Yeah, I “paid less” out of pocket for my childcare. Because I had to get a government subsidy just to keep working. It was that or not work at all. I couldn’t get any government assistance on my rent, because the waiting list for subsidized housing was 5 years long in my county. I was just above the cutoff for food stamps. We had no health insurance; my kid got her vaccinations at free clinics.
It’s not like you just show up and the government gives you free stuff. The childcare subsidy required me to meet with a social worker every 6 months to show them I still needed the benefits. I had to take an unpaid day off work to do that; my (full time) job didn’t offer PTO.
So I mean, you can bitch about how your taxes supported my “lazy lifestyle”, but would you have preferred I didn’t work at all? Because that would have been easier than my hour commute.
