the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Oct 1, 2012
The Michigan Department of Human Services is implementing a policy to deprive parents of welfare benefits if any child has 10 “unexcused” absences in a school year.
The state even admits this could affect the majority of its more than 160,000 recipients. What the state takes as an “excuse” is entirely up to them.
To the DHS, it matters not if children are scared for their lives because the city cut the bus lines and they have to walk to school through dangerous neighborhoods with many abandoned buildings. It’s not their concern if an older child has to stay home to take care of a sibling who is sick or take them to a doctor.
How is a woman who works and is getting some supplementary welfare assistance supposed to make sure her teenager goes to school? Teenagers who, incidentally, don’t want to go to school because they never received the help they needed in earlier grades.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder calls this outrageous policy a way to “end the cycle of crime.” All it is really doing is creating a much worse situation in the streets, increasing the already enormous desperation, using the truancy of one child as an excuse to make an entire family homeless.
The politicians are making it clear: no matter what they cut, there are more cuts to come. They’re looking for more money to rob from poor and working people to give to the billionaires! Now, they’ve even stooped so low as to take it from the poorest of the poor, welfare recipients who receive only $463 a month per household on average.