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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.