I heard last night that I am one of the 47%. I guess I was already one of the 99%. And since I’m an Independent, I guess I’m also one of the 10% everyone talks about, the ones who will swing the election either way.
This isn’t about the right or left today. Frankly, I could care less about the election right now, largely because there isn’t any real choice out there. Everyone seems to want to put me into a neat, tidy little statistic. Well, Mr. Candidates, I am not a damned statistic!!!! None of us are.
If I sound angry, I am. I am an average American. I have struggled to make ends meet for more of my life. I have had a few failures to do that along the way. I am not lazy. I don’t prefer to sit on my ass over holding down a job. I have had to rely on government support a few times in my life. In fact, I bet most of us have, even if it was unemployment while we searched for a job.
I am not a slacker. And I am certainly not a victim. Like most of us average Americans, I have tremendous pride in my accomplishments.
I am the son of a woman who relies on public assistance. It’s not her fault. My father died when he was 57 after many years of being ill. The illness took away our savings, and it left us without a wage earner. During this time, we were one step away from being homeless. The government’s meager support in the form of welfare and food stamps is the only thing that kept us kids from living under a bridge.
After my father died, my mother worked for a time. She was not lazy or happy about accepting welfare. She went to work for the first time in her life. Then she fell ill, too. She’s been in and out of the hospital and rehab for many years now. She has no means of support, except for what us kids can give her and thankfully, the government is there to help her out.
I went to college, but only because I was able to get Pell grants to help me out, being from a family that, as hard is it for me to say, was in poverty.
When I was fresh out of college, I had a child on the way and getting a job back then, any job, was about as hard as it is now. I had no real world work experience, so I got rejection letter after rejection letter. I wasn’t lazy, Mr. Candidates. I worked night and day to find a job, there just weren’t any. The due date for Becca came closer and closer and eventually, I had to shelve my pride and seek assistance.
Thankfully, I was only on welfare for about two months. At least my newborn daughter wouldn’t have to go hungry at night while I was out there pounding the pavement. I finally took the first job offered making $5 an hour in the mailroom. We squeaked by as I continued to dream of getting a better job, something that happened three years later after the job market improved.
I have been on unemployment once. For three months. I know that we all think we pay that money into the system and that it is rightfully ours, but even that is a form of government support, especially when you’re on it and the normal 16 or 32 weeks have long passed you by. I have friends who have been looking for jobs for more than a year right now. Every day they send out their resumes, follow up on the letters they sent out, go out on interviews and still, nothing. If it wasn’t for a little helping hand from the government, they would be homeless right now.
I know a lot of people who have been helped by the government over the years, including me. It’s not fun to be in the system, let me tell you. You are treated like third class passengers on the Titanic. Chattel. You have to beg for everything you get and at least in Washington state, they check up on you. My mother gets grilled twice a year by the state. Every dime in her bank account is examined to see if they need to take any of her meager benefits away. Inflation long ago ate any extra in her check, and when I say extra, I mean extra money to pay the light bill or the phone bill. If you’ve ever lived off the paltry amount of money the government provides you, you know it’s not enough to live off of. And the price you pay is heavy, for you lose your pride and feeling of self-worth.
I know there are people on the dole who are scamming the system. I’m not stupid, either. Any system has scammers. But don’t you dare throw me into some statistic and tell me that I like to depend on the government to support me and care for me. I have gone without healthcare for the better part of 18 years because I couldn’t afford it when I was running my own business. Yes, I rolled the dice and hoped to hell that something horrible didn’t happen to me. I have had to decide between car insurance and eating at times. And I have had to file bankruptcy because my business just wasn’t making ends meet and there wasn’t enough to pay me and the government.
Yes, I’m angry. We all should be angry that either side wants to reduce us to a game of numbers. It’s so tempting to do, because then you don’t have to look us in the eye and hear our stories, one of struggle in an economy that has been racked by scandal, greed and avarice. I am not remarkable. I am just an average American, something none of these jokers know what it’s like to be.
Mr. Candidates, I am one of the 99% all right. The 99% who are fed up with you telling me how I feel, that you understand my problems and that you supposedly care about my plight. You don’t know me, and you don’t know what I or anyone else goes through on an “average” day.
In the Emerald City, quickly becoming part of the 33% who want to expatriate,
– Robb