There are a lot of reasons why $600 is offensive. One of those reasons is it's rooted in the same BS ideology that undergirds so many bad "solutions" to poverty - that our betters have deigned to give us charity and so, we should be grateful.

If you have ever looked in a food donation bin, you see this. Stuff you would never eat but would give to the Needy because it's better than nothing.

I used to manage the dinner service at a "soup kitchen" in Chicago and you see it every time a volunteer said something like, "So and so complained about the chicken, shouldn't they just be grateful?"

On the same token, reflecting on the experience and hearing, "So many people were just so grateful. It really made me feel good."

Talking about Bootstraps all year then making sure you have a slot to volunteer on Christmas and Thanksgiving with your family.

This mentality and these experiences get brought into Committee hearings and floor debates on critically important social safety net legislation -

1. I'm a good person because of X, Y, Z
2. I know the Poor exist because of X, Y, Z experiences
3. The Poor exist only in these contexts for me to serve them
4. Bc I do not exist in these contexts, they must not *need* to either

5. Mitigating the circumstances that brought them to this context requires only what I have already done/am doing
6. Those things I do are Charity
7. If Charity doesn't work, they are ungrateful and lazy

I get it. It is incredibly difficult to critically evaluate how your life and your existence and your privilege are contributing to the circumstances which keep people down.

And altruism feels good. You want to believe it's pure.
It's not.
That's okay.

We go off the rails when we believe that Charity will solve Poverty.

It won't. It never has.

At best, Charity has temporarily alleviated the worst consequences of Poverty.
At worst, it has obscured and impeded progress toward real solutions. Solutions that would give people the Bootstraps we cling to as justification for not doing more.

$600 is a joke.
Saying "food pantries and churches will solve hunger" is a joke.
Believing that the Poor need to validate your benevolence is a joke.

Give charity, be charitable. But make sure that's only the start. You cannot serve food to the homeless on Christmas and then evict them on New Year's.

And when these elected officials inevitably tell us that $600 is enough, drop that food in the bin and join us on the front lines of the fight for sustainable and equitable solutions.

Happy Holidays.