Those of you who know me also know I have quite the history of chronic unemployment. Usually when I do have a job, I'm never able to keep it more than a couple of months, three if I'm lucky. Couple that with part-time hours, minimum wage pay and nearly no chance for advancement due to conditions and constant cutbacks on your hours and you have a permanent, inescapable rut of gross underemployment to which most of us are subjected.
Some of us may have the help of family or friends, or even Social Security and other social services, but many don't even have either one, and in the case of Social Security, many don't even know where to begin when navigating the quagmire that is red tape. I speak from experience, having been denied ten times in the five year period before I attended college. This is all in spite of the fact that I had received child disability payments, then was switched to survivor's benefits after my father died because they wanted to save a few bucks.
There are two groups of people I'd like to address regarding some outright stupidity I've had to put up with over the years. First, I'd like to tell those who point to one of the few successes (Temple Grandin, for instance) and say that those people did what they did with no help from anyone, because that is simply not true. She had help from her parents and her community in learning to function despite her limits. Many of us aren't even that lucky.
The other group are those who live by the FYIGM philosophy, ranting and raving about how everyone should have to work for everything they get. Sorry, but life isn't that simple, and it's much harder for disabled people and their families to even scrape by. Who knows? Perhaps those folks love watching us suffer and struggle.
I am against stupid proposals such as Chained CPIs, Payroll Tax Holidays and other things that might harm seniors and the disabled, because many of us have little as it is. Perhaps we need to challenge a few lawmakers to live for six months on what little we do get. Maybe then their eyes would be opened.
See you around,
Homer