Before the Great Recession, Tanya Wells and her spouse had a household income of nearly $100K/year now it's about $18,000/year. Rather than being "trapped" in a system that locks them in "dependence" she and her family are now surviving on student loans, food stamps and Medicaid in a plan to realign their employment prospects.
Transcript Over the Flip
Transcript from MSNBC, Emphasis Mine.
>>>Hayes: i want to bring in tanya wells. both she and her husband lost their jobs in 2008. their family survives student loans, medicaid and food stamps three programs targeted by the ryan plan. i want to ask you, how as you're watching the campaign unfold, how are you perceiving it? do you feel that the issues you're facing day-to-day are being addressed and do you have feelings about either of the candidates?
>> well, it is extremely scary experiencing what is going on right now. i have until november to try to reorganize my life plans because i don't know which way this is going to go. and we're talking about my family. we're talking about my, my dependency on the system to keep us afloat. and it is in serious, serious jeopardy right now and that is a very scary thought to live with every single day. my thoughts on the candidates, president obama what he did at the beginning of the recession is what kept my family alive. essentially. i played all my cards right before the recession. we had jobs. we were making good money. we were your average middle class family. living comfortably. all of a sudden the rug got pulled out from under us and we are along with the rest of the people from the middle class and we are now poor. we're poor. and the president helped keep us afloat with the changes he made.
>> Hayes: when you say the rug was pulled out from under you, what are you -- my understanding is that you hadn't -- you hadn't used medicaid now you're relying on those programs, correct?
>> Tanya: correct. our household income was right around $100,000 a year. so we were fairly comfortable. after the recession our household is now around $18,000 a year. so if that gives you and idea of the severity of the matter. it's pretty severe and scary.
>> Hayes: i want to play a clip for you because when we have debates about programs like student loans which i believe you're federally subsidized student loans.
>> Tanya: correct.
>> Hayes: medicaid which you're now qualified for and i want to play a clip from congressman paul ryan talking about the dangers of a safety net that gives too much to people that are struggling. take a listen.
>> Tanya: okay.
>> Paul Ryan On Video: what you have is a government, a plan that turns this safety net into a hammock that lulls people into complacency.
>> Hayes: i want to hear your response. do you feel that medicaid and food stamps and student loans are demeaning to you? do you think it would be more demeaning -- less demeaning and you would have more dignity if those were cut?
>> Tanya: that is an absolutely ridiculous statement right there. those programs are an extreme help to a lot of people. i'm not the only one in this situation. i'm sure there are thousands if not millions of americans in the exact same situation as me we never wanted to depend on the system, we don't like depending on the system. we want to get off the system. i developed the plan for my family. i took it on as a project management task and i strategically figured out well what will give me the longest lasting security. i can have temporary fixes, i have long term fixes. so what do i need to do? what does my family need do in order to make sure we get to the best option available to us? we qualified for unemployment when we lost our jobs. but unfortunately unemployment end the second you decide to go back to school. so that's one of the things.
>> Hayes: please continue.
>> Tanya: so, that's one of the things we had to decide. okay we can stay on unemployment which was far more than what we're getting with food stamps and student loans and pell grants, but at that point we're creating a temporary fix. do we want a temporary fix for our family or do we want a permanent fix.
>> Hayes: you have to make that decision between getting -- saying good-bye to unemployment which is providing with you very needed income in order to go back to school because that's an investment in long term building skills you think can help you get a job for the future.
>> Tanya: precisely. and we wanted to secure our finances. we wanted to make sure that we picked what was going to cause the most stability for our family and going back to school was going to be that. before we were in two industries that were extremely severely hit by the recession. my husbanding worked with the sheet metal union and i was working in logistics. those two industries totally disappeared during the recession. we knew there was no stability. before that we didn't even buy a house because we knew those industries were very, very, very much on the rocks at all times. there was no security in them.
And here's the next segment.
Hayes: What do you know now that you didn't when you were making $100K?
Tanya: I figured out that there is a whole invisible civilization that you really don't see till you hit rock bottom and you're at the same level with them. There's a completely different world down here. That's why I wanted to be on your show, because most people who are nice and comfortable don't realize how much of a struggle it is every day to live in these conditions. And hearing constant battles on politics on getting rid of programs that we depend on, it's sad, and the way they manage to turn this stereotype of people that actually pull from the system they paid into. I paid into the system for more than 16 years. I made more than enough money - that completely makes up for what I'm pulling right now. I'm at a time of need, I'm asking for help, I've receive the help that I paid into. There's a big stigma on people who receive help, that they're moochers, that they're lazy - that's not the case, I've worked very hard since I was 15 years old and paid into the system the whole entire time.
Pell Grants, Student Loans, Food Stamps and Medicaid. These are benefits that she helped
pay for, but Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan would rip right from under her feet. They claim that they would do this
for her own good, but exactly how is that supposed to work?
Vyan