Teen pregnancy article in today's Dallas Morning News [View All]

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/112904dnccoquadfuture.1b26b.html

Hopefully it won't ask you to register. It didn't for me.

It's the story of a young woman with quadruplets and another baby on the way. She was the daughter of a teen mother herself and HER mother was born to a teen mother.

Here are some snippets from the article:

Cash assistance is hard to come by in Texas because of the stringent requirements. Time limits are set on that assistance based on a person's situation. Recipients must have a job to qualify, with some exceptions, such as a single parent having a child younger than 1 year old.

The federal government sets the poverty level for a family the size of Amanda's at $25,210. If she got a 40-hour a week minimum wage job, she would make $10,712 per year, which would make her ineligible for cash assistance.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is not designed for families like Amanda's, said Shawn Fremstad, deputy director of welfare reform for the Center on Budget and Policy, a liberal think tank in Washington.

"The typical family is two kids on TANF. All they need is some temporary support, so they can pay the rent and meet basic needs like food while they look for work," Mr. Fremstad said. "By and large, we've got a system that's set up to deal with the easier cases."

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Here's the LTTE I have written for the Dallas Morning News:

Where are all those "faith-based initiatives" Bush is always touting? Why can't they (whatever "they" are, he's never specific) help young women like Amanda? I predict a flood of letters to the editor chastizing this woman for her choices and suggesting that she "pull herself up by her bootstraps." Those letters normally make me quite sad, since they prove we've lost our way as a charitable nation that doesn't let other Americans hang out in the wind. But I've decided I'd be happier if I just adopt the Bush-voting mindset. So here goes: Who cares about that woman and her five children? They don't affect me! I got my tax cut! Yee-ha!

There. I feel better now.

<end LTTTE>

Should I send it in? By the way, the amount of money she would make working 40 hours a week at a minimum-wage job is just flat-out SHAMEFUL. $ 10,712???? The minimum wage needs to be raised NOW. You cannot live on that at all.