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I work in an inner-city supermarket. The first two weeks of each month, we see a very heavy number of EBT (electronic benefits transfer) Card purchases. These function essentially as food stamps. A significant amount of product which is purchased on these cards would be defined by most people as being luxury items: lobster, expensive cuts of beef, high-end deli and bakery items, etc. Other frequently purchased items are those sorely lacking in nutritional value. Things such as potato chips, soda, and candy.
This is frustrating for many of us who work in the store because our tax dollars are being used to purchase these items. I have no problem with my taxes being used to provide those who are temporarily down on their luck with the food they need to sustain their families, but many of these folks are eating better than are those who work for their money. Those who are receiving government subsidies should be given a basic choice of foods which are both economical and nutritious.
I mentioned this in a different food stamps thread...that those on food stamps get to buy more groceries than the average income taxpayer can afford. This shows how warped and twisted this entitlement program is. The gap between the haves (those with a food stamps card) and the have-nots (average workers not receiving gov handouts) will continue to get larger as high food price inflation devastates the middle class...to the point where they will need food stamps to feed their families even if they won't qualify because their income appears too high on the surface.
People who use food stamps should have their own separate aisles in the grocery stores.
Or put up a store just for people who use food stamps.
I'm sure those people who use food stamps would feel really good about that, its not bad enough people are embarrassed in the first place that they had to take welfare because they lost their jobs.
Oh hell and then their neighbors can see them and let everyone know about their family situation but that is ok, its their right to know because they pay taxes as if the unemployed never paid any.
Oh and Mom & Dad if you are working, whoever gets home first make that chicken dinner and clean up in a 1/2 hour.
Then bake 5 dozen cookies, make the children's lunches with some leftover chicken and that bread you baked. Make sure you wrap it in a plastic walmart bag because saran wrap and baggies are too expensive for you to buy and I don't think you can use food stamps for that, or can you?
Don't forget to put those dry beans in the pot because they need to soak and you will need to prepare these tomorrow. You sit down for a moment and have a nice glass of ice water, sorry you can't have any juice or soda that will eat up your FS allowance. (Juice is expensive so why buy it, go with the Sunny delight juice that tastes horrible)
Now you have a some time to slice those potatoes thin to make potato chips.
Your not allowed any alcohol, buy some grape juice, yeast, sugar put that in a bottle and put a big balloon on top of it, put it in a dark place for about a month, then you can drink it, might as well make 5 bottles while you are at it.
Lets see now, do you have any time left, oops need to put the kids to bed.
Ok, now you sit down have a nice glass of hot milk to help you sleep so you can do this all again tomorrow, remember you have all that cooking to do on the weekend, spaghetti sauce, bake bread and ride the bus to get all those groceries you will need for the week, if you have any more spare time perhaps you could go to the library for some books, of course you will never have time to read them, oh maybe while the cookies are baking or when you are making the potato chips, maybe at lunch time at work, but I doubt that, you most likely will have errands to do.
If you can possibly do all of that God bless you.
This is exactly what I see in some of these threads, before you criticize someone walk a mile in his shoes, that way when he's angry he'll be a mile away and barefoot.
Oh gimme a break already. I made dinner yesterday - STEW - and it certainly took me WAY less than half an hour to dice up the meat and sear it, peel and dice the spuds, onions, carrots and parsley and clean up the prep area afterwards.
Then it simmered for an hour or so. And I made enough to feed 4 for 2 days so pffffffffffft
Being totally involved in this thread I have learned something and changed my views somewhat. I see where the whole program would be better served if the SNAP program added, soda pop, candy and pure junk food to the listof items prohibited. People should buy these things with their own money. They'll appreciate it more. But anything that is considered normal supermarket fare such as frozen pizza, or any prepared foods should be allowed. It's up to the recipient to budget their allotment and not go hungry at the end of the month. Perhaps a better mandate to have checkers report obvious food stamp scams and fraud would help curb the abuse by the few and convince a lot of the nervous taxpayers that their dollars are well spent.
Just for the record, we parents always rag on our kids, somwhat. It's done with a smile. They don't call enough. They don't write enough. They don't visit enough. We don't get enough time with the grandkids.....etc. Maybe because he lives in Philadelphia and we live in Arizona. He is a good man with a good family but I still don't think he'd be overwhelmed with joy to have us come live with him unexpectedly. We like it that way. Our independence means more to us Thanks to all the tax payers who subsidize our freedom to the tune of 71.00 a month. We've already done our best and paid our share for those who came before.
Kudos. Good post. I also have moved a bit on pre-prepared packaged foods. While I firmly believe that in most cases basic foods are a better/cheaper option I can see that pre-prepared is a necessary option in some cases.
For myself, one of the significant driving forces that moved me from poverty to success was wanting to eat higher on the food chain- I wanted Tbone and roast beef rather than beans, potatoes and cornbread with hamburger and chicken on rare occasions
And I don't even want to remember the garden stuff!
A gal in an earlier post suggested depositing funds into bank account and when it ran out that was that, anyone who is really managing what money they are receiving could do this.
Anyone on drugs or alcohol, well you know where the money is going, that's not going to stop anyway, never will.
I think there should be a program that teaches a trade so unemployed workers who cannot get back into their fields can be taught carpentry, electrical, plumbing,computer repair etc, I asked about this years ago and was told the govt is not going to waste money doing that, too much trouble for them to bother, why fix the system.
Nobody wants another program but something needs to be done with the current system.
Providing some land & teachers to provide skills & work for the unemployed would help, I'm saying building homes, not putting all the poor together in public housing, it doesn't work, the housing projects was was a big mistake done by politicians years back and these projects still exist and should be torn down, alot of people who lived there were decent working folks and naturally drugs and crime came from ones who wanted something for nothing.
Of course the govt is not going to give up land, they already sell that to housing developers so they can build million dollar homes outside of our forest and state lands, then the buyers can complain about bears and cougars and animals on their land thinking the animals are not supposed to be there.
You need to contact your Senators and Rep's and vote.
From what I have read here it seems some would like to move all the welfare recipients somewhere out of their sight and jail them as if all were freeloaders and bums, they didn't cause this big mess we are in with layoffs etc, the USA doesn't produce like years ago, companies moved overseas and hired cheap labor, people bought foreign made cars not Ford or Chevy, we import cheaply made products, products that should be made here and better in the USA, then the banks and the investment firms with all the fraudulent deals, who made money on that? not us, its in alot of politicians pockets I'd bet.
I remember a bumper stickers from years ago "Hungry? eat your Toyota"
I've had food stamps in the past. It wouldn't have bothered me if I couldn't get cookies and chips. I DID buy my blue bunny butter pecan ice cream with them but the junk food wasn't that big of a draw for me. I spent most of my food stamps on fruits and veggies because i hadn't been able to afford them once i was out on my own. So if they restructured the program i would have brought my approved food with my stamps and then brought my ice cream with cash or just have gone without.
Well said. I believe that is how the program was intended to work.
Again with the cooking from scratch...Some can't - homeless and many like myself have found that buying all the ingrediants for a from scratch is not cost effective. I'm single and alone - no children etc. My dollars go much farther when buying frozen meals on sale vs buying all the ingredients as a single person I can't get through them all before they rot.
For as often a I would use flour and sugar - it would go bad - vs buying cake mix and if I'm stuck with all those ingredients for a couple of months I'm forced to eat more of it than I normally would because that's all I had.
Some of the people on this threads ideas are beyond rediculous.
Seniors (not quite there yet), disabled, unemployed and out of benefits (me), working poor (wish it was me) and homeless (soon) all have a different set of circumstances. Some don't have the facilities to cook, some don't have the energy after working long hours at a minimum wage job or two, some like the elderly can't spend the time standing etc.
Many of you complain of seeing FS recipiants with designer clothes, did it ever occur to you that they may have bought those things before they lost their jobs, cars, homes? I have some very nice clothes that I bought when I was working.
I hope none of you ever have to go through what I'm going through...I'm an educated 60 year old woman who lost her job 2 1/2 years ago along with millions of others, I'm out of UI benefits and still no job. I THOUGHT I had planned well for my retirement - house would be paid for when I turned 65, now I'll probably loose it, my savings are gone, no health care and not elegible for medicaid or anything other than SNAPS.
The hate towards the poor in this thread is shocking, you think that won't ever be you...think again...I never thought it could be me after working for 40years, but it is, along with millions of us.
Many of you complain about YOUR tax dollars paying for my FS...well I paid in for 40 years along with the majority of FS recipiants...so it is not YOUR tax dollars paying for MY FS...have you paid taxes for 40 years????
Do I agree with anyone on FS having to take a nutrition class - sure that'd be a great idea, many who've been raised poor never learned about good nutrition and I'd also include how to stretch the FS dollar, however - the homeless have little means to cook, the elderly might not have the stamina to cook. When my mother was reaching the end of her life we were able to keep her in her home longer (saving the gov't $$) because we had prepaired and frozen foods available to microwave so she wouldn't have to cook.
As another poster stated you need to walk in our shoes, quite frankly I hope none of you has to...it's awful and humiliating.
For some reason, I can't edit my post above, so I'll just say: I don't think children's birthday cakes are a major source of "waste, fraud and abuse" in the food stamps program. Let someone buy a cake once a year!
Location: Somewhere gray and damp, close to the West Coast
20,957 posts, read 5,519,581 times
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rural lady and ReturningWest, yours are very honest and refreshing and balanced posts. Thank you both. Enjoy the reps. I wish we could spend our reps, but then somebody would be there, ready to criticize what we chose to spend them on.
Oh gimme a break already. I made dinner yesterday - STEW - and it certainly took me WAY less than half an hour to dice up the meat and sear it, peel and dice the spuds, onions, carrots and parsley and clean up the prep area afterwards.
Then it simmered for an hour or so. And I made enough to feed 4 for 2 days so pffffffffffft
Also a peanut butter or ham sandwich takes almost no preparation time, nor do raw carrots, apples, and other healthy foods.
The food stamp crowd likes to justify a $4 bag of potato chips because it's just too hard for them to boil a potato from a $2 bag. Or they buy $5 bags of cookies for their kids because handing them a raw carrot when the carrots cost $2 a bag is too much effort.
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