The Human Services Inbetween

It's probably no surprise that a chronically ill, poor graduate assistant like me has needed government assistance during my time in grad school. Graduate assistants are one of the most underpaid workers. Add the fact that I'm in the humanities and the pay disparity increases. This is especially ironic considering graduate students in the English programs often teach courses required for all undergraduate students in various programs to take, meaning we are one of the first instructors to impact the college student experience that greatly affects whether students will drop out or continue attending our university.

I digress. I wanted to write about the precarious graduate assistant position which is especially pertinent this summer. This all started in the fall, when I found out I needed to do a second internship in my field in order to progress to the comprehensive exam stage in my program. I spent almost 6 weeks preparing different resumes and cover letters, applying for jobs and internships, and interviewing over 20 times. I was offered and accepted the job of my 21st interview, where I'd be working as a fairly paid quality assurance technical writer for about 3.5 months. Perfection. I signed up for my last in-person class and my 3 internship credits for the spring.

During one of the usual income checks required by my state's health and human services, it was decided I now made too much to continue my SNAP food stamps and medicaid expansion benefits. I went on the healthcare marketplace to find a plan that would hopefully help cover my psychiatric care, my team for my GI problems, and my various medications (all generic in order to save money, of course). The cheapest I found was a couple hundred dollars a month with about a $10,000 deductible for the year. Ouch. After a short time on the plan, I also realized they didn't fully cover my psychiatric care, medications, or the physical therapy I just started for my GI problems. What was I paying for each month if I still had to pay hundreds of dollars for my care and had to give up certain treatments?

As I entered the end of the semester and went about 1 month with little to no work hours or pay, my bank account dwindled. I have maybe $1000 left in the bank to cover gas (~$80), health insurance (~$200), rent (~$700), wi-fi (~$60), electric (~$40), water (unknown for now), medication ($85), and psychiatric care (~$288). It just isn't possible. Some basic stats show my monthly need for $1453 and that doesn't even include food, expenses for my emotional support animals, and any health emergencies. My last paycheck was ~$200, and I don't get paid for another 2 weeks. Needless to say, I'm stuck in a precarious situation, and I strongly believe it is because of the cut off of medicaid and SNAP benefits and my position as an underpaid graduate worker.

What does one do? I desperately reapply for SNAP and medicaid expansion. I ask my hospital for financial aid in covering hospital expenses. I search for food banks in the area. I humbly let my partner pay for meals and groceries. I wonder what my life may be like if I have to wean myself off meds I've been told I should be taking daily for the rest of my unhealthy life. It's not enough.

On the health and human services website, it says the total annual income limit to receive food stamps for a single-person household such as mine is $19,578. The irony as I look at this statement is what happens when someone barely goes over the income limit. If I make $20,000 a year, but end up having to spend that extra ~$400 above the income limit on what I've been doing recently, covering my health insurance premium, medical care, medications, and groceries, then I might as well not work for that extra funding. I'd be losing money; working more would make me poorer. And it has! I don't understand why there hasn't been some sort of social net to help catch those of us who fall just a bit past the limit. We're screwed. I'm screwed.

source: https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/1391

As I spend all my spare time trying to figure out how to survive, a couple thoughts come to mind. First, it's ridiculous that I'm doing the amount of work I am doing for basically nothing. This June, I'm editing a textbook, working a part-time internship, preparing teaching documents for an upcoming class I'm teaching, and working on research to get published. My pay for the last 2 weeks was ~$200. Ridiculous. America is not set up to fully support graduate assistants, and it's no wonder why it is so hard for first-generation POC graduate students to close the gap between themselves and upper-class white males with doctorate degrees. Doing the work for free in hopes of it helping your CV or job prospects in the future feels like a red flag.

Second, the system's inflexibility hurts people in the precarious inbetween, the working their assess off to survive and the benefits they lose for going just over the limit. I'd argue that it is more precarious to be in the inbetween than the poor side that will surely get the benefits they need.

If nothing else, I hope you take from this blog a sympathy for graduate student workers who are often stuck in the inbetween. There needs to be ways to help them. This might include programs offering health insurance options for their graduate assistants, providing more graduate student events with free food or health options, and paying them fair wages based on the extensive work they do for their programs and universities.

#IDisappointMyDad #IDMD #post14 #thehumanservicesinbetween #medicaid #medicaidexpansion #poverty #humanservices