Oh man, I am about to make you so mad you asked because I KNOW THIS ONE

Also for the something like 50k of you who have followed me since I got shot, welcome to my regular twitter

Okay so first off there is no thing in America that is average

We don’t have welfare like that https://twitter.com/azeemnizam/status/1280364578929405952
(Hi folks who have been here, someone brought me whiskey and it’s just past midnight and we’re settling in for a serious deliberation of the concept of welfare in various nations, I’m back, love y’all)
So anyway in the US we have fragmented our social services, which is to say that depending on the source of money that might be federal, state, county, or city depending on the budget.

Also, lots of smaller bodies depend on federal grants to fund their initiatives!
Oh also lots of what would be considered state welfare in any other country is provided by NGOs so it’s a lot of charities involved and the amount of aid one might qualify for depends entirely on the religions of aid workers
By which I mean to say that a religious charity might qualify as a welfare organization and thusly be counted as available welfare in any responsible count of the area, but they can also place lots of restrictions on who gets the aid, by which I mean they exclude gay folks (ex.)
So anyway this year’s federal poverty guideline in America for a family of four is $26,200.
Which is to say, with two adults and two children the government thinks you’re not impoverished as long as each adult is working full time (40 hrs/wk) and each makes at least ~$250/wk
Now. In order to qualify for Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) which any other country refers to as welfare or if you’re an asshole maybe the dole

You first have to qualify through the state but in any case you have to work a certain amount per week
Single parents have to work 30 hours a week, dual earner households have to work somewhere between 30-55 hours a week.

This is why “welfare to work” has always been supreme fuckeey but triply so in a downturn caused by pandemic

Nobody gets fucking TANF tbh, it’s the brass ring
Oh also because we did welfare reform with Clinton and we all hopped on the fuck poor people train, you can only get TANF for five years for your whole life and two years at a time so I guess if you’re completely fucked you better grab the bootstraps
Anyway we separately administer a program called Women and Infant Children (WIC) where if you turn up and your quite poor and you’re pregnant or nursing you can get some coupons for a weirdly too much milk and also peanut butter and pre-approved cereals
Also they do give you $20 a month for produce. You must spend said coupon all at once, and I guess god help you if you wanted produce in a month elsewise.
So then we get into what Americans consider welfare: SNAP. (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)

Now the thing about US welfare is that literally none of it is meant to cover you; it’s all meant to “supplement” you
So SNAP is largely paid for with federal funds but it’s in grants to states so every state has its own limits, which means that as long as you’re at the federal poverty line you know you’ll qualify but if you’re at all above it there’s no guarantee the next state covers you
SNAP is what we call food stamps but actually it’s EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards and WIC is the only program that still prints stamps

Yes, I know, welcome to America
Okay so that covers money excepting LIHEAP which is a program meant to cover heating bills that you probably don’t qualify for and if you do qualify for it on paper they’re already filled up as every LIHEAP office has approximately NOT ENOUGH TO HELP YOU TOO slots available
OKAY ONTO THE MEDICAL PORTION OF WELFARE
Okay so fun fact: the politicians in my country had a whole showdown about socialism and what they compromised on was a system that (this is not a joke) you can only buy into if you’re very sure in Nov/Dec what your next year will be
One hears about “the exchanges” and such but the upshot is the only excuses they give you for wanting to buy health insurance in, say, may, is that you’ve been through a divorce or pregnancy or some equally weighty shit

Meantime the premiums are LOLOLOLOLL
Otherwise we get employer-provided health care which, newsflash, only fairly privileged people have access to

So for the rest of us, there’s Medicaid

Now I should be clear about this
I could, if one is speaking about my freedom and not the world, contract this very day with an employer that provided health benefits

I could also uproot my family and move to a state with better public medical benefits
Anyway the best I can buy, having moved outside the federally recognized window, is $3200 a month with a $10,000 deductible

Like it’s actually better I just crowdfund the bills of police shooting out my eye, in the end, rather than fuck with public health insurance
Because the thing is there’s income limits on Medicaid.

Also, you can’t even google what Medicaid income limits are because it involves a lot of state politics
No go ahead and try it, just google “Medicaid income limit” and have fun trying to navigate the states and territories
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