Okay, here is my collection of anecdotes for Illinois!
We have different government programs directed at different individuals. SNAP is meant to give food assistance with a sort of debit card. People apply and their income, housing costs, number of people, citizenship, etc. are looked at to determine eligibility and care. For one person could earn up to $1,180 income and receive $16 to $200 in benefits a month. The elderly and disabled are given special status, and usually have more lenient metrics. In this case they could earn up to $1,815. After applying it usually takes upwards of thirty days. With the economy wait times have getting longer and longer because workers have more and more on their plates.
Linky.
For medical we have All Kids for children (WIC helps with medical and food, IIRC) and Medicaid for which you need to be disabled, elderly, have kids, or be pregnant. Of course, there is also means testing on top of that. You can apply for medical and food using the same form, because they pretty much use the same data. You will probably need to pay premiums. There are different levels depending on your wealth and there is a spend down program. Don't ask me how spend down works, all I know is that it involves tons of medical receipts.
A big problem here is that dentists don't take Medicaid. There is this one guy everybody got referred to because he was the only one in the area that did.
Then there is TANF, a cash program, which is more strict program. This is the one that heavily enforces a work requirement, or at least work searching or training. A lot of people don't realise this and accidentally apply when they really just wanted SNAP. AABD is the cash program for the disabled and elderly.
We also do a lot of nursing home cases. But those are also a bit of a mystery to me
.
As for the homeless, we only have them for the winter season and for domestic abuse victims. The main advice is to ask churches, who do often help. There is also a big voucher program, I think Section 8, that helps people get discounted rent rates. But a lot of people don't end up on the streets because they have family
that is guilt tripped. Oftentimes there is an agreement that they have a rent, it is just being deferred until they get on their feet.
Now, there are somewhat distinct groups, as one can gather from the earlier standards. The "poor person with a flat screen TV" is a bit misleading because people slip and slide up and down the income scale all the time. On that note, we do wealth testing in some cases but not others. We ignore one home and one car, and up to $2,000 in the bank, IIRC. On the other hand for extreme cases, like homeless or people with less income than their rent, we expedite their cases.
In October this totalled to 2,974,660 people being helped in one or more of these programs, out of our total of around 12,800,000 people (Detailed breakdown by program
here). This is 23.2% of the total population. Since our poverty rate is 14.1% (
Linky), I think the documentary paints an unfair picture. Yes, this is just my State, but most of these are federal programs.
I think the biggest problem is knowledge and access. People really want a helping hand to guide them through the process, but workers simply don't have that kind of time. A lot of people simply don't know all the programs that are out there. We take special care of veterans, refugees, pregnant women, the elderly, the disabled, and plenty more in addition to the plain old poor.
Of course, I worked in a suburban/rural area. The city has its own problems and its own programs. But that's a completely new wall o' text.
Now for my racial anecdotes...
