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I am one of the poor who will never be able to afford a computer/laptop/Internet service. I was born into poverty during a majority federal Conservative government in power, who made my single mother and me live on a monthly cheque which they would not increase with cost of living, price of groceries going up. Things in life did not improve until the federal Trudeau government came into power. So I have had decades of life experience as one of the poor versus a social worker—with the four years of college they need to become a worker—who makes decisions over the poor. I sometimes wish social workers were made to live a couple of months as the poor.
Anyways what is going on is the shell game between premier McNeil, finance minister Whalen and the minister of the department of community services. Shell game of who is to blame for 30 percent cutbacks in special needs! With the poor stuck in the middle, with their much-needed special needs under attack!
Special needs includes: 1) a special diet needs cutback of 30 percent less money that means the poor will be doing more time in the hospital. 2) Medical transportation—bus pass money—all gone. 3) Telephones that the poor need so that their medical family doctor, specialist, dietician or nutritionist can within a day tell the poor your test results are in and I need to see you right away. Once this 30 percent cutback of special needs hits it doesn’t hurt the gold-plated premier and finance minister or the department of community services minister.
I love the fact that these college, high education people make decisions about poverty and lose their common sense about long-term side effects of their decisions about poverty. I have gone from municipal to on/off provincial assistance. During the course of time, certain things have not improved if your social worker hated you on municipal assistance. They still hate you on provincial assistance. And you are their client, meaning you are nothing more than a file to them. As I have been through different social workers. I have had difficult/harsh times while I was a part-time minimum wage person of $5 per hour and with a $50 incentive that did not last any more then one day!
When John Hamm became premier the first cutback was room rent to $225, during a time when bad landlords were charging a basic $350 per month to ten welfare clients they had as tenants (making $3,500 per month off of welfare people but not doing no repairs, sometimes providing no heat and making them live with cockroaches). People had to take $125 out of food allowances to make up the difference of $250 room rent.
I have lived half my life in poverty and have accepted the fact that I will be living my life in poverty as it is my destiny to live a hard life. I also do not like the provincial government bullshit that I pay no taxes! I have to pay a 10 cent deposit on everything I drink except milk! This 10 cent deposit is something social assistance says I do not pay! And therefore is not included in the budget allowance amounts of money they allow me to have! I have to pay a 15 percent sales tax on used clothing I have to wear so I will not freeze. The kind-hearted provincial taxpayers who do not want to see me starve have to take extra money out of their pockets to provide food to food banks and soup kitchens. Once a poor person is over by one penny, nickel, dime or quarter it gets deducted off to save provincial government money! The penny which is know round up /down by the federal government! The nickels, dimes or quarters the poor need to pay an uneven 15 percent sales tax! While the provincial gold-plated government officials overspend on items like orange juice and steak.
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My life on welfare
This article appears in Apr 30 – May 6, 2015.
Wages havent increased in sometime for even the “middle class”… I often wonder how anyone could live off minimum wage. Wages have been losing to inflation and the cost of everything else going up for sometime.
Nova Scotia is one of the worse provinces when it comes to taxes & fees.
But the only thing you can do is try to better yourself, if I lost my job today, I would consider the military above all else. They do take care of their own.
As for purchasing power, if you buy used, you’d be surpised what you can get for computers… theres so much used ones laying around and parts.
Jane Kansas?
REALITY CHECK!!!! Poor is not having shoes on your feet, poor is sleeping on the dirt ground, poor is NOT having a faucet with running water, poor is having only the clothes on your back. Big boo fuckin woo…” I will never have Internet service”???? GET SERIOUS.
I completely support everything this person wrote, except for their take on “social workers.” I think they were referring to social assistance caseworkers, many of whom (if not most) are not social workers.
I’ve had dealings with many different people in both social assistance casework and in social work, and while there is no doubt that some real jerks are to be found among them, you could say that about any group of people doing public and customer service. There’s no excuse for being a jerk, but most people would much rather be helpful and yet they work in a system made up of rules they didn’t choose and often don’t even agree with. I’ve never done the job, but I can imagine the kinds of impossible situations these workers are thrust into every day. It’s hard to imagine how I’d handle that. I’ve also been poor and on assistance. That’s not hard to imagine at all. It was a painful experience that I hope to never re-live!
Not me, Cranky. I consider a computer and www to be pretty much a basic human right now and that would be the last thing I’d do without.
So, eh, have you ever considered getting a job?
It’s so easy to judge others, but not having access to a computer or the internet can severely limit your access to find jobs, qualify for jobs, learn the skills required for jobs (which involve computer literacy more and more every day), etc. Finding a job is hard enough when you have experience, training and education (another thing you don’t have access to when you live in poverty). We should care more about helping people to make our society more productive as a whole rather than judging someone who is in a situation we know little about or have not been in ourselves. Considering the commenters here all have access to the internet by their own judgements they’re not living in poverty and might want to do something a bit more worthwhile with their time.
What self defeatist B.S. So it’s everyone else’s fault that you’ve chosen to stay on welfare for 40 years? Do you realize there are refugees who come here with literally nothing and own their own company in ten years? The difference is hard work and will power.
I feel sorry for the Income Assistance workers who have huge caseloads and can look forward to hearing “gimme-gimmie” all day, every day of their working lives. What percentage of benefit recipients are blowing money on smokes, weed, beer and tattoos? Lots, that’s how many. And your comment about every extra cent being clawed back? Bull- you’re allowed to make up to $300 before ay cheque deductions.
Instead of complaining, how about some thanks to the poor schlubs who are dragging their arses out of bed at 6am daily to pay taxes to support you?
Skoot, do you not see how extreme and uninformed your point of view is? Can you not imagine any circumstance that would justify income support for a person who is down and out?
I had to have that support at two different times in my life (for a year or so each time) and it was a bridge between serious deprivation and earning my own living. It was a pretty straightforward process because I have no disabilities, I don’t face any sort of racial or sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination, and I was young at the time.
I also was addicted to cigarettes back then, so I certainly wasn’t your picture-perfect, model welfare recipient. Still, the help was badly needed and it facilitated my family’s survival and development. Surely that’s the intent of the program. Surely no one would expect that in order to qualify for it, you need to be picture-perfect.
Do some people abuse it? Of course. Name a system that nobody abuses. Just because some people shoplift, that doesn’t mean it would make sense for the stores to start treating all their customers with suspicion and locking away all their products.
I have to echo Raging Granny’s comment about the difference between social assistance caseworkers and social workers. As a clinical social worker employed by the hospital system, it is my job to advocate (read: battle community services) for special needs on a near daily basis. I work hard to legitimize the social determinants of health, participate in rallies against cuts every chance I get and speak about the cost-savings & intangible benefits of providing people the food, shelter, transportation, medication and recreational activities they need to participate in society. I am bound by a professional Code of Ethics to fight for social justice. I also feel the frustration of trying to deal with a system that refuses to see that their approach is broken. I HAVE experienced poverty first-hand and hope someday to be able to make a real difference politically in how things are done. There are many social work allies and organizers in the anti-poverty movement. Attend any rally at the Legislature and you’ll find some there!
Skoot: What percentage of benefit recipients are blowing money on smokes, weed, beer and tattoos? Lots, that’s how many.
cite a real stat from a reliable source, or admit that’s your opinion based on anecdotal evidence alone and absolutely nothing else. you know, look a few things up. find out if your vitriol matches up with reality at all.
people like you talk a good game but you’ve got nothing but hatred of the poor to back up what comes out of your mouths. everywhere in the states when governors got elected for talking like you, they’ve had to eat their words or double down on bad ideas and look like a fool. in more than 5 states, the cost of the drug tests they made recipients endure caught so few people that the cost of the tests far exceeded the savings of denied requests for financial help.
in tennessee, only 1 in 800 applicants tested positive for drugs. florida’s drug use rate checks in at around 8% of the general population but only 2.6% of welfare applicants tested positive. maine’s governor went on a jihad to prove there was massive welfare fraud and abuse, claiming recipients were bums who spent their cheques in strip bars. it amounted to less than 1% of welfare debit card transactions. almost nothing. statistically insignificant.
so please save us the prejudice and sanctimony. you’re not some kind of superior human being than those who get by on social assistance. you simply have no idea what you’re talking about. you just want to dump on people you think are beneath because it makes you feel good. you’ve got nothing. stories of “i know a guy who…” ain’t gonna cut it.
downtownleroybrown: For your info I work with the recipients, wiseguy, so I probably know much more about it than you would (No I’m not a DCS employee). I certainly have empathy for those down on their luck who need short term relief- however there are plenty who play the system- you’re a sucker if you think otherwise.
The reason the poor are getting screwed across the board is simple..I heard it plenty of times volunteering for several political parties… The poor and disabled don’t vote.
Voting is free. The poor outnumber the wealthy in staggering numbers, could you imagine if they used their voice? Yes, the polling stations are too far away, that’s deliberate. It keeps you not voting because you’re already too exhausted from your disability, working and still not making enough, etc, to get down there and cast your ballot.
When the poor do vote, they don’t look to the person who’s representing them and making decisions to affect their lives on a local level, they look to the Federal level, or whomever is the ‘party leader’, a mentality that makes little sense. Vote for the person who is going to be directly affecting the piece of territory you happen to reside or work on. There are plenty of candidates (Mainly the ones -without- corporations and money) that would gladly vote against their party to help you. If you vote for that guy, the candidate who wants change but not a huge budget, the third partier, the independent, then more people who want what you want will be emboldened to run.
That’s how change happens in a democracy. Staying at home, bemoaning your fate and not using your voice is why change never happens, because those with money like things just how they are.