One day I was at a party with a good friend of mine and a lot of people I didn’t know. I overheard a conversation at the next table (not intentionally I might add. These ladies were loud!) about their jobs.
One of the ladies proudly announced that she was offered a promotion at work. Her friends congratulated her and told her how great she was for doing so well at her job. After greedily accepting her congratulations and basking in her glory, she finally let everyone in on a little secret.
“It was so flattering that they wanted to give me a promotion, but I just couldn’t accept the position.”
I was touched. There are many things in this life that are more important than money. Where a lot of people would jump at the change to get a raise, this girl weighed her options and determined that a promotion wouldn’t allow her to maintain the quality of life she wanted.
There are so many good reasons not to take a promotion. She may have children and didn’t want a new job to distract her from being a mother. Maybe it requires travel and she couldn’t bear the thought of being away from her family. Maybe she just loved her current job so much that she couldn’t dream of doing anything else. I couldn’t wait to hear what was more important than making money.
“If I make any more money, I won’t qualify for food stamps anymore.”
Then she took another drag of her cigarette, popped open another beer, and spit in my face.
OK, she didn’t spit on me, but it felt like it! Even though I was only working part time (this was back in my college days), I was a hard-working, taxpaying American. I couldn’t have been more angry if she had walked right over to me, grabbed my wallet out of my pocket and directly stole my money.
Not wanting to cause a scene with a complete stranger, I figured I would just let her friends handle the situation and tell her how she’s being stupid and selfish.
Once again, my faith in strangers was severely misplaced.
Each one of the other three girls at the table congratulated her on how smart she was. “Good for you! There’s no reason to work harder if they are just going to take away your benefits!” “You already work hard enough; you don’t need any more stress in your life.” Etc. Etc. Etc.
I stood up and told my friend that we had to leave immediately. It seemed government dependence was contagious at this party and I didn’t want to catch it.
There are two parties at fault in this situation. The first, and most important, is the lazy girl. Being on government assistance should never be a choice. Have some pride and pay for yourself; don’t make me and the rest of the taxpayers do it for you.
The second culprit is the government. She shouldn’t be eligible for food stamps in the first place. Eligibility for food stamps is currently based on whether or not you have the money to provide for yourself. It should be based on whether or not you have the ability to provide for yourself.
Minimum wage in Missouri at the time was $6.65 an hour. That means in a 40-hour work week, she should have been making at least $266 a week. If that isn’t enough, well, work more. Or take a second job. Or take a promotion!
I don’t know if this girl had kids. I don’t know if she had a husband or boyfriend. I don’t know if she was living with her parents. I do know she had enough extra time and money to spend a whole night hanging out with her friends, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. She could have spent that time working extra hours and earning money. I also know she could have taken a promotion and made even more money.
Sure, working your butt off might be hard. It might suck. I don’t care. And neither should the government. It’s not the government’s responsibility to give you a life of luxury.
How do you feel about this girl? Does this make you as angry as it makes me? If so, are you more angry with: the girl who declined the promotion, or the government who provides her the opportunity to be a lazy pile of cow dung?
Kevin McKee is an entrepreneur, IT guru, and personal finance leader. In addition to his writing, Kevin is the head of IT atย Buildingstars, Co-Founder of Padmission, and organizer ofย Laravel STL. He is also the creator of www.contributetoopensource.com. When heโs not working, Kevin enjoys podcasting about movies and spending time with his wife and four children.
Yeah, I am annoyed with both sides of that as we pay for people like that all the time. I would’ve been quite ticked off if I overheard that and perhaps even said something to them, which I probably shouldn’t. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a way to help out people actually in need compared to those that take advantage of various programs like food stamps.
I agree. I didn’t really come up with a solution on how to determine if someone is able to provide for themselves. I’ll have to think on it a little more.
That is quite disgusting! It’s such a chicken and an egg thing and I’m not sure who to be more frustrated with. I have a high school friend who has said to me that she COULD work, but the pay is not much more than what she gets in unmployment and she would rather just stay home. Her lifestyle is more extravagant than mine and her irresponsibility and laziness drives me mad!
That’s horrible. If you are living on government assistance, it should be the bare minimum. You should never get more in government handouts than you could get by working for it.
Wow – you just took the words right out of my mouth. I’m an accountant so I do a lot of tax returns and you would be surprised how many “low income” people make little in wages, have little to no tax withheld, yet receive a tax refund of a couple grand. This is because the government has set up so many tax credits for “low income” individuals that the government ends up paying THEM money instead of them paying the government, and of course their refund comes from the thousands of dollers I pay a year in taxes!!!!!! Some people will be lazy pieces of shit no matter what. I’m mad at the government for REWARDING these people for being lazy pieces of shit!!!!!!
Rock on! If people want to be lazy and worthless, more power to them. But they should have to live the lifestyle of a lazy, worthless person. Not the lifestyle of a moderately successful person.
It seems rather ignorant to generalize and call them “lazy pieces of shit.”
1- They’ve earned income (otherwise they woudn’t be filing tax returns)
2- You don’t know anything about their personal situation (except that they’re getting a beg check from Uncle Sam, courtesy of you and I)
In a capitalist system, we can’t all be entrepreneurs and accountants. It is set up in a way where inequality is bound to exists. These government programs helps eliminate some of the inequaility inherent in our system. Yes – they should do a better job of making sure people who take government money is using it wisely.
In the end welfare, foodstamps and other government programs isn’t a very big part of the overall budget. Big picture wise- there are other things such as entitlement programs etc that take SO much of your tax dollars than programs for the “low income” as you like to put it in brackets.
So if you’re so fed up with how much of your money is taken by the government, start big and work your way down. It’s easy to latch on to the “low income” folks who by your definition is “lazy” and use them as a scapegoat.
According to http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/ it looks like 11% of a 6.5 trillion dollar government budget is going towards welfare.
I personally don’t find >$650 billion to be an insignificant amount of money.
I can agree with you that there are other places that would be great places to cut spending, but if you are trying to argue that giving this girl food stamps is a good use of tax dollars then I’m gonna have to disagree with you there.
It’s hard to blame the government because how do you judge someone’s ability to make money vs. what they’re actually doing?
She’s definitely a lazy bum, and I’m surprised she likes that quality of life. By being lazy and continuing her trend, she’s ensuring that this will be the rest of her life.
If she’s happy with it, not much will change.
I agree that it’s hard to blame the government, but there has to be a way. Basically, if you are physically capable of working, you should not be getting government assistance.
Good story Kevin. We are surrounded by nincompoops!
Yeap, like Daniel above said, she’ll be on food stamp her whole life. That’s just pathetic.
She will be on food stamps all her life unless the government does something about it!
I would have told her exactly what I was feeling. “You insufferable leach. I pay taxes so the elderly and the disabled can eat, not so ingrates like you can smoke and drink into the wee hours of the morning without taking full responsibility for themselves!!!”
Of course, I’d just be blown off as a lunatic, but I would have felt better. ๐
That probably would have been healthier instead of holding it in for about 4 years until I could finally vent about it on my blog ๐
Leech? You were nice. I probably would have started with something along the lines of “Look b*tch, I want my money back.”
Sorry, but as a single (scratch that, unmarried) person making more than minimum wage, I hate a pretty damn high rate of taxes. I don’t have kids and I don’t own my home so I pay out the nose. I have ZERO deductions and b*tches like those are sucking up about 30% of MY damn paycheck between 6 TAXES. I’m pissed off.
GIMME BACK MY MONEY!
First off – Amen sistah! ๐
Secondly – Tell us how you really feel. ๐
I’m with you, I just used leech (or “leach” as my fingers typed out, oops) to be politically correct, lol. In real life, I don’t actually have a filter, so I use it for online posts. ๐
This type of thing still makes my blood boil. I worked in payroll for a call center a few years ago in STL, and I heard the same thing on numerous occasions. The bad thing was even some of the better employees did not want to work more than a certain number of hours because they would lose their government support. Why work more when you can get it for free, eh? We even found one who pretty much photo-shopped her check stubs to report lower wages so she could receive housing assistance.
And then they complain that they aren’t paid enough. And then the union organizers come in…
I know there are people who sincerely need the assistance, but this type of thing makes me bitter to the whole idea.
Wow. I’m even more mad now that I’m hearing there are so many other people who do it! I feel like I have a pretty small sample size here, and multiple people have encountered these situations. This type of thing must be running rampant. The government definitely needs to find a way to fix this. I wish I had a good solution.
Then they wonder why there are so many black hearts out there who are disgusted with these social programs.
“How dare you say you don’t want to give money to those who are poor and suffering in our society?!?!?! You’re MEAN. And EVIL. and SELF RIGHTEOUS.”
It’s because of stories like the above. Those bad apples spoil it for all the rest who really need that money.
Parasitic leeches.
Seems like a pretty rational move, don’t you think? $266/week isn’t exactly rolling in dough, so it’s not like her position is that envious.
This is why we need to extend unemployment insurance to 5 years to motivate current workers to do more!
The worst is my friend’s dad, who is disabled and has been living on government benefits for years, keeps bitching about how the government shouldn’t tax us. (Excuse me?? Those high taxes to the rest of us are paying your benefits check!) Sometimes people don’t give enough thoughts to why they have the political opinions that they spout off… haha
Enjoyed the storytelling, hate the lazy ass. Funny, you almost have to be mad at both sides. She is working the system and the government is just enabling lazy asses. We’re caught in a vicious cycle. Just like the bailouts, people who weren’t financially responsible got help. The ones who kept up with payments and planned properly foot the bill?!?! Insanity.
Ugh that’s pretty disgusting. I make $8.50/hour but I don’t take any benefits, I do file taxes & get a tax return. I honestly don’t get how these people can feel proud for depending on the government. Please don’t think that everyone that works a low wage is like this.
I’m at a flexible job where we can get 40 hours per week and that helps out a lot when you’re going to college. But I could never live like this for long, even though I live in the mid-west where the COL is more affordable, it still sucks. I want to do so many amazing things with my life.
I want to have an IRA, travel during summers, be able to save for emergencies, and you can retire much faster with a job that pays more.
IMO if you’re healthy, have average intelligence and are still poor in America then you’re lazy. Poor in America is much different than poor in Africa. An Ethiopian would happily take the life of an average poor american because at least then they’d have a chance for a life.
These are people who just struggle to survive, they eat bugs for goodness sakes. My bf always says we should take the moochers and send them off to Africa, I think if we did that they would come back to the U.S. with a different perspective.