News just broke that Chelsea, Massachusetts has a higher rate of COVID-19 than New York City.
We now have a two-tiered death system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. What is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts going to do about it?
These are mainly latinos who were forced to continue working face to face with people at restaurants and grocery stores. The undocumented among have zero security or unemployment benefits, despite contributing to our social security system.
They are trapped here and could not return to their home countries now even if they tried.
Most pay into Social Security for CITIZENS through payroll taxes, but are now helpless.
They will be destitute in short order. We as a society, with the sole exception of Minneapolis, Minnesota, are doing nothing to help them. Nothing.
One thing that you can do immediately is donate to the United Way Ibe Chelsea Fund.
https://unitedwaymassbay.org/covid-19/the-one-chelsea-fund/
As great and important as this charity work is, make no mistake, this is no substitute for a government and society that stops using these workers when it’s convenient, and then harasses, jails, ignores, or abandons them them also when it is convenient.
The thread-starter seems to assert that only US citizens can receive Social Security (and Medicare) benefits. This is not true, at least for green-card holders. It is necessary to work ten years (40 quarters).
I’m referring to undocumented workers, most of whom have payroll taxes (Social Security taxes) deducted from their meager hourly wages, yet are left ONE-HUNDRED percent in the cold by our government at a time like th is. Am I missing something? I’m all ears.
You’re saying that a majority of immigrant workers in Chelsea are undocumented? I’d like to see your sources on that, because I haven’t been able to find any data at all. I don’t doubt that a majority of workers in Chelsea are immigrants. You’ll have to show me data to support an assertion that a majority are ILLEGAL immigrants. The rates I see cited for Massachusetts as a whole are about 4%.
I think your thread-starter would be improved if you clarified the reference to Social Security benefits to clearly indicate that legal immigrants receive full Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Thank you for your technical assistance.
Please address the injustice. Thank you.
The point of the post stands. I assume you are most concerned with precise percentages as to the proportion of the undocumented patients. I am basing this assumption upon what you choose to add as your contribution here.
My concern is with blinding hypocrisy and our society’s infinite capacity for self-congratulation.
In fact, it kind of reminds of people who congratulate themselves on their ability to nit-pick and avoid addressing the larger issue at hand. Seriously?
Now I can see why Fred marvels at the misplaced emphasis here on how many angels can fit on the head of a pin, while the Orange Caesar ends the Roman Republic (to jump a few centuries of analogy, whether said jump irritates you or not).
As I understand your post, it is about a “two-tiered death system” in Massachusetts. I agree that that’s unacceptable.
The fundamental assault of the GOP for decades and generations has been an assault on truth and reason itself. These thugs are intentionally driving us back into the dark ages, using their bought-and-paid-for bullhorn (Fox News) to spread their lies and disinformation throughout the heartland.
THAT is the enemy we face, and I suggest that it follows that we must be scrupulously careful to tell the truth.
The sentence I quoted is factually incorrect. It’s not an angel on the head of a pin, it’s the springboard you yourself used to jump into your conclusion.
That springboard is BROKEN. I would hope to see a response along the lines of “Wow, I missed that.. Let me correct it” followed by a simple edit that you, as the author of the diary, can do whenever you like.
Instead you go on a rampage at me.
I am most concerned that your piece as it now stands is based upon an egregiously incorrect statement.
MOST immigrants in Chelsea, like the rest of us, will collect Social Security and Medicare. The “two-tiered death system” that you refer to has everything to do with a private health care system driven by the profit motive and virtually NOTHING to do with immigration status.
In fact, if you truly want to end the two-tiered death system of Massachusetts, then you would be aggressively promoting single-payer government-sponsored universal health care — otherwise known as “Medicare for All”.
On other threads a BMG, we’ve had a fair amount of back and forth about that in the last few days, and those exchanges most certainly are NOT about “misplaced emphasis here on how many angels can fit on the head of a pin”.
They are instead about what we are going to have to do to make our presumptive nominee join the fight to destroy the two-tiered death system that is so immoral — not just in MA, but nationwide.
If you truly want to end the two-tiered death system of Massachusetts, thenI suggest you spend rather more time encouraging your candidate to change his opposition to M4A, and rather less time on irrelevant issues of immigration status.
I thought there was some assistance available to anyone who filed a tax return in the last couple of years.
Revere, the community where I teach, has been similarly hit and we have expanded the Chelsea petition to include Revere.
Feel free to sign here.