The Feminist Financial Handbook. Brynne Conroy
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Choncé Maddox Rhea is a freelance writer based out of Chicago, Illinois. Like Perry, she has also seen a great deal of poverty in her life.
“My family fell into poverty when my parents separated and my mom became a single mom,” says Rhea. “She had her Certified Nurse’s Assistant (CNA) license and worked a job making $11 per hour, but somehow still took care of my siblings and I. Money was always tight, and we lived on food stamps and received medical benefits for some time.”
When Rhea was a sophomore in high school, her mother broke the news to her children that she could no longer afford their rent. They were going to have to move, but in order to do that she had to save up money for the new place.
Her mother and brother stayed with one of her nursing patients so she could rack up overtime as she was saving for the new apartment. Rhea and her sisters stayed at her uncle’s house over the summer. She watched as her peers enjoyed the warm weather with friends and started their first jobs. Meanwhile, she was providing childcare for her sisters, enabling her mother to earn the money they so desperately needed to reestablish some stability.
A few years later, Rhea became a teen mom.
“I entered my own state of poverty since I wasn’t able to provide financially for my son,” she says. “I went to college and juggled part-time jobs but still relied on government benefits to help me get by as I worked on my education and developed more marketable skills.”
These programs—combined with some serious hard work—helped Rhea get ahead in life. She used government programs, food pantries, clothes closets, nonprofit organizations, low-income housing, and sometimes even soup kitchens to get what she and her family needed as she strove towards the higher education which would allow her to propel herself to the next level.
Our society judges people severely when they utilize support programs or safety nets. This particularly bothers Perry as a woman of color because even the welfare system in our country has been racist since the beginning. When the New Deal was enacted, Social Security benefits were not extended to domestic and agricultural workers—who were primarily black at that time. Once the system started becoming gradually more—but never close to completely—fair, white people started loudly complaining that they were supporting people of color, completely ignoring the fact that systemic poverty purposefully and disproportionately affects minorities.
“If we’re on Medicaid and/or food stamps, we’re trying to game the system. We’re welfare queens,” says Perry, citing the judgements welfare recipients commonly face—especially welfare recipients who are women of color. “Are there women who take advantage of these programs? Yes. Are they all women of color? No. For some of us, that’s all we’ve got. Right now, I just moved up here [to Seattle] from Texas going on two months ago. [Perry moved for safety reasons.] For right now, I have a part-time job with Amazon. I don’t get insurance there. My alternative is getting on Medicaid. Before I had a job, I got a food stamp card because I couldn’t afford groceries during my job hunt.”
Rhea encourages people to ignore these judgements, put their pride away, and seek out the same help she and Perry did. She encourages people to take advantage of every last resource and support so they can break the cycle of poverty, too.
Programs That Can Help
If you’ve never applied for benefits before, know that it’s far from an easy process. Depending on the program you’re applying for and your state, you’ll need to provide proof of income for some months, data on all of your family members, bank statements, information about your monthly bills, and potentially information about any assets you may have, like a car or a house.
The next time someone tells you getting benefits is easy, check them on it!
It is worth it, though, if you can get on a program that will help you improve your station. Here are some US programs to look into:
•SNAP. Formerly known as food stamps.
•Cash assistance.
•LIHEAP. This program helps with your heating bill in the winter.
•CAP Programs. These programs—which may be run by an outside agency rather than your state government—help control your electric bill.
•Childcare assistance. Typically this will be on your welfare application, but some states will refer you out to a third-party agency who facilitates the program after you’ve applied.
•Medicaid. Get on insurance. If you’re having trouble because of your individual state’s policies, be sure to look at the CHIP program—which is very low-cost and generally has higher income limits—to get your children covered so they can get the medical care they need.
•Pell and State grants. These are available by filling out the FAFSA form, and will help pay for a large chunk of your schooling.
•Special allowances. Some states offer special allowances for targeted life expenses. For example, Pennsylvania offers a special allowance for college textbooks for qualifying applicants.
•Section 8 Housing. These housing vouchers can help you get a roof over your head.
•Food pantries. Food pantries do not typically ask for proof of income, but their hours do tend to be limited. It’s not like a store where you can just walk in. Some food pantries will even require that you set up an appointment or place your order before coming to pick it up.
•Soup kitchens. These are open to the public.
•Clothes closets. Some closets will help you get the basics, while others will help you put together a professional wardrobe so you can land that job.
•Local nonprofits. Look for nonprofits in your own community. They may offer job placement assistance, financial assistance, discounts on used vehicles, or even advocacy when you go to apply for benefits with your state’s department of public welfare. If you have gaps, these nonprofits are often able to connect you with ways to fill them. Some examples that are generally available nationwide are the United Way, YWCA, and sometimes even Goodwill Industries.
Don’t Forget to Factor in Hard Work
Being on welfare programs is no picnic. There are endless applications to fill out, income limits that seem to vary with every program, and the constant, though unwarranted, shame our society places on the “takers,” as some crude and ignorant politicians describe benefit recipients.
These programs are exhausting, and they remind Rhea of another one of those prejudices that really gets under her skin.
“The one I really hate is when people complain about being tax payers and funding government programs for low-income families,” she says. “Even when I was living below the poverty line, I still legally worked and paid taxes myself, so I didn’t really get that argument. Plus, I know there are some people who are unable to work due to a disability or another hardship, so every situation is different. Low-income households shouldn’t be generalized or judged.”
But since reliance on welfare isn’t a fun place to be, it’s important to endure some growing pains and put in some serious hard work if you are able to do so. (Though as Rhea so rightly points out, not everyone can.)
To be able to pull off this great feat, you’re going to have to dig deep to find your ultimate motivation. For Rhea, that drive came from two places. First, she was angry that she was stuck in this cycle, and she used that anger to fuel her forward motion. In contrast to her anger, she also fiercely loves her son. She wanted a better life for him, and that vision kept her pushing towards a better tomorrow even when things got incredibly difficult.
Jackie Cummings Koski is a sales executive at a global data company in Dayton, Ohio. She was raised by a single father who worked in a factory. He never applied for assistance programs, despite living well below the poverty level while