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Every day we see something that just makes us say “you’ve got to be kidding me” (and not in a good way…). The beginning of this journey was complicated as I became increasingly frustrated with the situations I saw at hand. Policies that are supposed to be helping often hinder us in ways we don’t see until its too late. I researched a couple instances of this during my college application process and this is what I found.
Means-Tested Benefits — These are federal programs where the eligibility of the individual is dependent on income or resource availability. This covers a wide variety of benefits such as EIC, federal housing, SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, SSI, and more. All of these programs are helpful to those who need it—the problem lies with how far it goes. Due to these programs being eligibility-based, once someone meets a certain threshold, they lose access to the benefits. When a family earns more, they lose child care subsidies, housing assistance, or food benefits. In some instances, this can cause a family to be worse off after a raise, and an overall discouragement of upward mobility. Many people complain about the “laziness” of those relying on these benefits, but that’s often not the case. To sum this one up, if benefits get taken away after a raise, there’s a gap in coverage that the raise might not fill.
Financial Aid Formulas — FAFSA… I have a bone to pick with this one. Growing up, I have had the privilege of being upper-middle class(at our best) but I’ve always known I can’t afford college. Why though? Isn’t FAFSA supposed to make college affordable? In theory, yes, but the calculations ignore the real-world constraints. College tuition has increased by 36.8% since 2010 and an astounding 312.4%(inflation-adjusted) since 1963.³ Colleges, and FAFSA, assume that families can redirect the income that’s reported to college. That means that families with medical expenses, unstable employments, or multiple children are expected to take out multiple mortgages on their homes, if they’re lucky enough to own one. Then there’s the middle class, almost 52% of America’s population⁴, that’s too rich to qualify, and too poor to pay.
There’s plenty more… childcare subsidies, healthcare coverage, education accountability, criminal justice policies… and I’ll cover those in later posts.
