This describes me and my family. You see, according to the Obama Administration, we are poor. Allow me to briefly describe what it is like to be "poor" according to our President.
I'm an E6 in the Navy with more than 8 years of service. My wife is a stay at home mother to our two young sons. We live in a decent 3 br. / 2 ba. single family home with a two-car garage and a large yard. In the summer I run the air conditioning. Next spring we will be moving to a 4 br. home. I crunched the numbers and we can easily afford it. I can afford payments on a 2009 Toyota minivan. We have a couple of nice HDTVs, PS3s, computers, cell phones, cable, Netflix, internet and on and on. I have an electric guitar collection worth thousands of dollars as is my wife's jewelry collection. My wife and sons never go without. There's plenty of food in the fridge, clothes in the closet and toys in the bedrooms. Our credit card debt is minimal and I have no problem making the monthly payments. We have thousands in our savings account. There are presents under the Christmas tree. Nice ones!
Yet, my family qualifies for WIC as well as subsidized utility bills. I'm sure there's other "freebies" we'd qualify for if I looked into it. We choose not to receive WIC and I pay my electric bill in full but we qualify nonetheless. In the eyes of the government, this places my family (and many others just like ours) in the demographic of one out of two Americans who are poor or "low income".
I certainly don't feel poor but apparently we are. And to think, all this time I've considered myself fortunate. Guess I was wrong. Go figure...
Maybe I need to get my butt to one of those "Occupy" demonstrations to draw attention to the miserable poverty that I live in.
Kudos to you and your wife for not taking advantage of the benefits you are “entitled” to but don’t believe you need. May you and your family be richly blessed!!
Do you get BAH?