My facebook friends pointed me to this latest bit of charming news out of Michigan.
From Think Progress:
If you’re poor and live in Michigan, you just can’t catch a break from the current Republican administration under Gov. Rick Snyder (R-MI). Beginning next month, many Michigan residents on food stamps will lose their benefits under a new law that tightens eligibility requirements.
Seizing on any excuse to kick people out of the program, Republicans have mandated that recipients’ assets be scrutinized, in addition to their income, which has traditionally been the only measure that was considered when deciding eligibility. People with cars worth over $15,000 could be disqualified.
Of course, this change in welfare eligibility was done with the stated intention of returning welfare to “its original purpose”–that is, acting as a safety net for when times get rough.
And yet, I can’t help but think back to my own experience on welfare. Both my partner and I were in school and working–but my partner had at one point been working in the factories. We had a car. In fact we had two of them. Because it’s Michigan and there is no such thing as a viable public transportation. Especially not in Southeast Michigan–where public transportation needs are dictated by corporate needs. Other places get bus lines that run every 20 minutes instead of every hour. We get a freeway that links one factory to another.
So we needed those cars. We were both working, both going to school, both of us got jobs once we graduated, so welfare was absolutely a temporary life line for us. But it was a desperately needed lifeline. One that we wouldn’t have survived without. And yet–we wouldn’t be eligible today because of those two cars and the both of us being students.
How many people in Michigan–how many laid off factory workers specifically, are sitting on welfare with their nice cars in their driveways (those nice cars, by the way, which were often only affordable because of worker discounts that unions fought for)? How many laid off factory workers own their own houses? How many laid off factory workers are trying to figure out a way to survive by going back to school and “retraining” themselves so they are employable in the new job market?
These new rules are not just about drawing on tired ideas of poor people “scamming” the system. These new rules are *using* those negative stereotypes about poor people scamming the system as a way to keep workers desperate and disempowered. You’ll take any job if your kids are hungry. And you’re surely not going to waste time retraining yourself for a high paying job if your kids are going to starve while you’re doing it.
In Michigan, there’s a new type of worker–the kind that works three (or more) shit jobs in order to just barely make it. Because finding one full time job that pays enough to live on is near impossible. Especially without any schooling. But how do laborers who are working 10-20 hours at three different jobs organize? How do they form unions?
It’s being done, even against the odds. But it’s not easy work. And with this legislation–it’s only going to get harder.