11 Comments

Not directly related, but something that may help us to understand why these necessary support systems are riddled with obstacles. In the debt ceiling compromise, work reauirements were established for certain recipients of SNAP benefits. Keep in mind, the debt ceiling debate was presumably about runaway spending. However, the costs of enforcing the SNAP work requirements exceed the actual benefits themselves, thus increasing the nation's debt, not decreasing it. According to the CBO. If we had political/moral consensus around the need for thise support systems, the obstacles could easily be reduced. They are in place to appease the deep conservatives who want the welfare system eliminated.

Expand full comment

Thanks for your important comment, Mark. Excellent point. The very existence of our basic social safety net is fought at every step, and so it is compromised at every step.

Expand full comment

This nightmare has passed me by but not so for several loved ones. Another close friend qualifies for disability but is facing the same problems. We are seeking help from an outside agency that provides low cost legal assistance. These funds were instituted for a reason : to get people through difficult times. It galls me to think that the sane taxes I pay towards these benefit programs are used to pay people who deny those benefits.

Expand full comment

Thanks for your comment, Elizabeth — it is indeed galling. It is incomprehensible to me that they are purposefully wasting taxpayer dollars, but it seems that they are. And disability benefits? The requirements to qualify as a "disabled person" bear no resemblance to any physical or mental problem—it is how much you can work, regardless of your physical or mental diagnosis. To me, this shows how the system is skewed to productivity for business rather than helping people.

Expand full comment

I worked as an independent contractor for many years, including during the pandemic. Under regular circumstances, independent contractors are not eligible for unemployment benefits, but I was eligible under PUA (pandemic unemployment assistance). The process was horrible, and definitely seemed by design. There was very little information available, the website was poorly designed, the phone lines were completely backlogged (you were only allowed to even try to call on certain days according to the first letter in your last name--I am not kidding). I worked in a field with a lot of other friends and colleagues who were in the same boat, so I made it my mission to try to figure it out and had constant text chains going to try to keep my friends in the loop so we could all get what was supposedly available to us. I had to put in a regular application, wait for it to be denied, and then wait for PUA to become available in Indiana (which took a while), and hope that they remembered that I had a pending (aka denied but just waiting for a different kind of assistance) application when it did become available. Miraculously, I did eventually get payments, but then also got a notice that I was overpaid and needed to return over $1000 to the state, with the reason being given that my income was not verified. I could guess that this confusion stemmed from the fact that they asked for the total declared income on my (joint!) tax return for identity confirmation, which was obviously different from my personal income (which I verified through multiple document uploads, through a well-hidden link that took me forever to figure out). Duh. Like no one ever applied who filed a joint tax return and like that wasn't totally avoidable. I could not get through on the phone and ended up just paying back part of my payments when I started getting threatening letters that the amount I "owed" would be sent to collections. I was grateful to get the payments I did--they did help a lot while I was legally shut down for months of lockdown--but the whole process was clearly designed to make people give up. I had the time and energy to deal with it and still couldn't get issues resolved.

Expand full comment

Wow! Thanks so much for your comment, Cathleen. They claimed that I was "overpaid" too, and I filed a "waiver" from the requirement to pay them back, because Ohio offered that at the time. They denied my waiver request...and then I never heard from them again. They still might come after me! They made so many mistakes with my PUA, it became a circus. They eventually paid me most but not all of what they owed me, proving, I guess, that they were wrong all along. As you know all too well, the stress those "mistakes" put on millions of individuals, when they are panicked and desperate for help, is life-altering.

Expand full comment

I also almost forgot about what a nightmare it was for my parter, too. He applied a little later than me (he was on a contract job during the start of the pandemic), and Indiana decided to contract with a private company to administer facial recognition verification. He was asked to submit all kinds of personal information (including his social security number and his image from his computer webcam) to a third-party company, and when he looked into the company to try to figure out where his information was going, it was hard to figure out if they were even legit at all. He was really stressed and wanted to trash the whole process on principle, but we needed the money (we were both out of work for a while, and he had nothing else lined up when that contract was up--not for lack of trying, thanks to the blanket pandemic hiring freezes through all of academia). So he ended up giving all his info to this sketchy company.

Expand full comment

It's interesting how the government, at all levels, seems to hire private companies to get in between the citizens and the government...and make a profit from the taxpayers at the same time. I am sure that some third-party contractors are absolutely necessary, but I think the gov't, in an attempt to involve private business in everything, takes it way too far. That, coupled with the "fraud' checks, which I m guessing is what your partner experienced, make a not great situation even more burdensome to the citizens. It sounds like you both were able to receive your rightful monies due despite the extra hurdles, so yay for that. Stay tuned for (really) deep dive posts on both the intermingling of business and government and the fraud issue. As far as I know, citizens have not seen actual evidence that fraud, to an extent that would disrupt the system, justifies the extra hurdles we face to get government help... Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Cathleen.

Expand full comment

Of course! I hope they're helpful. I appreciate your work.

Expand full comment

Thank you. Your comments are most assuredly helpful!

Expand full comment

What a shitshow. I'm sorry for you and all the other folks who had to (and continue to) go through that, too. It is so stressful.

Expand full comment