The Writer's Notebook

Yes, the non-working poor do have a safety net–all those things that the Republicans want to blow to smithereens, like Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers and so forth. The real problem that Romney seems not to be acknowledging is that there are increasing millions of working poor in this country–people who earn just enough not to qualify for Medicaid or food stamps, people too poor to buy their own health insurance (which was what both Obamacare and Romneycare were all about). There is also the next rung above–those who have to work 2 and 3 jobs to keep their heads above water, whose homes are underwater (through no fault of their own, a consequence of the collapse in housing values), who don’t have the money to send their kids to college.