My husband used to work for the government and one of the first things he was told was to save money for these types of occasions. I'm glad we listened because we went through a couple of furloughs...and had our daughter at the time too to feed. I don't think enough people plan for the future anymore or emergencies.
Much wisdom.....
I fully realize financial difficulties can be very real.... and some of these government workers make very little.... and that folks particularly on low income (some of these folks don't make $2K a month) may have to live pretty much paycheck to paycheck.... I'm not ignorant or indifferent.
BUT being a responsible person means we have some savings or at least resources for just such a thing. Stuff happens. We can find ourselves suddenly out of work (happens to the best of folks), we can find ourselves with a health issue.... stuff happens. Whether our employer is some government agency or some private business or if we are self-employed. We are told to have 3 months income in some sort of accessable savings/investments. I'm not there yet but I'm working on it. And I have a line of credit I can tap at any time, actually enough to get by for over a year (but I'd be borrowing - okay if I'm actually employed and making money but the pay is DELAYED).
Yeah, there's irresponsibility on the part of the Congress here.... but is there ALSO irresponsibility on the part of employees? Is ALL the "blame" for some employees having some temporary economic hardships right now fall exclusively on the employer? NONE on the employee?
For some years, our congregation rented a building to a pre-school for low income families, 100% funded by the State of California. EVERY YEAR there would be some funding issue and there would be a month or two or three where they could not pay their rent, they always caught up (because the funding always came for the entire year, thus retroactively) but the church was delayed in getting the rent. What did we do? We put 4 months worth of rent in researve that we would use during those times. This was before my time here, but I'm sure it took a bit of time to build up that reserve but the church did. Hey, it's not rocket science. The government gets into these budget things.... stuff happens.... prepare as best as we can.
Again, I'm LOT letting the Congress of the hook here, they bear responsibility for why some families are struggling with the DELAYED pay... but the employees bear some responsibility, too.
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