The Lower Middle Class Crunch: Too Rich To Qualify For Government Assistance

As part of our Bearing Witness 2.0 project, HuffPost is rounding up stories of former middle-class families who are struggling to stay afloat in the recession. If you have a story to tell, email it to [e-mail].

Maria Angulo and her husband Jésus are caught somewhere between the "haves" and the "have nots." Their combined household income of $45,000 a year places them just above the low-income status they would need to qualify for most government assistance programs -- but they can't afford daycare for their two young children, health insurance, or autism testing and treatment for their struggling 4-year-old son.

Angulo, 29, vented her frustrations in a June 24 letter to the Yuma Sun:

"I am writing this letter because I'd rather vent than cry.

I cannot get medical help for my child and I am frustrated and powerless. My husband and I work and pay taxes, we are U.S. citizens and we are good people.

My son is special; he moves differently, he talks differently, he expresses himself differently.... a mother knows when something is wrong and I just know and feel it.

The only problem is we don't have medical insurance so we can't get a diagnosis and we can't get treatment. I do not qualify for low-income help and my employer offers insurance that almost equals the amount of a paycheck.

I've called to get quotes on how much it would cost if I paid out of pocket and it is around $1,000. I am not low income but I simply cannot afford that.... Where does that leave a regular hard-working middle- class family? Where does that leave my son?"

The Angulos live in San Luis, Arizona, about a mile from the Mexican border. Maria is a bookstore manager for the local school district, and Jésus works at the customs department, but neither of them receives affordable healthcare through work. Maria says she would have to pay $500 a month out of pocket for a family health insurance plan, while many of her low-income friends receive health care for free.

"It's backwards," she said. "Some of my family members and friends in Mexico, they have a passport to come and go. They come over here and qualify for free health insurance, then they get treatment, don't pay the bill, and go back. We pay taxes and work here, but we don't have any coverage at all. If anyone in my family is sick, we have to go to Mexico to get treatment because we can't afford it here. It's scary, because it's not the same quality healthcare there. If my kids needed a major surgery or something, I don't know what I would do."

Childcare is also a huge problem for the Angulos. According to the Arizona Department of Economic Security, a family must make a combined income of $36,000 or less to qualify for childcare assistance. But tuition for local preschools costs up to $120 per child per week, which the Angulos can't afford. So they pay a babysitter from Mexico to come over take care of their kids, ages 3 and 4, during the workweek.

"The cutoff for childcare assistance is outrageously low," Angulo said. "Some people I know go through migrant programs, where if the parents work in the field they get free childcare. But my kids can't get into those schools because I don't work in a field. We have to find a cheap babysitter in Mexico who can watch them. And it's definitely not the same -- her only job is to keep them alive. She doesn't teach my kids anything like they would learn in a school."

The lack of financial assistance for lower-middle-class families in Arizona is symptomatic of a major fiscal crisis in state government, according to a recent study by the New America Foundation. As the ranks of the unemployed have swelled over the past few years, so has state spending on programs such as Medicaid and unemployment assistance. State governors are now having to make major budget cuts that hit lower-middle-class families the hardest: restricting eligibility for health insurance, cutting aid to K-12 schools and reducing assistance to public colleges and universities.

As eligibility cutoffs for assistance programs are pushed lower and lower, struggling families like the Angulos are being squeezed out.

"I want to tell the government, 'Please don't forget the middle class!' There are people who do pay their taxes, who are U.S. citizens, who need help," Angula said. "We are not 100% under the poverty line. But trust me: if we had the money for childcare and healthcare, we wouldn't be asking for it."

Comments

[oldngrumpy]

03:18 AM on 08/10/2010

I would be on top of the world if our household income were $45,000. After my wife passed, my daughter and her husband moved into an attached apartment I built on the house to help me with daily chores and to supliment my income. She pays $500 for a small, one bedroom apartment. My Social Security, which I had to take early after my unemployment ended, is only $1150 pr month. My house payment is $600 and the other bills add up to just short of what I bring in.

I have no insurance and have accumulated over $120,000 in medical bills after my wife died of cancer, which we fought for two long years at the cost of our savings. I have consistently made "too much" to qualify for any medical coverage, even when drawing only unemployment before my daughter moved in. The states set the qualification levels for many federal programs and the "red" states make the programs all but useless. Medicaid is a joke unless you make no money whatsoever, in which case they lavish every benefit on you. Working people are evidently the new pharias.

[ProudUSfamilyMan]

06:45 AM on 07/09/2010

Another example of how our government would rather take care of illegals than citizens. Why are the tax dollars of this family being used to pay for social programs for people who don't and won't pay taxes of their own? Why do politicians spend so much of our money catering to people who don't even have the right to vote?

[avon96734]

02:31 PM on 07/14/2010

Mind-boggling, indeed. It's sickening to think how much better the lives of good citizens like this family could be, yet our money goes to pay for illegals. To think of the drain on our already strapped education system. As for the health care, someone has to pay the bill, and it ends up being the rest of us in the form of higher costs.

She said it herself:
"Some of my family members and friends in Mexico, they have a passport to come and go. They come over here and qualify for free health insurance, then they get treatment, don't pay the bill, and go back. We pay taxes and work here, but we don't have any coverage at all.

[katwright]

03:20 PM on 07/08/2010

In New York you can go to any state hospital and sign up for a medical card. You pay $15 for each visit when you see a doctor and $2! for prescription. You also dont need to wait hours before you go in. When they asked me how much I make I said only my husband work. But I didnt have to prove it, in any event I would get coverage because for 3 ppl household 1 person working is not enough. The card was ready in a couple of minutes.
I think it is great and anybody lives in New York, please dont complain, we have it good!

[avon96734]

02:33 PM on 07/14/2010

YOU have it good, because someone else ends up paying for you.

[katwright]

12:20 PM on 07/15/2010

In most countries, that is how much health care cost and those countries are not more or less bankrupt as we are and people dont argue over this.
Also the original bill for the doctor to take a look at my ear for 2 seconds and say you have ear infection (which I had) cost almost $400!!! Really???$15 is more realistic.

[boston997]

02:29 PM on 07/08/2010

Arrest her !!!
She hired an illegal alien to babysit her children. She is the reason they come here, to take away the jobs of high school kids.

[condor101]

01:45 AM on 07/08/2010

The government is against people like this couple. One of them should reduce their work to part time and make it up with a cash job. With a lower household income, they can all qualify for Medicaid insurance, which includes emergency care, doctor visits, Vision care, and Dental care.This type of coverage for a family of four is easily worth $1500 or more per month. She should apply for Medicaid and get the benefit from the government; That's why they paid medicare/medicaid taxes for so many years. I hope they decrease their household income just a little and get the Medicaid benefits. Also, they can probably get food stamp benefits too, which is worth about $400 a month. That's $4800 in free food and beverages for the family!

[redstateblues69]

04:02 PM on 07/07/2010

This is reversed.
I asked myself the same question when a welfare mother moved in next door with an assorted litter. Although we had insurance at the time, deductibles and lack of coverage mandated I birth my babies at home and avoid the ER at all costs. Meantime, I watched in disbelief as welfare mom brought her kids to the ER over minor injuries. Plus, she and I were pregnant at the same time and she was awarded a hospital birth while my home births caused damage that later cost us expensive surgery. To add insult to injury, the 15 year old high school drop out gets pregnant. Twenty years later I've raised 3 college graduates who are contributing members of society. After burning her house down next door, welfare mom moved to another state where Habitat for Humanity build her a new home. We're still living in a home without insulation, heating or even kitchen cabinets. We've got insurance (individual) but are scared to death an expensive illness could take away our middle class existence with bankruptcy, debt and death. Lesson: It pays to be a ne're-do-well

[redstateblues69]

04:01 PM on 07/07/2010

A prime example of the perverse ramifications that our health care system encourages one to be poor. The illegals cross the border and get free health care but those that play by the rules, work hard and are sitting members of the middle class are denied. Medicaid rewards women who bear their children out of wedlock with health care.Their children repeat the cycle of poverty with no desire to attain middle class status that throws you at the mercy of private insurers.

This begs the question, why are we rewarding a subculture of dependents? Perhaps if every American citizen were entitled to health care more would join the ranks of the middle class. This woman would have been better off had she not married because poor single women bearing children out of wedlock is rewarded..

[Arniny]

11:56 AM on 07/07/2010

My 4 yr old son has autism. We pay for the best insurance that my husband's employer offers which is over 500 dollars a month. Here is the catch ~ they have an autism exclusion and cover nothing for my son.

The state we live in has a waiver program which provides services, but they only help 100 children a year. My son will age out before receiving services. We have spent over 30,000 dollars in less than 10 months trying to help our son and now can no longer afford the services he needs.

Our combined income is 95K a year but living in a major city that doesn't go far. We have met many middle class parents who have gone bankrupt from the discrimination and refusal of companies and the schools to provides services these children are entitled to. If my son had been born with downs syndrome he would have gotten better care and services.

To refuse a child Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Speech Therapy because he has autism? My son has made progress with the therapy we paid out of pocket for. We have toured numerous schools that we can't afford, but see poorer children there on scholarships. The poor and the rich children will make it ~ the middle class are left on their own.

[nuggett]

10:58 PM on 07/06/2010

there was a time in my 20s when I made only 26k a year, and paid over $300 monthly for health insurance primarily because i was scared to be without it..... i had to sacrifice many things that my friends chose not to. I think Mrs Angulo needs to look at making some sacrifices..... and without doubt, dont have anymore children until she can afford it

[hey0there]

08:40 PM on 07/04/2010

sorry if you voted for obama this is the great secret that he was hiding: the systematic destruction of the middle class in our society.

[oldngrumpy]

02:57 AM on 08/10/2010

Yep, everything was rosy until Jan '09 when Obama changed all the rules and lowered all the eligibility levels. This isn't the place for your snark and posting for dollars. Go to another thread and allow the people here to communicate without your distractions.

[AgathaX]

10:33 AM on 07/04/2010

So when she and her husband decided to have children, how did they think they would pay for health care? Did they have insurance at the time and have fallen on hard times? I have some sympathy for that. My sense, however, is that the majority of persons in this situation did not consider becoming financially stable and capable of purchasing health care coverage before choosing to have children.

At work I sometimes have to gain info about a family's financial status. It's not that unusual for a family to own a $900 flat screen TV, but not have health insurance. Often while working in or on the periphery of the health care industry. Such choices are incomprehensible to those of us with very good health insurance, but neither flat screen TV nor cable.

Did people 100 years ago consider whether they had health care before they had children? Of course not. But then we don't want 19th century health care. We want 21st century American medical care, even as we make 19th century family planning choices.

[LizFree]

03:21 PM on 07/06/2010

That boat has sailed. So the question is what do we do with the MILLIONS who are in her situation. Quite frankly people have always and will continue to have kids even if they aren't financially stable. Right or wrong, many people will never be financially secure but they want to be parents ... that's natural. The majority of time these same people, had they had access to birth control, wouldn't have had kids at all. Unplanned pregnancies by poor and middle class ppl needs to be addressed as part of the "21st century medical care" so that people have options.

[LadyJaneRude]

10:19 PM on 08/06/2010

Well I, for one, am married to a man who held the same job for 20 years at a local newspaper. We, myself, husband and kids, were covered under his insurance. He was laid off with hundreds of other workers at the paper in 2008. I have had the same job for 15 years and my employer does not offer insurance. We have not been able to obtain insurance through the "state" program because we make "too much money". Yet if we went the COBRA route, my monthly earnings would be paying for our medical. Nobody EXPECTS to lose their job for soemthing that is not under their control. So to answer your question, no, I didn't think before i had kids that i should come up with a plan because my husband was going to unexpectedly lose his job 10 years later, be unable to pay my bills on time, and lose my savings just to make mortgage payments. You really should think before you post something like this. Do you have children? Did you go to college? Do you have a nice cushy job that you're certain you'll never lose? Situations like this are not something you PLAN! Actually the persons who didn't consider becoming financially stable and capable of purchasing health care before having children ARE the people SUCKING off the system. Which leave the unfortunate, productive citizens who've fallen on hard times UNABLE to get a little bit of help to keep them moving forward.

[few77]

08:31 AM on 07/03/2010

"It's backwards," she said. "Some of my family members and friends in Mexico, they have a passport to come and go. They come over here and qualify for free health insurance, then they get treatment, don't pay the bill, and go back.

I didn't know foreigners had the right to get health care for free, Is that legal?
Aside from that, this story is becoming all to familiar. That is not good.
I feel for this woman, it's a shame what is happening all around us, and with no end in sight.
We're gonna see and hear of more and more of this very soon.
Here comes the hammer.

[redstateblues69]

04:10 PM on 07/07/2010

That line was contradictory about getting free health care but skipping out on the bill. In AZ, illegals are not supposed to qualify or receive Medicaid but they are entitled to free ER visits of which they skip out on paying. To become Medicaid entitled, they buy ss#s, committing id theft. Illegals can also go to county health clinics where they refuse to pay the $20 co-pay but still get treated.

[few77]

06:40 PM on 07/07/2010

Thanks for the info...

[colamonkey]

03:33 AM on 07/02/2010

We don't need access to health insurance. We need access to health care.

Medical insurance companies are like credit card companies....completely fvkin useless.

The only thing people should arguably need medical insurance for is calamity.

The people who are scared about the gubmint running health care don't seem to be bothered at all that insurance companies run the health care. You know, the people who deny claims to make quota. People suffer and get refused treatment from hospitals because 'insurance won't cover it'. People die because of this.

The entire system is majorly f-ed up.

[Blarg]

09:12 PM on 07/02/2010

100% right.

[few77]

08:32 AM on 07/03/2010

True!

[RachelMc]

01:48 AM on 07/02/2010

"It's backwards," she said. "Some of my family members and friends in Mexico, they have a passport to come and go. They come over here and qualify for free health insurance, then they get treatment, don't pay the bill, and go back. We pay taxes and work here, but we don't have any coverage at all.

any thoughts about that?

[few77]

08:41 AM on 07/03/2010

I'm too angry to speak. I mean, I'm speechless are we living in the dark ages? The older I get the more the veil is lifted from my eyes, and the more I see, the angrier I get. I really want to change things but I don't know what I can do all by myself.

[nuggett]

10:51 PM on 07/06/2010

immigration reform?

[hypnotoad72]

01:26 PM on 07/01/2010

Yet large, well-to-do corporations continue to get millions and more in taxpayer-funded subsidy and even bailouts when they claim they might fail because they're "too big" to do so.

The more wages get frozen or devalued means the more the gulf will increase, the greater chance the economy collapses, and the more often the wealthy will have to whine and get more taxpayer money - eventually there will be nothing left to give.

Trickle-down is a failure. Some might have fathomed the reality 30 years ago, but anybody who isn't asleep can quickly determine it's not a successful system.

[Blarg]

09:12 PM on 07/02/2010

It doesn't even make sense on its face.

"Get more money to the poor by adding a middleman, the already rich, to strain it through."