California Passes First-Ever Bill To Give Poor Families Money For Diapers

[calinewarkwc69]

California could soon become the first state in the country to offer poor families some help with an expensive necessity: diapers.Diapers aren’t covered by food stamps - in California, they’re classified along with cigarettes and alcohol as invalid purchases - nor by the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) nutrition program for low-income mothers.

Comments

[pairatime]

brag away, this is a kind of government aid I can fully support and I hope the other states follow.

[amw]

Dude I am all for giving some kind of benefits to parents, since they are doing the (literally) shitty job of ensuring our communities will survive into the future... But I can't see how calling disposable diapers a necessity and empowering the poor to be as wasteful and environmentally destructive as the middle class is something to celebrate.

[calinewarkwc69]

The article mentions that "Cloth diapers are not a viable alternative for many families, as laundromats won’t let people wash them and daycare centers usually require disposable ones."

Which is a problem in and of itself.

[amw]

It is definitely a problem in and of itself. It's not like some baby's pee stains have any more cooties than one of your other neighbors' cum stains. Public laundromats are public laundromats. No one likes em. Most renters need em. That's life. You probably get more germs from the beer glasses at your local dive bar. And don't get me started on privatized daycare and the lack of decent parental leave in the US

[moonshaz]

Why not just tax the rich a bit more and let the poor decide for themselves if they want to spend that extra cash on an energy star washer vs thousands of disposable diapers?

I already responded to this in another reply, but briefly, the problem with this is that it assumes that everyone has a place to put a washer, appropriate plumbing hookups, etc. This is not a safe assumption. With lower end rental housing, you're lucky in some cases if there are laundry facilities IN THE BUILDING (as opposed to having to drive across town to a laundromat.

[lisasimpsonfan]

This is a wonderful idea. I hope this goes nation wide.

[meegs73]

Proud of my state.