One of my guilty liberal secrets is that I've never really been able to dismiss the right wing talking point that welfare breeds dependence. I know that no one aspires to be on welfare and that it does not confer an enviable lifestyle on anyone, but balanced against the soul crushing experience that is seeking a job without qualifications or much of a work history some people likely give up in despair. I know that I have worked jobs where I saw the same people coming in every month to apply so that they could fulfill a welfare requirement that they seek work, even though they didn't really expect to get the job.
I've nevertheless always thought we needed to have Welfare. You just can't let people starve and die because someone might take a bit more than in some theoretical world was ideal.
But now,we have a homeless woman living in our spare bedroom. I don't want to share much of her story because she's pretty private about it, but in general she got dumped by a crappy husband and left to fend for herself at middle age without much of a job history. She had a job but lost it when the economy went to hell, and is now in her early 60's with bad arthritis in her hands and hips.
We're letting her use our address as her address, because without a home address you get nothing. She got SNAP and applied for disability, and after a huge amount of hoop jumping got $200 a month. And then they took her food money away because of that $200. That's it, that's all she gets.
WTF? That's the welfare that right wingers get worked up about? WTF kind of social saftey net is that? What's the governments plan with that, that she sleeps in a refrigerator box on a stack of old newspapers?