Ch 5

I agree with Seccombe that surviving on welfare touches all aspects of a persons life and not just the economic realm. In the beginning of the chapter, Seccombe discusses how she interviews Jana and that sometimes she does not make it on just food stamps. Unfortunately daily living for her is a continuous and depressing battle especially when you have kids. Janas says that its hard relying on food stamps and money but even though it is a small amount she is grateful to have it. She never goes out, never has alone time and the fathers are barely in the picture. Being on welfare is not just free money. It affects her emotionally, physically as well as mentally. It is not just her that feels that way. Millions of women turn to drugs and alcohol to use that as a coping strategy for their depression. If it wasn't for welfare, many people would be on the streets and some even dead. I think welfare can have a negative and positive effect on people. People that use it to their advantage like Stephanie make welfare a temporary thing. While some people even when they get a decent paying job could not live off of it. Stephanie is a great example in the book on how welfare touches her life. She tries to eat and stay healthy but ends up running out of money towards the end of the month. She uses welfare to help her get better health wise, and other ways. Being that she has very low income, she gets financial aid for school to help her get an education. Welfare helps her and strengthens her physically and emotionally.

On a negative look on how welfare touched aspects of persons life is dependency. Many individuals are happy that they do not have to work and can stay home with their children. Welfare can destroy someone without even knowing. The book does not discuss how welfare can ruin someone or make their situation worse. So I wanted to share that I know someone that relies on the system to get food and money even though she is in a middle class income from her boyfriend. She just does not put down on the application that she lives with her baby's father so she can get it. I think Karma will get her for doing what she is doing. It affects her life in a positive way because she is living a great life. She just abuses the system so then welfare becomes misused and is a negative effect on how it is used. The welfare effects people in many ways. I agree with Seccombe that welfare touches different areas of peoples lives but it also depends severely on the person and how much good or bad it helps the person in the long run.