niobia wrote:
Gbaji doesn't seem to understand or know that getting government support is much harder than one thinks. You can't work if you want TANF, you are expected to have nothing - no savings, no car, nothing.
Hard is not the same as "painful". It's "easy" to have nothing. Just don't work for awhile and it will happen all by itself (among other methods). Anyone can do it. What is "hard" it pushing yourself to pursue a career and achieve success. Let's not mix up the terms here...
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You are also limited to a certain amount of years AND if your go on it with your children included, the benefits get deducted from their time limit as well. So if Mommy exhausts her years funding with her children, if sometime in the future they need TANF, they cannot get it.
Sure. And some other program will pick up the slack. As long as there are sufficient people who believe that it's the government's job to make sure everyone has some minimum standard of living, no matter what, this will always be the case. You can point at all the rules and regulations you want, but the underlying assumptions for the very existence of such programs inevitably ensures that those rules will either not be followed, or will be changed, or another layer of safety net will be created.
What do you suppose happens to a woman with 3 kids and no income when here TANF runs out? Do we just let her and her kids starve? Do we put her into a forced labor camp to make sure she's contributing? What is your exact solution for this situation? Cause based on the initial arguments for these types of programs, I can't imagine any of their supporters would actually allow someone to stop receiving benefits as long as they "need" them.
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Gbaji also forgets the limits on the amount of hours and when a teen can work which can impact an employers decision to hire them. What little money the teen brings in often goes to pay for car insurance and gas (and some is often blown on extras that parents wont buy).
I'm not sure what relevance this has. You still gain work experience. And if you are emancipated, you can work as an adult without those restrictions. It's part of the process. While a minor you work shorter hours at entry level positions. When you become an adult, you can take on more hours and more responsibility, increasing your value. You're still not likely to start out being self-sufficient, but you'll be moreso. Somewhere over the next 5 years or so, you should be able to earn enough to move out and get your own place, even if that means sharing rent with others (especially if you're in school). Over the next 5 years or so, you should be fully self-sufficient and capable of supporting a family if need be.
Most people are able to accomplish this. It's quite possible. You just have to work at it. It seems like the latest generation has grown up with a "great job or bust" mentality. If they don't land a super career job right out of the gate, they assume they never can or will, and ultimately sabotage their own lives. I've seen people do this. It's sad. They refuse to work at lower paying jobs because it's not enough money in their opinion. So they don't take any employment seriously and 10 years down the line they're still in the exact same spot. But now it's much much harder for them to start.
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My guess is Gbaji grew up middle to upper middle class and has no real grasp on what it is like to grow up poor.
Lol. It's amusing how often people make this assumption. And how often they are dead wrong. My dad never received more than a high school diploma. My mother dropped out of school to raise the kids. When I was in high school, she finally completed her degree, while working 3 jobs to help provide for me and my 4 siblings.
We were at best working class. But we were taught the value of hard work. All 5 siblings are comfortably middle class, all own their own homes, and all but me are married with multiple children. We did pretty well, but not because we were handed anything. We just weren't handicapped with an assumption that someone owed us a living.
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Teens living at home in poorer families are often helping out their families (which means no savings) or they are trying to pay for their own existence (school supplies, fees etc). Some of those same kids, even with financial aid will never be able to afford college which also sabotages their ability to be promoted.
Lol. Not one of my family received government financial aid for school. And our parents certainly didn't pay a penny either.
Anyone can afford college if they're willing to work hard and take student loans to cover the remainder (which means they'll be working hard to pay them off later). What prevents most people from getting a degree is lack of willingness to do so, not money.
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If Gbaji thinks it is possible to survive on minimum wage, then he should take the challenge and try to spend a month living off of 1048 for a month (minus taxes, so really only about 800.) Good luck finding housing, paying utilities, buying food, paying for medical expenses etc (no cheating - no touching your savings, no getting help from friends.)
And yet, people do this all the time. The trick is that you share expenses. When you're earning minimum wage, you should be sharing housing with at least 2 other people. It's trivially easy for 3-4 people to share rent on a reasonably sized house, while earning near minimum wage, without batting an eye. What do you think myself and all of my friends did when we were in our 20s? What do you think most people do at that age? You share housing costs. Which means you're also sharing utility costs. It is not unreasonable, even in an expensive market like San Diego, to have your share of the bills total $600 or less. And that's assuming a good sized house in a fairly nice neighborhood. If you want to go "cheap", it'll be much much less.
If you are frugal you can absolutely do this. I lived for about 7 years working the counter at a convenience store. I shared rent in a house with friends. I owned a car (which even worked!). And I was able to afford a computer, back when computers were still very expensive (I built them myself, but it's still not cheap). I was careful with my expenses. I saved up for things I wanted instead of blowing it on meaningless stuff.
It's quite possible to "survive" on minimum wage. If you don't burden yourself by getting knocked up before you have a career, or have an expensive coke habit, or insist on going out partying every weekend. Is that a career wage? No. But it's supposed to be an entry wage. That's why it's the "minimum" you can make. If 10 years later you are still earning minimum wage, that's due to choices you've made, not some flaw in the system...
