And single mothers do get a lot of support from our taxes. Many I know purposely don't get married so they can get these breaks.
Yeah, maybe this was the case back in the 80's.
40 years later, in my state, and I would guess many other states, *all* income from anyone living in the house is counted in whether *any* member of that house can get financial aid. So, if a woman is living with her boyfriend, his income is counted regardless of whether or not they are married. If working children (whether 18 or not) are living in the household, their income is also counted. If a "roommate" is living in the house, then to count as a roommate, the roommate must be contributing towards household expenses, and the amount they contributed is counted as income. Now, if you are talking about a case where someone is purposely paying for a different resident from their boyfriend, so they wouldn't have to count their boyfriend's income....the costs of 2 separate residences is going to outweigh any aid they get from the government.
I already wrote it out up further. Snap benefits, paid medical benefits thru Medicaid for them and the kid, section 8 housing, free daycare..
These are all completely different forms of aid, and someone who qualifies for one, often doesn't qualify for any of the others.
Medicaid--insurance is insanely expensive, so this is the one form of aid that working people are most likely to qualify for. Many times people who are on "medicaid", are just on medicaid as a subsidiary to their primary insurance. Depending on the state, the state may pay a portion of the premium for their insurance through their job. Most (maybe even all) states require people who can get insurance through their job to do so, in order to get a Medicaid as a subsidiary. Many states have CHIPS, which while the person is insured through Medicaid, they are paying higher premiums/deductibles based on their income, then a regular person covered through Medicaid would.
Daycare....daycare is also insanely expensive. It makes sense for states to pay for this, as if they didn't, then the individual would have to stay home with their children and have *no* income coming in. Most people qualifying for daycare subsidies, are getting just that, a subsidy to help them pay for daycare, not "free" daycare.
Section 8 housing......far, far harder to qualify for then either Medicaid or Daycare. Even when people qualify for it, finding someplace to live that will take their Section 8 voucher can be harder than actually qualifying for it. Many people who manage to qualify for Section 8 housing, don't actually use it, because nobody is required to accept Section 8, and many/most landlords don't.
Edited to fix typos
SNAP benefits......again, these are pretty hard to qualify for. WIC is far easier to qualify for. WIC benefits are sometimes over the top, but this is more government subsidy to farmers, than to the people collecting on WIC. SNAP is pretty limited, I'd challenge you to feed your family on a SNAP benefit. (I'm grateful I've never had to, seeing what some people live on with SNAP, I don't know how they do it.)
I stand by my statement, I think you are completely wrong about what government aid actually is given to people and how hard it is to qualify and live on that aid.
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