Not everyone who is poor can just “make better choices” or “get a job!”

My developmentally disabled sister works full time, but she makes minimum wage (I think like $6.50 an hour. That’s roughly $13,000 a year. Who can live on this?) and has no insurance and a daughter. She can’t just go back to school, she doesn’t have the capabilities. She doesn’t get assistance, because my parents help her out, but she is just the type of person I don’t mind helping out one bit.

Prenatal care saves money in the long run, so do programs like WIC. These are much more complicated issues than they might appear.

Now where is this free bar you speak of…

But you’re right. Many white upper class people cling to that inaccurate image because it allows them to ignore the sad reality of the situation.

(Having babies to ‘beat the system’ kind of reminds me of the people who go to the casino boats thinking they’re going to make up for their losses at the free bar..lol.)

I haven’t gotten another one..(scratching head) I wonder why?

But I don’t begrudge assistance through a hard time. Most of us have been there. I’ve gone to the food bank in the past and had to ask my clergy to help with rent while I was unemployed. Once, Catholic charities paid to have my electricity turned back on. Thank God. I had no other option. I agree with your assessment about lack of health care.

People have this inaccurate image that women on welfare are living the high life and having babies left and right to work the system. Truth is, the average welfare recipient is white (another stereotype) and has two children.

I think more of us will be asking for help before this recession is over.

First of all, you all are arguing two different issues here. I someone is ‘living off the government’ they are probably not working a full time job, or a job with ANY sort of benefits. There have been financially difficult times in my life in which I have been on Wic and once on food stamps. For anyone above whose busy making pumping themselves full of fantasies of me sitting around eating bon bons purchased on food stamps (or YOUR MONEY) I was a single mom struggling through school. I worked part time and damn well paid my taxes from my little measly part time job. Furthermore, I’ve had some sort of job since I was 14 years old. It is time for the upper middle class to STOP calming their concerns about our economic crisis by convincing themselves the lower middle class – and the poor are lazy buggars who’ll take advantage of tax money if given the chance. It’s BS! Yes, there are some lazy people out there living off of government assistance. But the majority of struggling Americans are struggling because they didn’t forsee the obstacle course of financial strain! I certainly didn’t expect to pay more for health insurance than for rent. I certainly didn’t expect to pay $4 a gallon for gasoline. I didn’t expect my gas bill to be higher than my electric year around. And I didn’t expect to have an accidental pregnancy at 21 either. And by the way, accidents happen a lot when ‘poor’ women have no freaking health insurance for birth control. So if your answer to all of our economic problems is for all poor women to stop having babies, that solution is just a teensy bit flawed.

I guess what I’m really trying to say, is that if you are one of the ‘responsible’ people who knew exactly what your financial future held and planned accordingly (or you know, just lived off of your parents’ money or married well) then GOOD FOR YOU. The rest of us, are doing the best we can down here and it would be nice if you and your kind would at least give us the gift of careful consideration rather than writing us off as lazy, shiftless, irresponsible idiots who are hungrily seeking all of your tax money. I realize that this helps you sleep a little better at night about voting republican, but it’s really ignorant and unfair.

I have the same fantasy. I want to take care of my parents, pay for my nieces and Hub’s two young siblings to go to college, be a philanthropist and buy a house on a beach somewhere. I refuse to believe that it can’t happen.

The problem was that is there was no way to predict where we would be right now. This is an issue unique to our generation. I truly believed as a teen and young adult that my working would be an intellectual choice, not one that would necessarily effect our family’s ability to survive.

But, I definitely plan to make sure Ainsley understands the need for such a fund. And I agree we need to be talking to young girls about this issue.

My financial fantasy is that I make enough money to pay for my in-laws retirement, our retirement, my kids’ college funds and a “stay-at-home mom fund” for my daughter. That’s not too much right?