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In one’s child’s own school, the high school aged child often doesn’t want his/her parents in the school. There are also confidentiality issues with high school applications.</p>
<p>Let me give you a real life example, mncollegemom. When we started out many moons ago DH worked for a small business that did not provide any benefits. We were fortunate to live in a state that has (now being gutted) a Basic Health pool where we could purchase comprehensive health coverage on a sliding scale based on our tax and asset records. This was not free - we paid monthly premiums and copays etc. When the kids were in pre-school we were faced with the dilemma that if DH got a raise, we would top out of the income bracket and lose our health coverage. In the interest of being upwardly mobile he took the raise and we bought a very expensive very high deduct. individual policy. We ended up actually behind because more than the raise went to the health policy and we couldn’t affort to actually go to the doctor unless absolutely necessary. All dental was out of pocket and it was a great sacrifice to keep all that up for the kids. DH ended up going without. There is a big chasm between poor enough to be one of those lazy entitled people that you seem to know a lot of, and having adequate resources to provide all the “basics” that most families would want. We had a long stretch where my employer provided me with great, free coverage, but it was too expensive to add my family. We are now very fortunate that DH has a solid union job with excellent benefits. We have crossed over to the other side of that economic no-man’s land. Please don’t make those broad generalizations which lump all people together in some “other” category.</p>
<p>We’ll see what happens, but I just sent emails offering my help to the principal at my kid’s former elementary school, her middle school principal and her current guidance counselor.</p>
<p>I’ll need something to keep my out of the bars and off the forums next year!</p>
<p>Worries about excessive welfare for the poor are unjustified. Parasites at the bottom of society in terms of income and social class generally are not that dangerous to the overall efficiency and welfare of the general population because they have little influence and little power to make policy. Parasites at the top of society not only have great power to influence policy, they can buy media to greatly influence or even control the perceptions of most members of the public, which often includes providing distractions and disinformation so that many never figure out who is picking their pockets, and sometimes can even buy congresspersons by the dozens and completely determine governmental policies that pertain to their money train, making the policies enhance it of course. As these top parasites become more and more wealthy and powerful, their influence and control can grow with positive feedback loops until there is some great awakening or the whole system collapses.</p>
<p>Digging a little deeper into the life of a person on TANF in my state, here are a few of the numbers that I found. </p>
<p>The maximum amount a family of 4 can get from TANF is $346.00. A family is not allowed any assets totaling more than $1,000 and must participate in job search and manadatory employment and training programs. There is a LIFETIME limit of 60 months, so beware of hitting hard times more than once in your life. They can also receive a maximum monthly food stamp benefit of $408. In order to get this the person can’t have assets over $2,000, and that includes a vehicle. There is a time limit for food stamps as well, unless you are a senior or have a child under the age of 6 (because then the child will be eligible for free lunch apparently). I didn’t add the HUD voucher, but it generally will cover 70% of the cost of an apartment that is willing to rent to a Section 8 recipient.</p>
<p>Stop believing everything Rick Santorum says. </p>
<p>Birth Control? Who needs it. 9 kids and counting.</p>
<p>Welfare? People are living like kings off my money.</p>
<p>Must every thread turn political? This isn’t even the cafe for heaven’s sake. </p>
<p>Personally, I think volunteering in a middle or high school to help with college/high school preparation would be a great thing. Even to help with the grunt work would free up the GC.</p>
<p>Here is a link to a new article that talks about many of these same issues.</p>
<p>[Lexington:</a> The classes drift apart | The Economist](<a href=“The classes drift apart”>The classes drift apart)</p>
<p>Not to mention that 50% of people on welfare are children under the age of 18, and another 10% are elderly people. The majority of adults on welfare (aged 18-65) are actually working adults. They don’t “walk around the mall” all day and earn a paycheck; they work, often at 2-3 part-time jobs cobbled together, often 12 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week - and they still can’t make ends meet, because they only make $7.25 an hour and they have no medical benefits. There is also not anyone earning TANF or SNAP benefits for their “entire adult lives” because those programs have lifetime limits.</p>
<p>Their kids don’t go to college because their parents don’t think education is worth it. Their kids don’t go to college because they simply cannot afford it and don’t know about the financial aid and grants/scholarships available to low-income kids, nor do they even know where to start. I was born to middle-class parents who didn’t go to college and even THEY didn’t know where to start, and at least they had the resources of the middle-class. When you’re poor, haven’t gone to college, don’t have your own computer and have to work 12 hours a day just to barely feed your kids…when are you going to sit down and do FAFSA with them? Where are you going to scrape up the money to apply for college, if you don’t know about fee waivers? Often the guidance counselors either don’t know much themselves, or have given up on these kids and are tracking them all into the same low-wage work their parents do.</p>
<p>The system was designed as a stop-gap measure to help people in a short term time of need…not as a way of life.</p>
<p>The problem is, often their period of poverty is not a “short time of need.” It IS their entire lives. Wealth begets wealth; poverty often begets more poverty. What do you say to a single mother who can’t get more than a minimum wage job because she never got the chance to get a college education herself? Sorry, your kids have to starve?</p>
<p>MizzBee-and after 5 years, what happens the state dumps them on their ear and they are living on the street…nope…</p>
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You simply can’t generalize like that. Some communities don’t value education and would never consider college. They expect to get municipal jobs and raise their families that way. My husband is a member of such a community.</p>
<p>mncollege- in my state-YES! They move in with relatives, they become part of the underground ecomomy, etc. There is no safety net from the safety net, and hasn’t been there for a long time. Don’t believe for a second that they will get another dime of TANF. They may still qualify for food stamps, but no more cash relief period.</p>
<p>Poor choices beget poverty. Drug use, not attending class, dropping out, flunking out, having a baby before you can afford it, fathering a baby before you can afford it.</p>
<p>zoosermom–that is the exact point of this thread…the value placed on getting a good education…or lack there of</p>
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Yep it is and some of the people who don’t value education aren’t necessarily in the stereotypical underclass.</p>
<p>TatinG-how about the poor choice of being born in an area with low graduation rates, losing a job without the ability to retrain or the economic opprtunities to find another one. Add death of a breadwinner, abuse by a loved one, etc. Not everything involving poverty is black and white. Yesterdays middle class are today’s poor in places in this economy and education may be valued but unobtainable.</p>
<p>zoosermom-then those are not the ones the article is addressing as they would not be considered poor…</p>
<p>I, for one, am more interested in what people think about redressing the education gap described in the article or in alternate perspectives to the facts presented in the article. The notion that people receiving government aid feel “entitled” is odious to me, whatever one feels about the socioeconomic advisability of any particular aid program or government aid in general. But, more important, I don’t see how trotting out the “aid recipients feel entitled” argument advances the discussion about what could be done to address root causes or help at a grassroots level.</p>
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Ok, and? This is a thread on a message board. It evolves.</p>
<p>And whether the parents of the group I am referring to can be considered poor is one thing. What the outcome will be for their children without higher education, is another question entirely.</p>
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<p>And no one seems to want to fix the actual problems in the immigration system – legal immigration is too difficult, and illegal immigration is too easy.</p>