Tag: Poverty

The Food Stamp program has always been a contentious, heavily partisan issue.  A recent New York Times article highlights the back-and-forth that has characterized the highs and lows of the program, and where it seems to be headed.  Today I’ve chosen to write about this controversial subject to, in part, document of my own direct personal experience.  Though food stamp usage might have been more stigmatized in an earlier year, there is unfortunately still much bias and prejudice directed towards those who take advantage of its existence.  Until this is eliminated, others will refuse to apply and find their poverty and need considerably worsened.  If this be Welfare, it is one of the most essential safety nets ever devised and my fear is that a resurgent GOP presence will eliminate it altogether, or prune it back considerably.  

If we were to be fair with ourselves, we would admit that, compared to most of the rest of the world, we really do have it good.  As I say this, I recognize that statements such as these have been set forth multiple times to scold those who feel no desire to contribute to some worthy cause or endeavor.  I’m not really out to highlight an issue or to request a donation, nor do I seek to appeal to your latent sense of guilt.  Rather, I do ask for your sober contemplation.  What I say now is designed to encourage discussion and discourage argument.  We have enough back-and-forth as it is and we waste so much of our energies and ourselves in the process, passion better spent focused on different avenues.  

All of us live in one bubble or another.  The wealthier and more privileged we are, the greater and more exclusive the bubble.  Growing up in the South, as I did, my parents and the parents of my peers most often had been born into solidly working class families.  It had only been through their hard work and a resulting favorable economic climate that they’d had the ability to achieve social mobility, and in so doing scale one class up the proverbial ladder.  Now that I live in a city where I encounter on a regular basis people my own age who have come from a long line of relative wealth, their views and mine are often as different as our priorities.  I find it quite difficult to not be jealous and envious of, for example, their multiple trips abroad to Germany or their ability to attend an elite institution (or two) of higher learning.  Still, I recognize that compared to many who live in the state of my birth, I had it very easy.    

When we talk about Haiti, Darfur, or the Middle East, all the usual conduits to direct money and financial assistance fall easily in place.  Yet, it is rather telling that it takes a catastrophe before we give even half a second to contemplate what life must be like for those in the Third World.  Whether we admit it or not, a hierarchy of need exists, and the simultaneous blessing and curse of having our  own basic needs met on an almost constant basis is that we can afford to have trivial, tedious arguments of insidious intent.  And what to what overwhelming question does this lead us?  It’s tough to say, really, but whatever it may be is frequently useless and thoroughly counter-productive.  

As for our friends in dire need, their daily thoughts tend to be whether they have enough food to eat, or whether their lives will be in danger tomorrow, or how they’ll manage to raise their children in a harsh, unforgiving environment.  To them, our arguments would seem not just ludicrous but also completely incomprehensible.  Many have talked about this concept before, too, I recognize.  If I believed we had gotten the message before now I wouldn’t bother reintroducing it.  To be sure, I am aware that some do take this matter to heart.  These are the ones who jump at the chance to volunteer to serve the less fortunate in other countries.  I admire and appreciate their devotion.  I do also take to heart the often-conservative criticism that we spend so much time and energy temporarily boosting the stature of devastated foreign countries while simultaneously neglecting our own poor and downtrodden.  We would certainly go far to document the lives of our own needy beyond the occasional human interest story or anecdote.  It’s not so much where we devote our energy as it is a question of our general mindset, which must not just be a single-minded and highly time-limited desire to cross off the phrase “humanitarian effort” from our Socially Conscious™ checklist.    

The problem with bubbles, of course, is that bubbles isolate.  They are impermeable.  They keep information from getting out and in so doing keep necessary strategies and potential means of assistance in the hands of and for the use of a small, fortunate few.  In discussion with those of other nationalities, I note that they have at times expressed no small frustration with us that we in this country seem to believe that nothing happens of much importance unless it happens here, or has some direct relevance to America and Americans.  If our ultimate goal was complete equality, as we say it is, then we’d make a general effort to take into account the unique stories, news, and issues of other regions and countries of the world.  Put this way, these very pertinent topics wouldn’t have to be consolidated into a tab labeled “World News” on one’s browser, or reduced to a niche interest targeted to a niche interest group.

What we deal with primarily is a discrepancy involving money and means.  Here in Northwest DC, for example, some have spent years bickering about the location of a new library and whether it should be granted zoning rights and the ability to finally break ground.  Common sense alone would have dictated that the existing temporary library space is much too small to accommodate the number of patrons who use its services, meaning that the construction of the building can’t get underway soon enough.  Whereas, if I turn my attention towards the Southeast in the direction of Anacostia, I am faced with the blight and decay of dire poverty—with it a lack of basic services.  Here, where I live, there are many restaurants and grocery stories I encounter on even the most modest of walks up and down the main thoroughfare.  There, one is hard pressed to find more than one restaurant, and grocery stores are either severely limited, or nowhere to be found.  This underscores how finding common means of comparison is difficult enough between people of similar interest, but in this way, both residents speak completely different languages.

I fail to take into account that many of us genuinely try to do the right thing.  I’ve seen it for myself, many times.  I’m not stating that one ought to drop everything, give all one has to the poor, and move to an impoverished country.  But what I am saying is that once we leave the bubble, we don’t need the novelty of a country or region in crisis to recognize that until our efforts here on these shores are a success, we simply won’t have the infrastructure and the methodology in place to give better aid and assistance to foreign countries in need.  If that on-going War on Poverty is ever won and won forever, it will start here, then spread to other places, not the other way around.  Speaking American English in all its varieties and variations is tough enough, with so many regional, ethnic, and economic distinctions.  Speaking the native tongue of another place is a daunting, if not completely impossible task until we’ve found our own means of translation.  

Obama: Small Business Key for Recovery

Kent Bernhard, Jr. — Jan 27, 2010

The president proposed eliminating all capital-gains taxes on small-business investment, creating tax incentives for small businesses to hire new workers and raise the wages of those they already employ, and steering $30 billion in money from the Wall Street bailout to community banks to lend to small businesses.

“Now, the true engine of job creation in this country will always be America’s businesses. But government can create the conditions necessary for businesses to expand and hire more workers,” Obama said. “We should start where most new jobs do–in small businesses, companies that begin when an entrepreneur takes a chance on a dream, or a worker decides its time she became her own boss.”

http://www.portfolio.com/busin…

OK, how will Small Business, get the help they need, to put Americans back on the Road to Recovery?

The circular firing squad over the defeat of Martha Coakley and what this means for the Democratic Party and Health Care Reform got underway a couple days ago.  I’ve said my bit, and have nothing further to add, but I’d rather address the potential challenges facing reform aside from the loss of a seemingly filibuster-proof majority.  It is now absolutely imperative we push forward and bring a bill to President Obama’s desk.  Our backs may be against the wall, but perhaps it will take abject panic and fear to rouse our complacent, weak-kneed Democratic legislators towards the goal.  If it takes the shock and dismay of a humiliating defeat to break the logjam, then so be it.  I’m not concerned with speculating as to how we got here; I am instead consumed with what we learned from it and how we will use this tough lesson to think of others and their needs rather than ourselves.  

What I have noticed in my own struggles to obtain low-income health insurance is how class and race ensure that government subsidized plans are underfunded and often dysfunctional, but money (or the lack of it) seems to be the most powerful determinant of all.  What many have noted is that basic selfishness is what threatens to derail any efforts towards changing the existing system—namely that people who have always had sufficient coverage do not understand the limitations faced by those who do not.  We can call that privilege if we wish, but that term has always seemed accusatory to no good end to me, and my intent is not to chastise anyone but to make many aware of the challenges in front of us that never get much in the way of attention.  In my own life, I can say that I have now seen how the other half lives for the first time ever, and I noted that they live lives severely impeded by the tremendous limitations and senseless complications of the existing system.

I have been unemployed or at least severely underemployed for several months.  As a result, I had no choice but to file for government assistance.  When I was finally granted food stamps I signed up as well for a local DC funded health insurance plan.  What I have discovered in the process is that since the Recession hit, social service agencies in DC have been swamped by new applications for every existing option currently offered.  According to one worker with whom I spoke, claims have tripled since the bottom began to fall out of the economy.  The system was barely able to manage the number of filings in more stable times, and now it has in large part ground to a halt if not slowed to a trickle.  New claims are supposed to be processed in no more then 30 days from approval, and I was forced to make several time-consuming, additional calls to the proper department to even get the coverage activated.  Those without the time or without the persistence likely will be granted nothing at all and this simply should not happen.  

My great point is that without the infrastructure in place, it doesn’t matter how many people to whom we grant coverage.  Ensuring that everyone can get their teeth cleaned, fillings filled, broken bones set, flu-like symptoms properly treated, diabetes regulated, or depression adequately under control is the ultimate goal, but we must also be sure to build a sufficient number of clinics, medical centers, doctor’s offices, dental hygiene practices, well-stocked pharmacies and all the rest.  They must be built in proper proportion to need and since humankind has never been able to curtail its zeal for making money at the expense of the health of the financial system, we need to devise strategies to build these things for both good times and bad.

In DC, the low-income, government-funded system forces the poor and/or disabled to a handful of centers scattered across the District itself.  Visiting a private doctor or specialist is not an option, since coverage is only granted to those who use these designated centers.  Likewise, pharmacies and medication dispensation function under the same parameters.  Using Walgreens, CVS, Rite Aid, or other commercial medication fillers is not allowed under the plan.  Though there are a score of specific pharmacies which take the DC plan, in my case, there is only one pharmacy in the entire District that fills psychiatric medication, and for me it is a 35 minute trip, one-way via public transportation and then by foot.  The pharmacy itself is attached to a Mental Health services clinic which is the sole site whereby psychiatric care is provided for a city of roughly 600,000 people.

Without enough workers to process claims, grant coverage, manage medical records, or attend to even the most basic of needs the system is essentially worthless or at least incredibly inefficient.  Without enough revenue allocated by governments from taxation or other means, it doesn’t matter how snazzy or up-to-date is any system designed to speed up or modernize the system.  Window dressing is window dressing.  Without the money to properly stock a pharmacy, medications will be obtained on a priority system and as such, meds that are rarely prescribed or are very expensive will rarely be on hand when needed.  For example, one of my medications, Parnate, is an MAOI inhibitor.  Parnate is a very powerful anti-depressant that is infrequently prescribed because with it comes potentially dangerous, even deadly side effects if I do not take care to abstain from eating certain foods.  As you might expect, it is not one of the more common prescriptions, but it is essential to my lasting health and quality of life.  A commercial pharmacy usually has it in stock, or if it does not, it can be quickly ordered or is certainly in stock at some other store in the immediate area.  With the government-subsidized pharmacy I must use, if that particular drug is available at all it is due purely to chance and luck, and if it needs to be ordered, it may be a week or more before they have it in stock.      

Regarding visits with a GP, specialist, or other specific health practitioner, some clinics and centers accept walk-ins or schedule appointments within a reasonable time frame.  Some do not.  For those who need surgical procedures or more invasive treatment, one might be expected to wait months.  When I still lived in Alabama, there was approximately one Medicaid-accepting clinic for the entire state that performed the procedure, and as such when it came time for me to have a very routine, non-invasive treatment, I was booked four whole months in advance.  In more affluent, usually blue cities and states, the wait time is often less, but it can still be a bit on the lengthy side.  As for me, I found to my utter dismay that my coverage was terminated before the procedure could be even performed after the clinic filed and billed Medicaid for the cost of the preliminary screening.  Someone must have realized that to save cost I was not what they deemed a “high-priority” need and thus I could be safely removed from the rolls to save money in what was a system already in danger of being completely depleted of funds.    

An important distinction needs to be drawn here.  The DC-based coverage I have been talking about is different from Medicaid or, for that matter, Medicare.  This coverage augments or seeks to provide coverage to those who either have Medicaid/Medicare or cannot get approved for it.  This is why the rules, parameters, and hoops to jump through are more severe.  Medicaid usually allows a person to pursue more orthodox means of seeking treatment.  Though some medical practitioners do not accept it because it usually pays out less than a gold standard coverage plan through a private insurer, many do.  Again, money is a big factor at play.  If Medicaid were capable of paying out at a sufficient rate, everyone would take it.  If it wasn’t at times forced to pay out much later than a private carrier or even being forced to issue IOU’s when monetary shortfalls and partisan bickering delayed enactment of a satisfactory state budget, then it certainly would be on par with usually employer-based coverage.

Yet, it is very disingenuous at best for those who oppose health care reform to stubbornly dig in their heels and express haughty indignation that they are NOT going to have “the government” take away their right to choose their doctor.  The only way this would ever happen for most is if they lost their insurance altogether, lost all their personal savings, and lost the ability to come up with the money to see a well-compensated physician and/or specialist.  Their worst-case-scenarios and numerous reservations are true only for those living in abject poverty, or at or below the poverty line.  The wealthier among us have any number of lifelines, be they family, co-workers, friends, fellow members of a particular group or club, or other sufficient means.  Those at the bottom have none of this upon which to rely.  Friends, family, and others are just as impoverished and less fortunate as they are, and they have no choice but to take and use what they can get.  And taking what they can get means dealing with a system that is convoluted, needlessly complex, inconvenient at best, and regimented to such an authoritarian degree that even obtaining the minimum often is an exercise in debasement.

If ever we had a need for revolutionary reform and change, now would be it.  Decades after a declared War on Poverty, we still have many battles ahead of us.  We haven’t really given this matter anything more than perfunctory attention, and we haven’t really allocated resources of any significant means to this very pertinent cause.  Doing so would require us to understand exactly how fortunate we are to have been granted, by complete luck and chance, the socio-economic status of which we were born.  For some quirk of God, fate, or nature we do not get the right to choose our parents or to choose our upbringing.  But we do have the obligation to see to it that those for whom daily adversity is not an abstraction have the same rights that we frequently take for granted.  I am not seeking to lecture, nor to hector anyone, but rather to strongly emphasize that our continued success as a people, a party, and a movement demands that we seek to assist the poor and the less fortunate.  Our wallets, billfolds, and bank accounts couldn’t open fast enough to provide aid to suffering Haitians.  If only this were possible for our own poverty-stricken citizens, many of whom struggle through conditions not that dissimilar to those we now view through heart-wrenching news reports and graphic photographs.  After all, it might be you someday who faces the disquieting realization that our health care system is designed for the wealthy, by the wealthy, and in so doing realizes just how much you took it for granted.

Seven CIA employees were killed and six others injured in a terrorist attack on a base in eastern Afghanistan as the agency steps up its presence in the country alongside thousands more U.S. military forces.

President Barack Obama told Central Intelligence Agency employees yesterday that their colleagues who died Dec. 30 were “patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens and for our way of life.”

“In recent years, the CIA has been tested as never before,” Obama, who is on vacation in Hawaii, said in the letter to agency employees.

**Snip**

Apparently many workers in China would — for how much longer though is not entirely clear.  You see the Chinese, want to make more, improve the Standard of Living for their families — just like Americans and Europeans do.

http://iws.punahou.edu/user/JS…

8-12% Raises in Minimum Wages across China, in 2005!?

Apparently, Workers around the World, AREN’T Working just for the Fun of it!

This new trend toward leveling the the Global playing field, doesn’t bode well for the Wal-Marts of the world, who rely on such “captured cheap labor markets” —

to remain quiet, dutiful, and

happy with a pittance.

Afterall Billions of Dollars (and Euros) are at stake — those Foreign Workers must not upset that Apple cart.

They should just be happy they have a Job!

Shouldn’t they?

I thought I’d do something different today for comparison’s sake.  With everyone sufficiently indignant at our banking system, our government’s response, and at the abuses within the Bailout, I thought I might provide some needed contrast.  The details which follow first are the literal steps one has no choice but to follow to attain food stamps in Washington, DC.  I pulled certain phrases off of an advocacy website PDF here but the construction is largely mine.

How to Obtain Food Stamps in the District of Columbia

1.  Sit in line at the Food Stamp office nearest you and, while waiting, fill out a 12 page form.

OR

Print the form and fill out all 12 pages.

2.  To make sure you do not try to cheat the system, you will first be required to reveal your

a) Household income

b) Cash present on hand

c) Rent and utility costs

3.   You will then be asked to provide

a) where you work (if you are, in fact, employed)

b) your employer’s name and telephone number

c) when you started working for them

d) how much your paycheck is before taxes

e) and how often you get paid

4.  If you or anyone else in your household makes some degree of income, repeat step 3

5.  If you have a bank account, you are required to prove it by providing a bank statement

6.  If you own anything else besides your home, you are required to state that you do.

7.  If you have stocks and/or bonds, please respond in in the affirmative.

8.  Did you sell, trade, or give away anything more than $1,000 in the past three (3) years?  If so, please mark “yes” and attach a description to this form.

9.  Provide the exact dollar amount of that which you pay in rent.  Don’t forget to leave out utilities if not included in rent and whether or not you pay for air-conditioning and heating costs separate from your rent.

10.  Mail form.  Wait approximately three and a half weeks for a reply, only to be told after four separate phone calls spent futilely trying to speak to an actual person that, due to a severe backlog in unprocessed claims, it may be up to a month and a half before your paperwork is processed.

OR

Drop off form at Food Stamps office.  Speak to case worker after waiting for several hours.  Turn in form.  Wait approximately three and a half weeks for a reply, only to be after four separate phone calls futilely trying to speak to an actual person that, due to a severe backlog in unprocessed claims, it may be up to a month and a half before your paperwork is processed.

11.  Wait

12.  Keep waiting.

13.  Finally receive form in mail informing of date to meet with caseworker to determine whether Food Stamps will be granted.  Date is eight business days from when one received notice.

14.  Collect necessary documentation to prove identity.  This includes:

a) Photo ID/Drivers’ license

b) Recent rent receipt, copy of lease, mortgage payment, or landlord’s name and phone number.

c) Proof of income, last three pay stubs, VA benefits, educational scholarships, grants or loans, unemployment payments, or your employer’s name and phone number.

d)  Proof of Housing Expense:   Recent rent or mortgage payment receipts.  This includes receipts of all recent utility bill(s): phone, gas, electric, and water.  All of these documents must have your address printed on them.

e) Bank statements:  If one has an account at a bank or credit union, bring a  recent bank statement or bankbook. Also if you have any other type of financial account (for example, a CD) be sure to bring that, too.

f) Social Security Card

g) Proof of any Assets:  Bring proof of ownership for buildings, land, policies, burial arrangements or plots, and/or other property (not your home that you stay in) you reported in your application.

15.  After all hoops have been jumped through and forms brought to the attention and signed off by the appropriate party, wait for judgment about food stamps.

16.  Ten days later, judgment is granted.  Realize that $100.12 per month means approximately one week’s worth of groceries for one person.  Shrug and say to self that every little bit matters.

17.  Attend mandatory EBT Card (Food Stamp) card training before receiving.  Training lasts approximately 15 to 20 minutes.

18.  Proceed directly to grocery store.



How to Obtain Bailout Money in the District of Columbia



1.  Be a CEO of a large financial institute.

2.  State that you are nearly bankrupt, but too big to fail.

3.  Collect emergency funds.