The BRUTAL Realities Of Being Poor In America During COVID

Living in America as a poor person is already rough. But add the complexities and hazards of a global pandemic, and it becomes nearly impossible to get to a place of stability and security.

Watch the Majority Report live MondayFriday at 12 p.m. EST on YouTube OR listen via daily podcast at

#SamSeder #EmmaVigeland #MajorityReport #politics #news #progressive #leftist #democrats #liberal

SUPPORT the show by becoming a member

Download TMR's FREE app

CHECK OUT MORE from the MR crew:

Matt Binder DOOMED

Brandon Sutton DISCOURSE

Emma Vigeland ESVN

Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING

OTHER LINKS:

Check out more from the MR crew:

Matt Binder DOOMED

Brandon Sutton THE DISCOURSE

Emma Vigeland ESVN

Matt Lech LEFT RECKONING

Image Credit, Centre for Ageing Better

Image has been cropped and color has been altered.

For welfare or for medical coverage or for anything like that. Like I had a friend who lost out on 400 something dollars in food stamps a month because she made three dollars more. Right. Then she vowed to make it during that time. So it puts you in this precarious position of if I get this you know 50 Cent an hour raise will that be too much right? Right. And you can't get a clear answer from anybody. You can't get a clear answer from a caseworker. They don't want to tell you, no you can't make more money right? So you just have to risk it. And you get into this position where I've known tons of people in this position where they take lower-paying jobs to qualify for these benefits. Because I don't know if you're working at McDonald's for 11 an hour and you might be able to go to Burger King and make 14 an hour. But if you're on Section 8, if you get food stamps, if you get medical help, if you get any of these things, the money isn't going to replace the benefits that you're getting, right? Right. so it has this Dynamic of just stifling down wages where people can't make more because what they're going to make in the immediate future even if they're like long term it might be a better opportunity for them. It's going to put them in a really big situation, it's going to put them in a really precarious position. Yeah, it's a problem. I mean I and you know I think like to the extent that there's any way of mitigating that you don't make it a cliff. You make it an off-ramp. But that you know that becomes also sort of like an administrative you know it creates more work administratively. I mean this is why ultimately we should have a universal system where it is not meant tested whatsoever. And we do our means testing on the taxation side. Instead of you having to qualify for Medicaid everybody gets essentially Medicaid or Medicare. Whatever you want to call it. And if you make more money your taxes are commensurate with that. and that's it. And that's the way that we do this. But we don't do that because like you say there's an unspoken incentive to diminish wages to diminish the power of workers. To lock them in in certain jobs. And essentially to sort of Chip Away at these people and maintain like a semi-permanent underclass. Yes. Exactly. It is designed for you to not better yourself. It is designed for you to shut up and work the job that you can work and barely get by. And if you try to better yourself well we're probably going to punish you for that. Yeah, it's a problem I mean it is that we need to decommodify some very basic necessities that human beings have.