A place to help people with modest needs

Founded in 2002, Modest Needs is a non-profit organization with a unique, threefold mission. Modest Needs exists:

To responsibly provide short-term financial assistance to individuals and families in temporary crisis who, because they are working and live just above the poverty level, are ineligible for most types of conventional social assistance but who (like many of us) are living one or two lost paychecks away from the kind of financial catastrophe that eventually leads to homelessness;

To lessen the burden of state and federal agencies charged with the care of the truly indigent by doing everything in our power to stop these at-risk households from slipping into the cycle of poverty, despite the burden posed by an unanticipated, emergency expense; and

To promote compassion and generosity on the part of individual persons living in the United States and Canada, the areas that we serve, by standing as a living testament to the power of human kindness to change lives, no matter how much (or how little) a person has to share.

ModestNeeds.org

How Obamacare Screws the Working Class…Hard

Obamacare is set to sink into the flesh of the American entitlement system not unlike a bear's claws sink into the flesh of its prey. . .

Here are some of the new taxes you're going to have to pay to pay for Obamacare:

▪ A 3.8% surtax on "investment income"( dividends, interest, rent, capital gains, annuities, house sales, partnerships, etc.) when your adjusted gross income is more than $200,000, $250,000 for joint-filers. What is "investment income?" (WSJ)

▪ A 0.9% surtax on Medicare taxes for those making $200,000 or more, $250,000 joint. (WSJ)

▪ Flexible Spending Account contributions will be capped at $2,500. Currently, there is no tax-related limit on how much you can set aside pre-tax to pay for medical expenses. (ATR.org)

▪ The itemized-deduction hurdle for medical expenses is going up to 10% of adjusted gross income. (ATR.org)

▪ The penalty on non-medical withdrawals from Healthcare Savings Accounts is now 20% instead of 10%. (ATR.org)

▪ A tax of 10% on indoor tanning services. This has been in place for two years, since the summer of 2010. (ATR.org)

▪ A 40% tax on "Cadillac Health Care Plans" starting in 2018.Those whose employers pay for all or most of comprehensive healthcare plans (costing $10,200 for an individual or $27,500 for families) will have to pay a 40% tax on the amount their employer pays. (ATR.org)

▪ A "Medicine Cabinet Tax" that eliminates the ability to pay for over-the-counter medicines from a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account. (ATR.org)

▪ A "penalty" tax for those who don't buy health insurance.

▪ A 2.3% excise tax on medical devices costing more than $100. (Breitbart.com)

So those are some of the new taxes you'll be paying that will help pay for Obamacare...

Note that these taxes are both "progressive" (aimed at rich people) and "regressive" (aimed at the middle class and poor people).

MODEST NEEDS: Help for the 'working poor'

At Modest Needs, we work to promote the self-sufficiency of the 'working poor' - the hard-working but low-income individuals and families that conventional philanthropy has otherwise forgotten.

We have elected to undertake this mission because we recognize that a significant gap exists in the social service 'safety nets' of developed nations like the United States and Canada.

This gap leaves low-income but generally self-sufficient individuals and families without access to small amounts of short-term, emergency assistance in favor of providing significant amounts of long-term assistance to these same individuals and families once they've fallen deeply into the cycle of poverty.

In keeping with our mission, Modest Needs offers grants to low-income but generally self-sufficient households, displaced workers struggling to return to the workforce, permanently disadvantaged persons struggling to afford medical care, and small non-profit organizations. Our grants are designed:

• To prevent otherwise financially self-sufficient individuals and families from entering the cycle of poverty, when this might be avoided with a small amount of well-timed financial assistance;
• To restore the financial self-sufficiency of individuals who are willing to work but are temporarily unemployed by providing these persons with the means to return to work;
• To empower permanently disadvantaged individuals who otherwise live within their limited means to continue to live independently, despite a temporary, unexpected financial set-back related to their medical conditions; and
• To strengthen small non-profit organizations by providing a forum whereby such organizations can apply directly to the general public for the help they need to complete the relatively inexpensive projects that will allow them to better serve their clients and communities.

To the best of our knowledge, Modest Needs is the only legitimate non-profit organization of its kind serving the United States and Canada.

FIND OUT MORE