Taxpayer money was not well spent after a Washington D.C. mother was blessed with $10,800 to help with her low-income status. The mother opted to spend $6,000 of the funds on an expensive trip to Miami, where her family went on boat tours and expensive dinners.
Canethia Miller took the lump sum payment as part of a D.C. program intending to help 132 struggling mothers through “improv[ing] their families’ outcomes and economic mobility.” The mother of three did make some effort to do so, opening a new savings account where she deposited $50 and using another $4,000 to pay bills she was behind on and buying a used car.
Unfortunately, her discretion ended there as she stated that she wanted “to blow” the rest of the money away.
Miller took $6,000 and booked a trip to Miami for her children and their father, going to a dinosaur museum, taking boat tours and getting to experience Benihana, a popular Japanese restaurant where they cook the food in front of guests, for the first time.
Canethia Miller was a stay-at-home mom when her third child, Nazir, was born in the summer of 2022, making things work financially through a host of public benefits.
After setting aside some of the money from the pilot program for expenses, she took her family on a $6,000… pic.twitter.com/3bmUz0JBXQ
— Post Local (@postlocal) February 1, 2024
“I wanted to have fun,” the low-income mother stated. “[My kids] got to experience something I would never have been able to do if I didn’t have that money.”
The spending wasn’t solely on the trip either as there was lots to be prepped beforehand in Miller’s mind. She spent $180 getting her hair and nails done before the vacation and bought her kids new outfits, something she proudly boasted in her interview.
Somehow, after blatantly wasting the funds given that were intended to help her get out of a financial rut, the D.C. mother feels that she spent the money well and set a positive example for her children.
Miller did admit that she lacked financial literacy, saying “A lot of communities in my area don’t know the financial gain of credit, saving for your kids; that’s why we’re broke, that’s why we don’t have nothing to pass down or no house to give down.”
Sadly, the program didn’t seem to have the intended effect on Miller. Other mothers in the program did manage to get more mileage out of the program, such as Erika James, who took monthly payments to pay for bills and threw a modest birthday party for her one-year-old son. So, at least not all of the money immediately went to waste.
Already stretched thin managing her finances after a high-risk pregnancy forced her to stop working, Erika James says the pilot program seemed too good to be true.
Enrolling was an opportunity to examine her own financial strengths and weaknesses. She was able to use some of the… pic.twitter.com/Vg7QtKCL2j
— Post Local (@postlocal) February 1, 2024
