The way government benefits are structured is made of fail on SO many levels. I wish I could find the website that demonstrates this, but if you're a single parent with two kids, you can "break even" in a fairly sustainable way in much of upstate NY if you make about $20K/year because you'll be eligible for EITC, subsidized child care, Child Health Plus/Family Health Plus, and possibly even food stamps and HEAP. As you make more, you lose eligibility such that your next break-even point is around $40K/year.
And while I can understand not providing benefits to people with no income but tons of assets, that $2000 limit stayed the same for about 15 years and is only recently being looked at again. That only reinforces the "spend 'till it's gone" mentality - if you don't spend it, the government will take it (or will kick you off of Medicaid or your disabled child off of SSI, which is far more dangerous).
As for the gift cards idea, that makes sense to a point but could be a problem if what you have a gift card for is not what you need (or if what you may need later can't be paid via gift card, such as utilities - where I used to live, even credit cards could not be used to pay most utility bills, and I've sold CDs and textbooks to pay those bills in a pinch. Plus, at least you get the enjoyment of the big-ticket item while you have it. I know some people using tax refunds to pay credit cards clear, then using the cards the rest of the year, but that assumes you could get the credit card in the first place or that between all the fees and the insane interest rates, the card was even any help during the year. It's all trade-offs, sometimes really weird ones.
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Date: 2008-12-15 08:34 pm (UTC)And while I can understand not providing benefits to people with no income but tons of assets, that $2000 limit stayed the same for about 15 years and is only recently being looked at again. That only reinforces the "spend 'till it's gone" mentality - if you don't spend it, the government will take it (or will kick you off of Medicaid or your disabled child off of SSI, which is far more dangerous).
As for the gift cards idea, that makes sense to a point but could be a problem if what you have a gift card for is not what you need (or if what you may need later can't be paid via gift card, such as utilities - where I used to live, even credit cards could not be used to pay most utility bills, and I've sold CDs and textbooks to pay those bills in a pinch. Plus, at least you get the enjoyment of the big-ticket item while you have it. I know some people using tax refunds to pay credit cards clear, then using the cards the rest of the year, but that assumes you could get the credit card in the first place or that between all the fees and the insane interest rates, the card was even any help during the year. It's all trade-offs, sometimes really weird ones.