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Chapter III

But Poverty Sure Can Rain on Your Parade

One in three women lives in or on the brink of poverty.

We have now learned that money isn’t the key to happiness, but let’s not get too blasé about it. Because remember, if you’re living below that $105,000 annual income level, more money is going to improve your lot in life.

This is an especially important fact for women. According to The Shriver Report, one in three American women live in or on the brink of poverty. In this same report, we learn that two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women who often operate without sick days, and two-thirds of American women are the primary or co-breadwinners for their families. Twenty-five percent of native women live in poverty—more than any other racial group. These same women are increasingly becoming the breadwinners in their families as they attain higher education levels and pursue managerial positions at a higher rate. In Canada, 10 percent of women live in poverty, and 1.5 million women live on a low income.

This systemic problem is complex, and it is likely best addressed at the systemic level. However, if we’re going to fix this issue as a society, we have to recognize it exists and recognize the unfounded prejudices towards the poor in an individualistic society.

Nicole Lynn Perry, an activist in Seattle, Washington, has struggled greatly with poverty and has seen these prejudices firsthand. Her financial situation led her and her then-wife to make some risky financial decisions. Perry had just separated from the military and was having trouble finding work back in her hometown of Dallas, Texas, despite her best efforts. The only income she was bringing in was a little bit of money from the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

Without a steady income, banks wouldn’t lend the couple the money they needed to get by, so they turned to payday loans, which they took out under Perry’s name. They were never able to pay off these predatory loans. This is extremely common and should serve as a warning to all to stay away from these loans if at all humanly possible. The payday loans ultimately ended up being one of the biggest negative line items on her credit report.

It wasn’t just the payday loans, though. Perry and her ex were so desperate for money to get by that they used even more unconventional methods to get cash for the bills through their credit union.

“If you had a fraudulent charge on your card, you could claim it and they’d temporarily give you the money,” Perry explains. “If the claim was legit, you got to keep the money. If they found out your claim was a bad one and you had actually made the purchase, you’d have to pay the money back.”

Perry and her wife made somewhere between five and ten claims, knowing that the charges weren’t fraudulent. They needed the money to survive. But when the credit union came knocking, wanting their money back for the legitimate charges, Perry didn’t have it. She lost her account, and her credit took another hit.

Later, her poor credit history would prevent her from renting an apartment. A poor credit score can make it extremely difficult to get by in many areas. You might not be able to get an auto loan for that vehicle you desperately need in order to drive to work. You’re more likely to get turned down for a mortgage, and some employers will even refuse to hire you if your score is too low or your credit history is too spotty.

Perry knows she made mistakes. But she was also doing the best she could at the time with the extremely limited resources she had available to her.

“Just because we’re low- or middle-income doesn’t mean we’re trying to stay here,” she reminds us. “Some of it is what’s put upon us. Some of it is the actions of others. Some fall down there and stay down there because of the simple fact that they don’t know anything else.”

Some Solutions

Choncé Maddox Rhea is a freelance writer based out of Chicago, Illinois. Like Perry, she has also seen a great deal of poverty in her life.

“My family fell into poverty when my parents separated and my mom became a single mom,” says Rhea. “She had her Certified Nurse’s Assistant (CNA) license and worked a job making $11 per hour, but somehow still took care of my siblings and I. Money was always tight, and we lived on food stamps and received medical benefits for some time.”

When Rhea was a sophomore in high school, her mother broke the news to her children that she could no longer afford their rent. They were going to have to move, but in order to do that she had to save up money for the new place.

Her mother and brother stayed with one of her nursing patients so she could rack up overtime as she was saving for the new apartment. Rhea and her sisters stayed at her uncle’s house over the summer. She watched as her peers enjoyed the warm weather with friends and started their first jobs. Meanwhile, she was providing childcare for her sisters, enabling her mother to earn the money they so desperately needed to reestablish some stability.

A few years later, Rhea became a teen mom.

“I entered my own state of poverty since I wasn’t able to provide financially for my son,” she says. “I went to college and juggled part-time jobs but still relied on government benefits to help me get by as I worked on my education and developed more marketable skills.”

These programs—combined with some serious hard work—helped Rhea get ahead in life. She used government programs, food pantries, clothes closets, nonprofit organizations, low-income housing, and sometimes even soup kitchens to get what she and her family needed as she strove towards the higher education which would allow her to propel herself to the next level.

Our society judges people severely when they utilize support programs or safety nets. This particularly bothers Perry as a woman of color because even the welfare system in our country has been racist since the beginning. When the New Deal was enacted, Social Security benefits were not extended to domestic and agricultural workers—who were primarily black at that time. Once the system started becoming gradually more—but never close to completely—fair, white people started loudly complaining that they were supporting people of color, completely ignoring the fact that systemic poverty purposefully and disproportionately affects minorities.

“If we’re on Medicaid and/or food stamps, we’re trying to game the system. We’re welfare queens,” says Perry, citing the judgements welfare recipients commonly face—especially welfare recipients who are women of color. “Are there women who take advantage of these programs? Yes. Are they all women of color? No. For some of us, that’s all we’ve got. Right now, I just moved up here [to Seattle] from Texas going on two months ago. [Perry moved for safety reasons.] For right now, I have a part-time job with Amazon. I don’t get insurance there. My alternative is getting on Medicaid. Before I had a job, I got a food stamp card because I couldn’t afford groceries during my job hunt.”

Rhea encourages people to ignore these judgements, put their pride away, and seek out the same help she and Perry did. She encourages people to take advantage of every last resource and support so they can break the cycle of poverty, too.

Programs That Can Help

If you’ve never applied for benefits before, know that it’s far from an easy process. Depending on the program you’re applying for and your state, you’ll need to provide proof of income for some months, data on all of your family members, bank statements, information about your monthly bills, and potentially information about any assets you may have, like a car or a house.

The next time someone tells you getting benefits is easy, check them on it!

It is worth it, though, if you can get on a program that will help you improve your station. Here are some US programs to look into:

•SNAP. Formerly known as food stamps.

•Cash assistance.

•LIHEAP. This program helps with your heating bill in the winter.

•CAP Programs. These programs—which may be run by an outside agency rather than your state government—help control your electric bill.

•Childcare assistance. Typically this will be on your welfare application, but some states will refer you out to a third-party agency who facilitates the program after you’ve applied.

•Medicaid. Get on insurance. If you’re having trouble because of your individual state’s policies, be sure to look at the CHIP program—which is very low-cost and generally has higher income limits—to get your children covered so they can get the medical care they need.

•Pell and State grants. These are available by filling out the FAFSA form, and will help pay for a large chunk of your schooling.

•Special allowances. Some states offer special allowances for targeted life expenses. For example, Pennsylvania offers a special allowance for college textbooks for qualifying applicants.

•Section 8 Housing. These housing vouchers can help you get a roof over your head.

•Food pantries. Food pantries do not typically ask for proof of income, but their hours do tend to be limited. It’s not like a store where you can just walk in. Some food pantries will even require that you set up an appointment or place your order before coming to pick it up.

•Soup kitchens. These are open to the public.

•Clothes closets. Some closets will help you get the basics, while others will help you put together a professional wardrobe so you can land that job.

•Local nonprofits. Look for nonprofits in your own community. They may offer job placement assistance, financial assistance, discounts on used vehicles, or even advocacy when you go to apply for benefits with your state’s department of public welfare. If you have gaps, these nonprofits are often able to connect you with ways to fill them. Some examples that are generally available nationwide are the United Way, YWCA, and sometimes even Goodwill Industries.

Don’t Forget to Factor in Hard Work

Being on welfare programs is no picnic. There are endless applications to fill out, income limits that seem to vary with every program, and the constant, though unwarranted, shame our society places on the “takers,” as some crude and ignorant politicians describe benefit recipients.

These programs are exhausting, and they remind Rhea of another one of those prejudices that really gets under her skin.

“The one I really hate is when people complain about being tax payers and funding government programs for low-income families,” she says. “Even when I was living below the poverty line, I still legally worked and paid taxes myself, so I didn’t really get that argument. Plus, I know there are some people who are unable to work due to a disability or another hardship, so every situation is different. Low-income households shouldn’t be generalized or judged.”

But since reliance on welfare isn’t a fun place to be, it’s important to endure some growing pains and put in some serious hard work if you are able to do so. (Though as Rhea so rightly points out, not everyone can.)

To be able to pull off this great feat, you’re going to have to dig deep to find your ultimate motivation. For Rhea, that drive came from two places. First, she was angry that she was stuck in this cycle, and she used that anger to fuel her forward motion. In contrast to her anger, she also fiercely loves her son. She wanted a better life for him, and that vision kept her pushing towards a better tomorrow even when things got incredibly difficult.

Jackie Cummings Koski is a sales executive at a global data company in Dayton, Ohio. She was raised by a single father who worked in a factory. He never applied for assistance programs, despite living well below the poverty level while raising six children.

“We would have done better if we were on welfare,” Koski says. “For my dad, it was a sense of pride for some reason.”

Koski worked her way through college, eventually establishing a good career for herself. Putting herself through school was a harrowing process, but she was driven by much the same motivation as Rhea: a better future for her own someday family.

Avoiding Debt

Koski attributes a large portion of her success to not taking on debt. She has never held credit card debt. She didn’t take out any loans in school until her senior year, and even then the amount was minimal—just enough to help her get by.

“Looking back, the habit of not taking on debt or using a credit card to live on? It put me ahead while a lot of my colleagues and friends were paying off student loan debt. My money was going to investing and savings in my 401k.”

Koski didn’t use the Free Application for Financial Student Aid (FAFSA) to get grant money for college, but she does wish more people knew about it so they, too, could avoid student loans. Or even just be encouraged to get the education they need in the first place.

“I work with a lot of women of color in low-income communities,” Koski relates. “They don’t have a lot of money to work with. I share with them that going back to school doesn’t cost a penny financially—it just takes a little bit of time. There are some people that have just kind of given up on the idea of college, but there’s always a way.”

To learn more about going to school for free when you’re low-income, be sure to keep reading as we’ll cover it in Chapter 4.

“Growing up, we knew when grocery day was because the fridge was empty with nothing in it,” recounts Koski. “When you grow up like that, you can do two things. You can repeat what you know or do the opposite. In my head I wanted to do the opposite. It’s fresh in your mind how it was—you never want to go back there and see it again. I wanted to change things for future generations.”

Motivation, education, and hard work were all integral for all of the women I talked to, but Koski pointed out another factor that is fortunately becoming easier to control: your environment.

“We are products of our environment,” she says. “When your household, community, city—everyone’s in poverty, you never learn or do anything different. You have to somehow create a different environment for yourself.”

While you might not be able to immediately change your physical environment, Koski notes that you do have a lot of control over your digital environment. You can educate yourself on financial matters more easily than at any time in the past, and you can find communities of like-minded people who have either already found their way out or who have concrete plans to escape the cycle of poverty.

If connecting via the written word isn’t your thing, remember that there are lots of ways to consume content. Believe it or not, you can find YouTube channels, podcasts, and other mediums full of personal finance content—and it’s not all dry and boring. In fact, a lot of it is actually pretty exciting once you’ve connected with a community from which you can learn.

Don’t Let Hope Die

Poverty is ridiculously difficult to escape. Everything is working against you. Banks charge more fees to clients who don’t hold large enough minimum balances—if they’ll give you a bank account at all. It’s harder to keep your credit score up to qualify for advantageous rather than predatory financial products when there’s no margin for error in your budget. Small inconveniences become major emergencies very quickly when you don’t have as many resources at your disposal, and to top it all off, these financial struggles come with immense levels of stress, which further affect your ability to deal.

But there is hope. There are ways out. You can get a formal education if you don’t already have one. You can educate yourself on financial topics through the power of the internet. If you focus your motivation on your efforts, the hard times will be easier to bear. And if you humble yourself, there are programs out there that will help you with food, heat, childcare, and more as you work to build yourself a better life.

There is no guarantee that your efforts will be rewarded. But if you don’t make the decision to try, there’s zero chance you’re going to reach your dreams and goals. Fan the embers of hope, as you may be able to nurture them into a blazing fire for all those around you to see. After they’ve seen it, you can pass on the knowledge you’ve acquired and help them start their own fires, too.