At my full-time job, on my current wages and after taxes, I make $15,600/year. Once rent, my insurance deductible, gas, electricity, and MINIMUM monthly payments on my student loans are factored in, I make $1,080/year. No, I did not drop a zero. That’s $90/month.
Note that this figure doesn’t include food. It doesn’t include diapers, wipes, phone bill, clothes for my son, copay on doctor visits after my deductible has been met, nothing. JUST rent, insurance, utilities, and debts. And I’m one of the lucky ones because I live close enough to work that I don’t need a car, so I don’t have to deal with car payments, maintenance, or gas. I’m lucky because my boyfriend is willing to stay at home and take care of my son while I work, so I don’t have to worry about daycare.
For those of you wondering “Well why doesn’t he just get a job?", please stop. There’s almost zero chance he’d be able to find a job that would be willing to work around my shifting schedule so that we wouldn’t have to pay for daycare, and if he were to settle for a job with hours overlapping mine, he’d still be making minimum wage. Even if he was lucky enough to land a full-time job (unlikely), he’d make literally just enough to cover daycare. Having him get a job wouldn’t even net us an extra $10/month.
Someone, please tell me how to support two adults and a child on $100/month.
And if anyone wants to be ignorant enough to bring up the “welfare queen" argument, don’t even bother. You obviously don’t care enough to do your own research, and are content with simply believing whatever the media tells you to. Suffice it to say that the “welfare queen epidemic" does not exist.
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What Government Assistance Means to Me
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