Just last week, I asked how people could afford to simply up and quit their jobs as a part of the great resignation. It seems as though the child tax credit was a big part of it, and now that credit has come to an end.
Yahoo brings to us a piece that explains how those who have quit their jobs are now complaining that the loss of the tax cut means that they have no money for bills, believing that the government should pay them to sit at home and do nothing but breed.
Roberts, who lives in Marks, Miss., left her job as an insurance agent at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic when her employer wouldn’t let her work from home…”This tax credit is the only way we’ve kept food on the table,” said Roberts, who is raising a 5- and 7-year-old. “For a lot of the working poor, it gave us a chance to finally take a freaking breath and not stress so much about how the bills get paid every month.”
Imagine how easy it would be to pay your bills if you didn’t quit your job.
Back in Mississippi, Roberts – who took custody of her cousin’s grandchildren five years ago – says she’ll probably let her car insurance payments lapse so she can buy groceries. She has just $388 left in her bank account but feels lucky to own her house, which she says puts her in a much better position than many friends who are at risk of eviction or foreclosure.
This poor woman is stuck having to raise and provide for the grandkids of her cousin. I feel bad for her, but it isn’t the responsibility of the US taxpayer to give her money, simply because she has a sad backstory.
Who else is sad because they aren’t getting checks anymore?
In San Antonio, Nathaniel Miller and his wife used their monthly payments to buy gluten-free food, oat milk and diapers for their 1-year-old daughter, who has severe food allergies. Without it, he says his family of four will have to start using their savings to cover everyday expenses.
“We’re a one-income household, so that money has been a lifeline,” said Miller, 34, who works in communications. “Now that it’s gone, I don’t know where that extra money is going to come from. We have a little bit in savings, but savings deplete quickly. If anything else comes up, we’re kind of screwed.”
My wife and I both have jobs. Why doesn’t yours?
Caroline Nasella, a government attorney in Sacramento with 3- and 6-year-old daughters, said the extra $400 a month helped cover child-care costs and provided extra breathing room during the pandemic.
Or how about this woman:
Kelly McKernan, an artist and illustrator in Nashville, used her $250 monthly checks to cover mid-month bills and buy school clothes and winter boots for her second-grader. Her income has been cut in nearly half, to about $25,000, during the pandemic.
“Not having that money is already having a really big impact,” said McKernan, 35, who’s working on a graphic novel anthology with the rock band Evanescence and is looking for art teaching positions to make ends meet.
It’s good to know that my paycheck is cut in half by taxes so my tax money can be used by a woman to sit at home and work part time on a comic book about a rock band.
10 Comments
Paulb · January 17, 2022 at 7:40 am
Just this morning I left a comment elsewhere along the lines of “40 hour week? I hit 40 hours by lunch on Wednesday!”
Seriously, an adult who is crying because it’s hard to make ends meet AND draw a frigging comic book for a living? Boy wouldn’t I like to see a pan of hot grease fall off her stove and on her foot.
Nobody cares. Work harder. Someone who only works 40 hours a week has no right to bitch about being poor. Add 60 hours to that work schedule and you won’t be. Otherwise, you’re choosing not to work and to be broke.
Bert · January 17, 2022 at 8:05 am
I am reminded often to be compassionate for fellow humans. I have worked myself nearly to bodily failure over the years to support not only my worthless bag of minerals but my family (yes to include my x-wife in there).
To have able body folks demanding yet more be stolen from my production is maddeningly insane. These days I just wish to sit on the porch and watch the fires from the cities as modern sodom consumes itself.
It's just Boris · January 17, 2022 at 9:31 am
I’m no longer sorry for these folks. I’ve heard so many of these (foreseeable and preventable) sob stories with multiple bad decisions and no learning occurring, and had compassion (and money) demanded, I’m basically burned out on the whole industry. (Because that’s what it is – a government-run, inefficient, anonymizing industry to redistribute $0.25-0.40 on the dollar paid in as taxes.)
The worst part is? There are people out there who really do need help, badly. The ones who could help themselves and don’t, have stolen both support and compassion from those who can’t. And that realization also doesn’t help my attitude about the whole situation.
Anonymous · January 17, 2022 at 11:14 am
Communism exists precisely to the extent you are willing to pay “taxes” to fund it. This belief that it is “legitimate” for a “government” to redistribute wealth is a belief of communism.
Skyler the Weird · January 17, 2022 at 11:48 am
In old Soviet Communism you pretended to work and they pretend to pay you. This is far worse. I blame Dickens and Hugo for defaming the Workhouse and gruel.
Billy Bob in Texas · January 17, 2022 at 3:49 pm
I worked 3 jobs when my daughter was born so my wife could be a stay at home Mom. Sacrifice was well worth it. 6 years later, we were used to a single income, so when my son arrived there was no income changed.
Both kids grew up normal and inculcated to be proper productive and responsible citizens.
It’s a shame this generation is so lazy and indoctrinated.
Big Ruckus D · January 17, 2022 at 6:00 pm
This is just another knock on effect of the fact we have a society that is terminally dysgenic. Society – mostoy via government – rewards the stupid, the decadent, the lazy and the entitled at the expense of the productive. The end result will be a massive killing via war, or a massive die off by hunger and disease of those without the resources for survival and the unwillingness to get said resources legitimately (as by working, and not by stealing). I no longer care about their suffering and failure, they will not change and I will not work any harder just to have more stolen from me to fund the survival of all the dead weight.
Destruction of the maladapted is now the only outcome. All the slack has been taken out of the system and there is no economic magic bullet that will make all these people capable of self sufficiency in paying for even their most basic needs, much less what they’ve come to expect as their baseline lifestyle.
Western civilization is itself an unsustainable idea; at least on its present dysfunctional trajectory. Expectations and complexity will be reduced by some exogenous force because they cannot be maintained at the present levels, and human nature precludes any chance of voluntarily dialing things back. Could be the forced adjustments needed to rebalance will come through war, crop failures, a real pandemic that actually kills a large percentage of human population, or some combination thereof. Something catastrophic is going to happen to end that which is no longer a viable model on which to operate a large society. Much wasted effort will undoubttedly be expended to resist the reality we are facing. Nevertheless, It will not avoided.
D · January 17, 2022 at 8:25 pm
“We have a little bit in savings, but savings deplete quickly. If anything else comes up, we’re kind of screwed.”
Yeah…so you *do* have money….it’s just that you’d rather spend “my” money on your necessities while saving “your” money for some hypothetical future situation where you might need it.
These people…
*sigh*
Toastrider · January 17, 2022 at 8:34 pm
What’s really bad is that the consistent and repeated mistreatment of the ‘productives’ is going to eventually drive more and more of them to become ‘unproductive’.
This won’t end well.
Jonathan · January 18, 2022 at 12:52 pm
I got these payments by default, even though I make enough money I don’t qualify and will have to repay it…
As other people have said, if $300 a month makes a big difference to you, imagine what a job will do!
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