Working for $1.75 hour

[The Straight Story]

That's what my friend will be doing. She applied for welfare here in Ohio. In order to get the $255/mo in cash and a little more than that in food stamps for her and her daughter she has to work for the state.

She has to pay for her own gas and has to buy clothes for an office environment (and is on the other side of town).

On top of that she is ill and on several meds that make it hard to make it through the day.

Insane.

[endless october]

1. that is absolutely fucking ridiculous.

$1.75 an hour is an unacceptable wage.

[The Straight Story]

2. You would think the state would have to pay minimum wage

And with more and more people losing jobs the state will be able to get labor at a cheap price.

[petronius]

3. I don't get it - she has to basically work a full time job, and instead of

getting a paycheck she gets the welfare check? How is that legal? :shrug:

If the state actually has a job open, why don't they just hire her in the normal fashion and pay her a real wage? (Aha - it's that 'real wage' thing, isn't it?)

[The Straight Story]

4. I don't know, it is really stupid IMHO

She is trying to get a waiver based on her physical disability but ssdi (or whatever it is called) could take 2 years.

Welfare to work should be called welfare to near slavery.

[Blue Diadem]

5. They still do that here?

About 34 yrs ago, we had a month that we were on welfare. I'd just given birth and my DH had been laid off and run out of unemployment. He had to do road work in January in exchange for what ever amount we got. It's been so long ago I don't remember the numbers. DH was called back to work so his job on the roads didn't last the entire month. I remember being surprised that they didn't make us pay any of the money back.

I didn't understand it then just as I don't understand it now. If the job is available for someone to do, why not just hire them? IMO, making them work for less than minimum wage should be illegal.

[VampyreHunter]

6. why?

this angers me to no end.

[Deja Q]

7. In 1960, that'd be minimum wage. And minimum wage bought more back then.

:( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :( :(

[hfojvt]

8. you mean she gets $1.75 an hour plus $550 a month in benefits?

How many hours is she working per week? What about daycare, or is her daughter in school?

[The Straight Story]

10. No, not plus - that is what it works out to based on her benefits to hours worked

Just the 550 a month in benefits and nothing else.

[hfojvt]

11. that does not compute though

550/1.75 = 314.28 hours/month
X 12 = 3771 hours per year
/52 = 72.5 hours per week.

even if foodstamps are not considered income (and why wouldn't they be?) that would still be 36 hours a week, which seems like a lot of hours.

It's definitely BS if it works out to less than minimum wage though.

[Lyric]

12. Workfare programs usually involve working at least thirty hours a week

for absolutely NO pay except for your assistance check, which you get once a month.

It's meant to be as onerous and unfair as possible, so as to discourage people from bothering to apply for welfare in the first place. The problem is that it assumes that there's a ready supply of jobs, and that all welfare recipients are just lazy. If there ISN'T an available supply of jobs, then welfare recipients are basically made into indentured servants of the state.

Now consider the collapsing economy and the shrinking number of jobs available to unskilled workers, and you can see what's going to happen.

[The Straight Story]

13. I think she was basing it off the 255 cash a month

And she is required to work 35 hours a week (w/foodstamps would be about 3.20/hr).

[Jkid]

9. Workfare is Slavefare amirite?

Seriously, workfare ought to be abolished. Not everyone is able to work (because of illness) or commute (if they don't own a car).