. She has a steady job... but it only pays half minimum wage plus tips. Note: college students are lousy tippers. There is no real possibility of advancement in this job... the boss doesn't provide pay raises. She can't really afford to go to the college in town to complete her education, and even if she could, she has to work long hours just to make ends meet, and this would probably have a negative impact on her grades. If she somehow does start earning enough money to get out of poverty, she suddenly is forced to pay for the surgery that treats her chronic condition, and is out about six thousand dollars.
I've spoken to her about the possibility of getting married again, but she's afraid that most of the guys she meets only want her for sex, and won't be willing to take care of her. Although she does own a car, she can barely afford the gas money to commute to work (the restaurant is three or four miles away from her apartment), and she's afraid of driving on the highway, so she's unwilling to look for better jobs outside her immediate area. Now, I've probably given you the impression that she's struggling to survive on the money she makes, but actually, she saves some of that money and sends it home to her parents every month, and saves some more which she spends on yearly trips to see her family. I've suggested to her that it might be better in the long run if she saves up that money for herself, for a couple of years, perhaps, and uses it to pay for college so she can finally complete her education and maybe find a much better-paying job, but she won't consider this.
On the positive side, she has avoided many of the traps that catch other poor people. She doesn't do drugs, drink, or smoke. She doesn't frequent pawn shops. She hasn't gone to any of those seedy loan companies that promise cash advances on tax returns, for a 'small' percentage. She's not in debt. But, she does play the lottery. Every time she has a few spare dollars, she'll buy a lottery card or two and play the small games. She claims that she's breaking even, but I have my doubts. She's hoping that she'll win big one day, get a million-dollar windfall and miraculously get out of the trap. I guess that's what keeps her going.