Income requirements for state assistance

[Mommaabearr5 (Tierney Cutler)]

As a mother of five that has to watch her husband work 60 hours a week, while working 40 hours a week herself, breakdown because we can’t afford health insurance premiums for our family or healthy food options for our children and the state telling us we “make too much” to receive state assistance I feel we need to restructure the public assistance system. There should be minimum income requirements to receive assistance. Yes, I think disability and SSI payments should be counted towards the income requirements. I also think that bills such as a car payment, car insurance, and cellphone payments should count towards your “necessary bills” because most people cannot work without a car and you cannot get a job without a phone to be called for an interview. As a family of 7 our income limit to receive assistance is just under $82,000 before taxes; so about $68,000 annually. After necessary bills and gas to commute to work we are left with less than $200 a week to feed seven people and that’s without health insurance. Having income requirements and raising the cap on income limits will force people to stop abusing and living off the programs designed to help those in need.