In September of 2009 I had run out of hours in my Limited Term Employment job. \u00a0Finding myself unemployed I was left with my only subsidization being a choice of either a monthly check from Social Security or Unemployment Insurance. \u00a0Social Security would pay around $800 a month, while Unemployment would pay roughly $1200.<\/p>\n
However, as fate would have it, the choice came with a quandary. \u00a0If I took the Unemployment payment, I would have to give up the Social Security payment. \u00a0While this didn’t sound so bad, giving up the Social Security check would\u00a0render me ineligible for the Medicaid based\u00a0home healthcare I need on a daily basis. \u00a0Thus, I was forced to take the lesser payment in order to keep home healthcare services.<\/p>\n
Now $800 in Social Security checks may not sound bad, but this did not even cover my rent, and I live in a subsidized accessible apartment. \u00a0On top of this I still had roughly $100 in utility payments per month, $100 for groceries, and other standard expenses including the cell phone bill (which I need for emergency situations and when caregivers call in). \u00a0I had no idea how I was going to make ends meet month to month. \u00a0Fear set in that I wouldn’t be able to remain in my apartment.<\/p>\n
While coping with financial burdens, I frantically searched for a new job. \u00a0Seeing as\u00a0my disability doesn’t exactly lend to grabbing a retail or food service job on the side, I was applying to every office and IT job I could get my hands on. \u00a0I contacted most every temp and staffing agency in the greater Madison area trying to find any paying job that would take me. \u00a0Fortunately, after a month of applications and interviews I landed the job with Raven as a video game tester. \u00a0The job was great, and it was quite a relief having a job once again, but the financial strain of that month certainly made an impact. \u00a0I had never considered that my Social Security payments would leave me so shorted that I might have to break my rent agreement and move out. \u00a0I even considered bringing in a roommate, but with all of the space required for my chair, my patient lift, and with caregivers constantly coming in and out, how many roommates would easily cope?<\/p>\n
In hindsight, I could have applied for Food Stamps and several other programs to help offset the financial burdens, but it came as quite the shock that in spite of my working for a year and a half, and having unemployment available I couldn’t even make ends meet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In September of 2009 I had run out of hours in my Limited Term Employment job. \u00a0Finding myself unemployed I was left with my only subsidization being a choice of either a monthly check from Social Security or Unemployment Insurance. \u00a0Social Security would pay around $800 a month, while Unemployment would pay roughly $1200. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-discussions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}