Roz-you made great and realistic points in your post. Especially the fact that working single mothers, myself included, do NOT get hired on full-time with benefits. I've been working the same job for a year and they have kept me right under the amount of hours to get benefits. For awhile it was just two hours shy of benefits, and then when they hired more staff I was told that if I wouldn't commit to forty hours a week, I couldn't get benefits at the three quarter time. Of course, I get paid about fifty dollars too much to be able to be eligible for state benefits (i.e. a form of welfare, I suppose, since I would only pay a small amount to get the Oregon Health Plan). I also am not eligible for food stamps because I get child support for my children. We live on the poverty level, and yet because I'm not living in a shelter, I am not eligible for any kind of federal or state help!

Now, if I were to work forty hours a week I would rarely see my kids! I work a swing shift, therefore I would have the mornings with my small children--but only see my school agers two days a week. I prefer to have faith that God will keep me healthy, provide food and shelter, and work half that amount of time so that I can be a mother to all of my children. I have faith that God will honor my desire to care for my family; He has so far & blessed me abundantly! It is good that God is taking care of me, because the govt. powers that be sure are not! However, it is very humbling to be "stuck" in this position of poverty...moving only laterally and never up; but praise God, not down either.

Thank goodness that some single parents are able to get some help with food stamps and child care subsidy so that they can get by! I believe we should restructure our domestic spending so that the support goes where it ought and not lining the pockets of liberal democrats with HUGE salaries-democrats we relly upon to represent the poor!-oh, don't get me started!

Lazy & that is why I'm poor? No, its because I've made the choice to not abort, to stay home with my children, and not to compete with others' for economic status--as much as I'd like all the glory of career success, the luxuries of financial security like owning a home and not being in debt, etc. I'm choosing to honor the choices I made the best way I know how. I believe that the majority of welfare recipients are doing the same. If not, then we need to EDUCATE EDUCATE EDUCATE! It is very easy to get stuck in poverty and to lose hope; we need to extend that hope, not judgement & belittlement. It is very very very humbling to be poor.