The Daily Beast ^ | May 22, 2015 | Monica Potts
If someone’s pay suddenly doubles, she may lose rental assistance, child care subsidies, and more.
In L.A., a worker who currently makes $9 an hour and works 40 hours a week (which is not a given, but that would be a full-time workload) will earn $360 a week, or about $1,440 a month and $18,720 a year, before taxes. If that worker is a mom with two children, she is below the poverty line. She qualifies for a bevy of federal and state programs like food stamps, rental assistance, child care subsidies, health care for her children, and Medicaid because she is lucky enough to live in a state that agreed to expand that program under Obamacare.
To take just one example, this mom could qualify for about $500 in food stamps every month. If her wages go up, her food stamp benefits are reduced by 30 cents for every dollar she makes, until they end completely when her income passes $2,116 a month, which it would more than pass under the new minimum wage. Access to other programs, like child care subsidies, drop off completely as soon as a family earns one dollar too much to qualify.
If the new minimum wage went into effect today, without any changes to any of the safety net programs, this mom might lose all of her benefits except access to medical care for her and her children and the tax credits she gets as a working mom, including those meant for poor workers like the Earned Income Tax Credit.
