Kirsten Anderberg: Capitalist Termites in the Walls of Social Services

Capitalist Termites in the Walls of Social Services
By Kirsten Anderberg (http://www.kirstenanderberg.com)

People tend to think of social services, such as welfare grants to single parents and Section 8 rental assistance, as purely humanitarian aid. But the industries of welfare and housing assistance are laced with capitalist profit seekers and even documented corruption, such as the mess that Clarence Thomas had a hand in at HUD before becoming Supreme Court Justice. And I would argue that it is *because* business and industry have found a way to turn social services to their own advantage, that the skeletons of these social services programs that exist today survive at all. It is clear to me that the job training offered by social services, such as WorkFirst, are meant to benefit business, not the welfare client. Not only does the business community dictate what “careers” welfare can train workers in based on their funding of these “job training partnerships,” but they actively lobby against social services programs training competition in their own fields! The business community needs low paid service workers. And that is what they will fund training for. They do not need scientists, attorneys, or even business owners. They need nurses aides, they need childcare workers, they need cashiers and office support staff. But they do not need competition from well educated poor folks. Additionally, Section 8 payments go straight into the hands of corporate real estate on the whole, and clients on Section 8 are not allowed to use their monthly rental payments towards mortgage or rent to own land or housing to purposely keep them from property ownership, securing that privilege to those who already own land, so they will not raise a fit about Section 8 programs. Section 8 is confined to the government handing real estate investors large sums of money to temporarily house poor people.

It is interesting how the government and private industry put a spin on social services as if they are huge community burdens, and industry and government act as though the business communities are making sacrifices for those social services programs. Businesses tout these investments in social services as charity they “give back” to the community. But let’s look at what is *really* going on here. They are literally auctioning off women to the lowest bidder down at WorkFirst stations nationwide. WorkFirst regulations say that single parents receiving food stamps and/or welfare grants, must attend WorkFirst to obtain a job and get off welfare. No one *dares* address the reality that there is a missing parent and that welfare actually subsidizes the missing parent’s portion of childcare, not the parent who is present. Most often the present parent in welfare scenarios are women, and the men, whose childcare portions are subsidized by the state are *not* sent to WorkFirst. He can sit at home, with no childcare duties, and not pay childcare, while the single mom not only must pay for childcare to attend the mandatory WorkFirst to get her food stamps and welfare grant which is lower in amount than rent in nearly all cases, but she must also pay minimum wage to someone to provide childcare while she works the minimum wage job welfare requires her to take through WorkFirst. With this system, the woman pays repeatedly for her “sins,” the man never. And the woman takes all the stigma, the man, none. This is a form of institutionalized sexism. The disproportionate numbers of single parents that are women with children at food banks and welfare offices is a form of institutionalized gender and class oppression.

The way WorkFirst works is predominantly women fill up WorkFirst “classes” all through the day. You are scheduled by the first letter of your last name often. Women are sent to WorkFirst mandatorily from the welfare office. So daily, you are to buy childcare, then go to WorkFirst where businesses come in, do a little presentation, and then hand out applications to all the women in poverty. The women fill the applications out, and if any of the women are offered a job, and do not take it, they will be removed from food stamps and welfare benefits. Often the women do not understand they have the option to not fill out these applications, and just “say no.” The industries that come into WorkFirst need service workers for low wages to exploit for maximum capitalist profit. It is almost like WorkFirst is whoring out low income moms to the lowest bidder, seriously.

And when WorkFirst talks about education, they NEVER talk beyond voc tech schools EVER! Professions are NOT offered to poor people in WorkFirst. Instead A.A. and A.S. degrees, which are primarily vocational degrees to provide a low paid service for industry, are what poor people are encouraged to pursue in their schooling. They are told they cannot afford a university education like the privileged people get, they must go into job training for a low paid low status and quickly trainable career, not professional schooling for high status and high paid careers such as doctor, lawyer, engineer, dentist, etc. The WorkFirst and voc tech schools target low income students, funneling them into voc tech even from high school, while middle class (and up) kids are funneled into universities, straight from high school even. I have the test scores showing my son scored in the 99% on standardized tests in high school, and I, also, excelled at school work in high school, yet neither of us were given even a minute of counseling toward attending a university from our high schools, due to our social caste. Even when I got to a community college, again proving I could excel at schooling, the counselors would not take my questions about how to get to a university seriously and I had to FIGHT for that information and I mean it. I would argue that poor women cannot afford voc tech school as the job training offered there is for low paid and low status jobs, which is what keeps people in poverty. So, poor people, *more than the middle class* need to pursue university and grad school degrees, not vice versa. Let the middle class fill up those voc tech schools. The poor cannot afford them. This is a ploy by the upper classes to remain class insulated while they use the universities our government buys for them, and keep the poor down in training for servitude for those who are allowed professional training.

When you ask why WorkFirst and social services job training programs will not pay for higher education and will only pay for “career training” in subservient jobs, the answer clearly is “because the business community pays for the social services job training programs and they need workers, not competition.” When welfare programs did try to train women in higher paying jobs than previously offered, such as electrician and plumber, as compared to childcare worker, nurses aide or secretary, the predominantly male electrician and plumbers unions lobbied loudly against their tax dollars training competition in their own fields and those programs were cut quickly. I suggested decades ago that Santa Cruz, Ca. give first priority for all city jobs to qualified welfare moms if they were going to complain about people being on welfare. And what I found out is: there are not enough jobs to go around. Everyone cannot be employed, and thus, even though people complain about poor people on welfare, they are not willing to give up their good jobs to get these people off of welfare into their positions! Basically, welfare can only train for jobs no one will protest training poor people to do! Think about that.

Another scam is Section 8. Touted purely as a philanthropic government and business collaborative charity for the poor, reality reveals again, how business benefits and that is why it is shutting up about those programs. If Section 8 programs truly were just about giving housing assistance to the poor, then the property owning class would not tolerate it. The dark side of Section 8 is it PURPOSELY locks the poor out of home ownership and PURPOSELY redirects all of its money straight into the hands of land owners and corporate real estate. With the rents that people pay, it is clear most renters could buy *some* house, if the opportunities were presented. But there are catches. If Section 8 allowed its clients to use their rents towards home ownership, then it would be working towards helping the housing crisis. But it is not by accident that Section 8 purposely WILL NOT allow the rental payments to be used towards ownership payments towards the rental unit. That is to squelch the complaints of the real estate business and property owners. This way, any property owner can get Section 8 money to pay their mortgage, to subsidize their land, via a poor person. So, no complaints there. No threat there. The threat would be if the people on Section 8 could use those monthly rental amounts towards BUYING property, and THEN the privileged class would break out in screams heard nationwide.

So my belief is that WorkFirst is really a place for business to mine for cheap female labor, and labor who MUST accept the job to not lose the only safety nets she has via social services in the way of medical, etc. I believe that WorkFirst is essentially auctioning women off to the lowest business bidder at social service agencies. And I believe that it is no coincidence that poor women are being funneled into voc tech schools, and low paid, low status service training via job training services at welfare offices across America. And additionally, I charge that Section 8 is really a government to property owner scam, with little regard for the poor renter at all. Section 8 recipients are merely a go between that property owners and the real estate industry use to get government money. But it is no coincidence that home ownership is not part of the goals of Section 8 programs nationwide. That is on purpose, so that real estate owners will not throw a fit. We need to look at who really benefits from these programs. I propose we let the middle class do the voc tech service training as they do not need the money as much, and we can then send the poor to professional schools and universities to become the doctors, lawyers, architects and engineers for their communities. I propose Section 8 PROMOTE home ownership programs for the poor, using the rents as down payments and mortgages. I propose we quit blaming the poor for their poverty, when it appears quite clear that the privileged class will only support job training in jobs they, themselves, do not want. And will only support housing assistance if the money stays in the hands of the property owners. Look at these programs before you judge who the real benefactors are, as people on the inside of these systematic institutions of oppression are very clear about who they are here to serve.