By Maureen D. Taylor, State Chairperson, Michigan Welfare Rights Org
DETROIT, MI — More and more calls are coming into the MI Welfare Rights office from parents who are searching for answers where there are no answers. They call because they have reached the 5-year (60 months) cap that allowed unemployed families to receive cash assistance if there were minor children in the household. The scenario is repeated over an over again.
Mary, a single parent, was on welfare for 1 year after she lost her job. She found new employment and worked at the new job for 4 years, then they down sized so she was laid off again. She received welfare benefits this time for 2 years, the length of time it took for her to find another job plus take a few more courses in preparation for a more stable job. She worked at that place another 3 years, but she then injured herself in an accident. The injury made it harder to secure a job, so she applied and received welfare cash assistance for 2 years during which time she completed her undergraduate degree.
Healed and skilled, she applied for and landed a county job and worked there for the next 2 years until the economy faltered again. She applied for cash assistance and was denied because she has exhausted the 60-month time limit and was no longer eligible for cash assistance EVER again. What did she do wrong?
This is a random example of the kind of calls MWRO receives. The corporate class has decimated the economy, they received compensation from the taxpayers to make them whole again, and the residents are left in shambles. In MI, we face daily attacks that crush our quality of life hour by hour including entire cities facing long-term health challenges at the hands of elected officials who allowed public water to be poisoned for months on end.
The falling economies have devastating consequences that most Americans are now becoming aware of.
In MI, the right to vote was taken away in 2011 when DEMOCRACY WAS KILLED. The governor made the decision that he had the right to set-aside duly conducted elections, and replace those persons with handpicked bodies imposed on the people who were accountable only to him. Their task was to sell off City assets as they saw fit and to reduce expenditures like they way they avoided providing the appropriate additives to Flint River water as a cost-effective and allowable measure.
We have families scattered all over the State, hiding in their homes, no longer eligible for state assistance, unable to secure employment, unable to see their way out of this worsening economic crisis, no hope, no joy, no ideas.
As things get worse, what can the federal government do to safeguard the lives of children, the lives of unemployed mothers, and the lives of those who are low income? It is clear at least to some of us, that a new economic system based on the needs of the many must be engaged if we are to keep living and doing more than surviving like the 1% is forcing us to do today. This pain cannot long endure.
Does poverty have to hurt . . .
