I am currently in this predicament...I am a non driver due to a sleep disorder and live in a small rural community. I am the custodian at my church and work minimal hours. I also receive government assistance. I WANT to be a productive member of society and work more...I WANT to provide a better life for my children and to be a better role model. But, if I get a different (better paying) job all of my benefits decrease and my bills increase. Plus, I'd have to pay for childcare and transportation. I've done the math and I would be worse off financially than I am now... And my relationships with my children would suffer as well. Because of my sleep disorder I'd be completely wiped out & basically bea zombie once home. It's not worth it. I'd rather be poor financially and have rich relationships with my children. Maybe if there was a buffer period in which benefits would remain the same (for a time) and give an individual the opportunity to get a leg up? The system is built to keep me p

Maybe my company isn't totally garbage. We have boots for people who can't afford safety toe boots when they start. We offer help with public transportation and you are able to have alternative hours to work with child care and public transportation. I have personally brought new workers that didn't have safety toe boots to get a pair. That pair of boots don't matter to me as much as having a good worker.

The government and corporations want us to be poor and underfed so we would be slaves to their demand. While a few hold billions and not taxed, we get taxed for everything including third rate Healthcare.

This is actually very true, and unfortunately very relatable. My boyfriend lost his job unexpectedly just under 4 weeks ago, due to not fault of his own. I am employed but it's not enough due to the high cost of living in our area. He applied for unemployment but unemployment in our state of Pennsylvania is notorious for taking forever to process unemployment claims. In the past few weeks we quickly fell behind on utilities, and at one point I barely had enough money to pay for gas to get to work. My boyfriend has another job, but we have to wait a week before he gets a full pay check. Unemployment still hasn't reviewed his claim, if we had that money we wouldn't be behind at all.

If I work my whole income will go to childcare and the help we get with our rent from gov will stop, so we'll have no money for food and bills. Either way we can't save for a deposit or get a mortgage. I wish the gov would see it would be better if they helped us buying a house instead of helping with the rent, we'd pay back with the excess we're paying at the moment and own something at the end... the way it is it's just draining money from both us and gov

Also if you’re in a bad job, it takes time to find a better situation. I was unemployed for about four years, I took odd and end jobs and I took temp jobs to survive but I refused to settle for any full time job because I knew I wouldn’t have time to look for a new job or interview. My friends and family were so mad at me but I managed to support myself financially and I’ve found myself in a new promising career with good pay and amazing benefits.

I'm over 50, female, mom, grandmother.. and have pretty much been on my own since I was 17 (except for a couple years when my son was a baby). Its been hard. You think you get ahead and bam, the government strips away any subsidies you had and so you are making not a penny more in that slightly better job. It's been a struggle. Things are so much more expensive and unattainable these days. My son and his wife are now struggling with their 2 kids. Rents are so high, they both have to work. She furthered her education to be able to get a good job however daycare costs are so high, she has to stay at her minimum wage job so someone can be at home with the kids. It's really sad when folks are trying so hard and just cant get ahead whatsoever.

Where I live there's a company called Beelivery. It's kind of a Deliveroo thing, you do people's shopping for them and get paid for the trip. Here's the catch: unlike with Deliveroo, Beelivery doesn't pay the supermarket to do the shopping. The employee has to buy the shopping and send the receipt on the Beelivery app, and they refund you the next day. So in order to make this gig job work, you not only have to be able to run a vehicle, you have to have enough money banked to pay for a day's worth other people's groceries - and hope Beelivery don't query the receipt.

I get it. I've lived it countless times. It's really, really hard to find a job, and once you got a job you're stressing out and edgy during the first 3 months wondering if they're just going to fire you for just cause reasons. It's happened to me. I put in my 2 weeks notice when I got hired for my current job. Literally, beating myself up during and after every shift at my last in rage and anxiety for much longer than I want to admit because it took so long to find an employer who would give me a chance. No matter what jobs I've had they don't want to pay too much higher than minimum wage. I could work my tail off, through blood, sweat and tears, and it's never good enough, fast enough, worthy. I'm hearing the pay will never be great at my current job but at least the work is consistent, no major loss of hours unlike my last job. Gaining skills to put on a resume doesn't even matter anymore, unless it's a "skilled trade" you go to college for or an apprenticeship.

There are some charities that help people with no or low income to look presentable for job interviews, they provide professional looking clothing for job interviews, so people have a better chance of actually getting a job. I think those are really good charities for us to donate to (either professional looking clothes/shoes that you don't use anymore, or money), because they really help people get out of their bad situation. Also, you don't have to worry that you're trying to help people who aren't ready to change their lives yet, because you know that you're helping people who are actively trying to improve their own situation by going to job interviews and are reaching out for a helping hand.

People complain about not having a phone or internet access.... has everyone forgotten about the "Lifeline Phone"? If you qualify as a low income household, the government will GIVE you a phone, and minutes, and internet access. Here is the link - https://www.lifewireless.com/

A very needed article. People who are unemployed, specially those who are chronically ill, are constantly judged and invalidated.

By the way, the unchecked spread of COVID that we are witnessing at present is going to lead to a lot more folks ending up in the "too disabled to work full-time or to have a normal life but not disabled enough to qualify for benefits" trap.

Being disabled with a recently deceased roommate put me in quite a spot. I took over driving his cab but that too died having close to 400,000 miles on it. I sold the vehicle I had to make a small down payment on a vehicle that I could turn into a cab. This immaculate vehicle didn’t even make it home. Luckily the previous owner had already signed it up for a transferable lifetime warranty and I got a free engine. Sadly, it took 3 months of me living without the vehicle and using credit cards to eat n pay rent until repair was complete. Now with my card balances so high, I can’t afford the paint job and insurance down payment to turn it into a taxi. I’m stuck doing odd driving gigs while still using credit cards for gas and food. Now it is having transmission issues and needs blend door repair and local shops have referred me to the most expensive repair shop of all; the dealership. Being poor is like living in a catch 22. Once one thing goes wrong only a miracle will get you ahead.

I live in a rural village. Working around here is expensive. You don't have a car? Fork out for a taxi or walk hours home, we don't get buses after 4pm (and there's none at all on weekends). And you need two buses to get into the town where the vast majority of jobs are. Bus tickets aren't cheap in the area either (£3 one way, £5 return), that's a decent cost daily

Our new government just recently announced changes to the basic income we have. Some people were complaining. I wonder what they would say if they had to fend for themselves in the US. Bet they would sing a different tune then. We don‘t know how good we have it.

Yeah, and that comment about church daycare...church day cares cost just as much of not more than any other daycare. It's not free. There is no free childcare. The hoops the parents have to jump through to qualify for state stipends for childcare are many and sometimes insurmountable, and even then it's often not enough to cover it fully. When my son was three, I lost my job after an injury, was on workers comp which was 60% of my income. Because I wasn't working, I couldn't get state assistance to pay for his daycare, and the cost was around 1200 per month. So I pulled him out, losing the spot to someone on a mile long wait-list. When I tried to work again, I couldn't find child care openings anywhere I could afford on my new salary. Child care, 1200, rent 1200, bills, 300, food 400, car payment 350, car insurance 200, gas 100, meanwhile job offer for 2700/mo full time? It wasn't a bad offer, given my physical limitations, but take a minute and do the math. It doesn't work.

one comment made this all about her, saying that's why I work from home like ok b***h we are talking about people struggling not your a*s

When I was getting divorced I was in a woman's shelter for a while. I arrived with $14 dollars in my pocket. Getting a job was crazy. One very high end dept store donated cases of business clothes to help us get jobs. The shelter sold all of it to pay for their expenses. The food was all donated and years old from the back of someone's pantry. The canned food tasted like metal. Tip of the iceberg.

I had my funding cut off my senior year of engineering school. Anytime I get a job, most of my money goes to pay for student loans. My last decent job I had, I was paying $600 a month on my student loans. Unfortunately, unknown to me, I had two loans I wasn't paying so they charged me 10k in legal fees to garnish my wages and started taking another $800 dollars out of my paycheck for those two loans. In total I was paying around 1400 a month for my student loans. I only made 17 dollars an hour. I had to quit because I could no longer afford to make it to work or pay my rent. Now I'm homeless with no clothes or money or cell phone or any way to be a productive member of society. All because I tried to get an education.