Transcript of my interview with Linda Tirado, author of ‘Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America’
Below is the transcript of what became this interview on Spook Magazine.
Hannah Joyner: I’m interested in the discussions you’ve been engaging in while on your book tour and the commonalities in experience of people reliant on government payments you’ve noticed.
Linda Tirado: What is common is that nobody connects themselves to their neighbours. In America we have 45 Million people living in poverty. Every single one of those millions thinks that they are personally failing — which isn’t possible — but because people largely have a feeling of self-determination they perceive it as their own personal failing. It is sometimes down to luck or systematic oppression or a policy. And I think that goes against what we all want to think of ourselves as autonomous adults. It’s hard to solve, that’s the common thing. It’s really a question of dignity.
HJ: You’re so right. The difference between one job being better than the other usually does come down to dignity. Sometimes you can find a workplace that asks their employees what the company could do to improve even.
LT: You can tell an employer knows science, if they ask you what you think. As it turns out the people experiencing something are the experts. People who work in fast food know this. There are so many moments of understanding the small changes that save time, but workers know if they tell their boss nothing’s going to change. The mark of a good boss is not only do they value your humanity, but are they smart enough to realise that you have a contribution to make. It’s pretty stupid to spend millions on a system, test it in one place and it goes well and then say ‘Well it will go great everywhere’. How do these people run the world?
HJ: The time I spent wholly on government benefits was not even a year. Then I was a casual worker who still needed benefits to survive. And because I was still on a government benefit I had to show up to a job service provider — a provider who did not help me find that casual job– and I was even told to take time out of a shift to attend a two hour meeting at the job provider office.
LT: And if you don’t show up, you just don’t want that free government cheese enough right?
HJ: Right, and though that whole process was aggravating enough, in the end I couldn’t even opt out of getting them once I was financially stable. I called to say ‘Thankyou but stop now’ and I was told to just keep reporting my income because for some reason being able to claim even a dollar must be worth the whole process. I stopped reporting my income in the end and then of course they said ‘YOU haven’t reported so WE are cutting YOU off’. That still annoys me.
LT: I’ll tell you an anecdote from my book. I actually might be a felon, because in America if you’re going between states you have to make sure your benefits stop from the previous state. If you double dip that’s a felony, so I called the state of Ohio saying ‘Please stop giving me money’. My new case worker in Utah would ring even and nothing worked. I couldn’t use the money that Ohio was sending me in error, and of course I look like the Welfare cheat. I begged them to stop. I took time from work to sit on hold on a long distance call which I paid for. Being in my position now though, I have the amazing opportunity to speak publicly about it. And as it turns out, the reason for administrative errors like ours are things like 20 case workers being assigned to 250,000 cases.
HJ: The reasons are so banal no wonder they aren’t accepted as the truth. People who need government benefits feel so ashamed because of these kinds of errors.
LT: Once you’re a Welfare cheat, you’re a cheat.
HJ: I’ve seen a mother and her kids turned away from Centrelink because it’s fifteen minutes until closing time. In what other industry could you turn someone away? You can’t do that in retail or fast food, you’d be fired.
LT: Because what that mother needed might have taken forty-five minutes and they might have to pay overtime right? If you’re lucky you are assigned a case worker who wants to help you out. Otherwise you’re not seen as a person, you’re one face of many in their day. Unfortunately you do have those people who are profiled on the news saying they’re eating lobster and surfing all day on Welfare. So everyone who comes in is watched closely. For as many people like me who tell their story, people still remember the shocking Welfare cheats.
HJ: I will never understand how people take media sensationalism like that as fact.
LT: Well that’s what confirmation bias is. If others are as awful as they’re portrayed, you must be that good by comparison. You don’t have to feel bad for them and then you don’t have to think about your place in society, or what you should be doing because feeling guilty is tiring. You actually are entitled to a job option. In a western society that says ‘We value work’ there is an obligation to ensure there are enough jobs to go around. If that isn’t available, then guess what? People need government benefits. I’m not going to be ashamed because my society doesn’t provide that.
HJ: Even AuStudy is advertised as available to all Australian students, but it’s actually for students studying approved courses and those change year to year. So a lot of students need to work around their student hours — if they can find work. I know someone who was told by Centrelink to apply for Newstart, which you can’t claim if you’re studying full-time. What if students don’t have parents to live with? What if they don’t want to be Accountants?
LT: And math being what it is, half the country will be below average. What if you’re not in the top 10% of thinkers and doers? It’s something people don’t think about. Try it sometime. If you need more than three hours sleep a night it’s going to be fucking hard. If we’re just a subsistent society, how do we call ourselves any better than we were 500 or 1000 years ago? Hunters and gatherers survived too, but they did it without worrying what their bosses thought.
HJ: There is a story that I think people who are working without getting to a better situation can tell themselves. The story is that the world is run by white men in a boardroom who all laugh and smoke cigars and decide everything. What do you make of that and the impact it has on the communication between classes?
LT: There are those stories but they’re largely true, and they’re only told to frame the world in a way that makes sense to you. It’s easier to think there is evil on the other side of deprivation. The truth is rich people get together to run their businesses and those businesses benefit them, people they know and the industries they’re in. You have to wonder if such atmospheres even allow for rational thinking towards the impact they’re having.
HJ: So often what the majority actually want is most honestly shown via social media.
LT: Well, the people you really want to talk to have to work. And internet access has finally become cheap enough to the point the majority has it. Poor people are not invited to speak on Radio or TV. Social Media is where everyone has an equal opportunity to speak. Regardless of who has more Twitter followers, everyone still has the opportunity to reach a broad audience, because everyone gets the one Twitter account. It’s why #BlackLivesMatter can be a thing.
HJ: A real barricade on social media I think can be someone’s followers, or the amount of likes on a post and that false endorsement. You still have people who aren’t being heard. In fact you have what happened on Q&A while you were there, with Zaky Mallah making an explosive statement.
LT: People like drama and a bit of excitement. If they wanted mundane they would talk to their neighbours. Then again, when what I wrote went viral, I was saying the most mundane thing, ‘It sucks to be poor’. How mundane is that? What I’m saying is you can’t predict it. Of course if you want attention it helps to be edgy.
HJ: What do you think the counter to the ‘Room full of rich white men’ story is? What is the fear behind paying workers a minimum wage, or overtime, or allowing them sick days?
LT: Given the opportunity I’ve had and the people I’ve been able to meet, I have noticed this fear of needing to shepherd, to accumulate, to keep, because otherwise someday you might not have anything. It costs a lot of money to live if you’re very wealthy, so the wealthy don’t see the need to give away more. It’s a very us vs them mentality. In a certain way it makes sense. You don’t want to give away everything and then find yourself with nothing and need to rely on others to give it to you. The problem is when you don’t realise that that impulse exists and what you’re actually doing.