a fierce article about welfare and misogyny

I remember the first time I read the article about using Bfeeding as the "norm" (instead of breastfeeding being better than normal, formula being worse, etc...)--- it totally blew my mind. Not the concepts, but that I had to have them pointed out to me.

Welfare, for me, is the same way.

I have come to realize that welfare (especially WIC and other forms of aid to the working poor) is really a corporate subsidy. If employees were forced to pay a living wage (& reasonable benifits) the call for these programs would drop like a rock.

Medicaid (rather than everyone being insured) is a subsidy for insurance companies (it would cost less money to cut out for-profit insurance companies and insure EVERYONE than is currently spent on bureaucracy) in addition to a license for making money.

We live in a socialist country. Unfortunately, the money is redistributed *only* to the very wealthy. Why can companies recieve more money back they pay in (to the tunes of multiple millions) but when a mother with two children working a full time job gets back $1K (having paid more in payroll taxes btw) it is seen as against the "American Way"?

Someday, people will wake up and realize they are infinately more like the family on welfare struggling to get by than the "movers & shakers" than encourage their condemnation. Hopefully, it won't be too late.

I think her main points are dead on, even though the writing is a little rough around the edges. Welfare is subsidized child support, in a sense. These women are degraded and exploited by these programs. And, of course, it is absurd to work all day in a meaningless, dead-end job for minimum wage so that some other woman can be paid minimum wage to care for your children. It is great to see someone with so much energy and insight while struggleing in the midst of this. One picky point, she is in error regarding social security being equivalent to welfare. Social security is an entitlement program given to people who jump through a lot of hoops to demonstrate that they are disabled and unable to work. The disability must be severe enough to preclude any full-time employment. SSD programs are for people who have a significant work history and made contributions to the program through wage deductions, basically like a government sponsored long-term disability insurance policy. SSI is for people with litttle or no work history, who are also disabled. They do receive benefits of approximately $560 per month. The program is actually dominated by women, not men. Men, who are or become disabled, are more likely to qualify for workman's compensation or SSD programs. In my state, many women who use up all their eligibility for welfare apply for SSI based whatever mental or physical problems they have. So, anyway, she seems a little confused about all this. No need to revile people on social security as they are just as bad off as she is, perhaps worse, because they are disabled.