"Why Don't You Just Work Less?"
A better life by way of welfare? This is not the right answer, and yet...
When I unexpectedly got pregnant at 23, I was a waitress who loved to party, and all of the money I was making was pretty much going to my marginal bills, weed, and alcohol.
To be honest, I didn’t know the first thing about health insurance when I was that age.
I was not prepared for life as an adult, and I am still holding a grudge and griping about that two decades later.
After visiting an OBGYN for the first time I was promptly sent to an office in the local hospital to sign up for state insurance.
I didn’t know at the time that it was free. Like, totally free. Everything was free - because I made so little income, no one expected me to be able to pay it.
It went on like that for about twenty years.
Yes, I’m pretty ashamed that it took me two decades to do the kind of work that affords me to not be looked at as a person in poverty.
It shouldn’t have taken that long.
I should have gotten my shit together an awful long time ago, and done all the smart things I could have done when I had the chance: go to college and get a degree, find a nice guy and get married, get a great job and buy a house together, enjoy life and vacations and a long future together…
But none of that happened.
Instead, I strained to reach for the stars while I stayed mired in the slop of sticky restaurant floors, waitressing my way through my twenties and early thirties.
I never expected things to get any better for myself, because I didn’t think highly enough of myself to do good, wise things that would make my life better.
For a little while I rode the high of “making a living” writing for NewsBreak and Medium, back when NewsBreak let anyone in and we could make thousands a month writing about whatever we chose.
I grew my savings, I pre-paid rent for six months in lieu of a good credit score to move into my condo, and I hoped for the best, but that didn’t matter at all.
The NewsBreak cash tap was turned off almost instantly and my income dropped to almost nothing. I had to live on my savings, very precariously, nervously, and carefully, until I finally found a job a year and a half ago.
I love my job, but it doesn’t pay me enough to make my life any better.
In fact, it pays me just enough to actually make my life worse.
When it came around to being time for my first performance review, I confided in a friend of mine that I was nervous about getting a raise.
This is a friend I have known since elementary school, since we were ten years old.
I know almost every major or moderately life-altering thing that’s ever happened to her, but I still can’t quite figure out what it was that turned her into a drug dealing, freeloading, promiscuous hoarder that could sweet-talk her way out of every responsibility.
She has two kids, so she’s been on SNAP (food stamps) since she was pregnant with her first, and I am pretty sure she gets close to $500 a month for food.
She also qualifies for Section 8 housing vouchers and she’s not about to let that perk of poverty slip away.
Why would she? She rents an apartment within sight of her youngest’s elementary school, and only pays a little more than $300 a month for that privilege.
You know what she has to do (or not do, depending on how you look at it) to qualify for all of this aid?
She only waits tables at a restaurant three nights a week.
Does she have the time, means, and ability to work more?
Of course she does, but she doesn’t want to - if she works more and has to claim more of her cash tips as income, she won’t get as much in SNAP benefits, or free healthcare, or cheap housing.
Why am I telling you all of this about my friend?
Because when I expressed to her my anxiety at potentially losing my state insurance due to a raise, her immediate response was:
“Well, why don’t you just make less money?”
No, girl.
Just, no!
I work at a place that runs a huge food pantry.
We serve thousands of people a month, all of them probably worse of than me, not that it’s any of my business, nor is it ever right to weigh one’s burdens against another’s.
I see people like my friend who do everything they can to get as much for nothing as they can, just so they can avoid having to get a job.
Any job.
Pathetic?
Yes.
Understandable?
Also, so fucking sadly, yes.
We have made a country that requires its citizens to be destitute, practically on the bring of homelessness and a lost paycheck away from disaster before we’ll give them any help.
The raise I got last year from doing well at my job cost me the free state insurance I’ve relied on for years.
It’s also cost me countless hours of worry, dozens of phone calls for approvals and pre-authorizations, hundreds in copays, and a creeping dread that gets worse by the day that we made the world wrong and it’s too fucked up to fix it now.
Then, to add insult and more injury to a pretty fucking awful injury…
I broke a tooth last week.
That’s when I found out I lost my vision and dental insurance, and the dread turned to panic.
I called my mom crying cause she is one of the few people in my life who knows how terrified I am of dentists, and made the comment on how fucked up it was that such a marginal raise in income last year, something that really only amounts to be another few thousand dollars a year, has made my life so much harder.
“Well, do you think you could ask your boss to take your raise back?”
Seriously, mom?
Seriously???
What the fuck is wrong with people? What the fuck is wrong with these people who are so close to me in life?
And why the fuck does MY OWN MOTHER think the answer to my current problem is to regress socioeconomically?
It’s insanity, absolute insanity!
Do these people, one of my parents and best friends, really think so little of me that they think I should think it’s okay to take welfare instead of working harder???
This is not the right answer to my issue of needing dental insurance and not being able to really afford it, and it’s never going to be the right answer.
I relayed all of this to my boyfriend, and was relieved to find he feels the same way I do about this issue.
“They’re nuts!” was his response, and yes, I concur.
Back when things were really hard between us, and before he filed for divorce, he had made a comment to the effect of:
“I haven’t worked this hard all my life to end up in Section 8 housing.”
It was a real blow at the time, to wonder, is that what you think of me? Do you really think I believe that’s good enough for me, for us?
Of course it’s not good enough for me, and he shouldn’t have to settle for it either.
When things are hard to afford and it stresses you out, the right answer isn’t to do less for yourself so you can rely more on someone else.
The right answer is to buck up, and go find another way to make more money that makes you feel okay about yourself and what you’re doing to earn it.
Above all else:
Don’t Look Back. You’re not going that way.
If you liked what I wrote and want to support me, that would be awesome! You can buy me a coffee, leave me a tip, or support my need to pay rent by clicking the image below:
I'm surrounded, in my neighborhood, by people who have brand new apartments and townhomes designed just for people who can work but don't want to. Meanwhile people like me, you, us, are paying, hell, 2,000?, 2,500?, more?, for rent in some subpar place in some subpar location.