Give The Lower-Middle Class Some Dignity

1. If you get married you will be moved up into a new tax bracket and forced to pay taxes to a government who is already taking more than their fair share. You won’t get any “real” tax credits.
2. It cost me $50 (Non-refundable) to get a key from the U.S. Post Office for the mailbox out in front of my apartment and was told by the employee, “This is real life sweetheart.”
3. My ex-husband bought a house for “us” except he couldn’t put my name on the title because of bad credit that I had and I had to sign off my “rights and responsibilities” to that house. So basically, I would’ve been paying for a home and gaining no equity of my own.
4. This one is bullshit.
5. Good luck getting on the Section 8 waiting list. I’ve been on it since 2014 and have yet to even get a phone call back from them. So I pay market value ($650) for my 2 bedroom, 1 bath upstairs apartment.
6. My job offered me health insurance for me and my two kids because their dad works under the table in Oregon so that he doesn’t have to pay child support. $338 a month for insurance or $650 a month for rent. Which one will benefit my kids more? Rent! So yes, my kids and I are on Obamacare.
7. I’d do anything to go to college for free. I’d learn basket weaving or braiding hair if could. But I have two mouths to feed and a roof to pay for and gas to buy. So I have a full-time job that I’ve been at for 9-1/2 years paying me $13 an hour.
8. $600 a month in food stamps? Are you kidding me? Try $89 a month. Sure, I could quit my job and get more, but does that sound logical? No! But I do stand in line and watch the women in their Miss Me jeans and freshly painted nails and hair extensions paying for their groceries with food stamps and load their groceries into their Lexus with custom rims and tinted windows.
9. I’ve heard of this “Free Cell” phone thing, yet I don’t know any of my friends or family who has them. What state are they giving them out in? Because I live in California and have yet to see one.
10. Free utilities? Are you kidding me? With everyone putting solar panels on their homes and taking money from the power company (Kudos for sticking it to the man) they’ve decided to up their rates to re-coop the money. So my power bill went from $120 a month to $243 with no notice. Let me know where I can sign up to receive this “free utility”.
11. Kids need positive male role models in their lives instead of dead beat dads running to other states to escape from paying for their part of a responsibility.
12. When you’re child turns 16, you can claim them, but you will not get Earned Income Credit for them. I deserve to claim my children, I pay for them. But let’s talk about the men who live with women who have kids from a previous relationship for a second. That man is there when those children need a hug, or when they need a strong firm voice to back them up, or when their mom’s pay check is shorter than expected and their school clothes need to be bought, or when food runs low and their bellies are aching. These men step up to the plate, pay for what needs to be paid for; with no monetary compensation in return. Sure they get the hugs and kisses and get to watch the smiles on the kids’ faces and watch the tender soft tears of their mother smiling through.
13. I’ve had a bad back since I first started developing breasts. I don’t have disability for it. I had no idea that was even a thing. If you talked to my ex, I’m sure he’d agree that I’m “crazy” but then again, he’d have to be present in order to ask him.

With that I say to you, yes, there are people out there working the system and getting the perks of it; but there are people out there, caught in the middle of, not-poor-enough to get aide and not-rich-enough to pay their own way. We make do with what we got, we appreciate the help we do get and we cherish every day because one little slip up is the life or death of what we’re working so hard to accomplish and that’s just to make it to tomorrow above water.