Exchange Our Food Stamp Program for Welfare Stores? (borders, dollar, school)
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If food is the only thing they need to keep from starving:
Eliminate EBT cards and just have a location they go to, to pick up food. They shouldn't be given the option of being able to go to the same grocery stores that people who are using money they work for go to get food at.
And have a rule: Anyone that qualifies to pick up food at a designated location who also does not work, has to wait in a line (standing) for at least three hours to get their stuff.
If I have to work to buy food, then lazy people should have to wait in line to get free food. Note: no $600 smart phones allowed in line either. Poor is poor. . . . Not poor after having a bunch of stuff.
Not everyone who is poor is lazy. Some are disabled, some are old, some are unemployed and down on their luck. Some are from disadvantaged backgrounds (like me), who have not had motivation or have not seen a way out of poverty (not like me). I was raised in the projects by a mom who was mentally unstable and could not work, and dad was mostly out of the picture. Had it not been for the church (motivating me to go to college) and the government (student loans) I would be most likely in the food stamp line myself, and not because I am lazy.
In your earlier post, you said your disability was put on your food card. Now you're saying you're still waiting on a decision.
If food stamps aren't welfare, what are they called? Are EBT and food stamps the same thing? Some people get their utilities paid for. Is that welfare? Are free medical benefits welfare? Some people don't have to work and live completely off the government, so why wouldn't it all be welfare? If you're illegal, you can even retire after never working, and get retirement from the social security citizens have paid in. It's a crazy system.
No one should go hungry in this land of plenty. It sounds like you do a great job with your food stamps. They should hire people like you to teach others on welfare how to shop. I don't think theres a time limit in my state for being on food stamps. I'll have to check and see. If people don't make enough money, they have to have help. I don't think it's that big a deal, but I've always helped others. We grew up doing that. I think it should be that way. Who knows, we all may need help one day. I also don't begrudge anyone some junk food, but I do think everyone who's able, should have to do something to earn these food stamps, unless they are elderly or disabled.
EBT stands for electronic benefit transfer. An EBT card is a card that looks sort of like a credit card or ATM card. There technically are no longer any physical food stamps. Food stamps used to be cards like punch cards with an amount on them and you used them to pay for your groceries at the supermarket. All food stamp benefits are now put on the EBT card as a specific dollar amount. Food stamps are a social service like housing or help with utilities. There are also TANF benefits and WIC, both of which, I THINK, include cash benefits.
When people talk about welfare, they're basically referring to any and all social services, but not all services are equal and just because you qualify for one doesn't mean you qualify for any others. I think most people make the distinction between welfare (someone receiving money and having to use WIC) as one thing and food stamps as another thing. Like a lot of other people I use the phrase 'food stamps' in the same way we still say we 'dial' a phone number. It's an outdated term, but still around because nothing better has replaced it yet.
So if someone says they need to put a time limit on welfare, I would ask if they are talking about cash welfare for families or food stamps or both, just to see what they were specifically talking about. The time limits on cash benefits may or may not be the same time limits that food stamps have.
To make it more confusing, food stamps, Medicaid, WIC, and TANF are federal programs. The programs here in my city that help people pay their for their utilites or get housing or job assistance or anything else are local programs, sponsored by the state or by the city. That's why it can be such a pain in the patootie to find out or apply for all these services. Because they're all separate services, they may be housed in different locations all over the city. Ask me how I know that. I had to go to one location to get help with my utilities 8 years ago, another location to apply for food stamps, and yet another location to apply for low cost housing.
Right now I'm in subsidized living, renting a room with a kitchenette and a shared bathroom. Yet, even though I called 211, was at a local resource center for 4 years trying to find a job when I thought I could still work one, and had applied for what services I was eligible at our social services office, and even made inquiries at the local city housing authority, I had no idea this place existed until my friend told me about it and she knew about it because all the grants and funding requests for charitable organizations come across her desk. Amazing, isn't it?
I have long wanted to get a forum together that would list all the states individually, then list the cities in those states, then list the services available for each city, and have a link to this forum set up on all public library home pages. I wish I knew how to do that.
I understand your confusion about the disability. Right now, I am waiting on federal disability. I still get state disability on my card, though.
At this point, I am really in no man's land. The state has turned me down for disability, but there were so many errors and problems in the way the judge made his decision, I was able to have a lawyer take it to the federal level. However, as soon as the state finds out I've been denied, then I'll be cut off of state disability and may have to pay back some or all of it that I've been given for the last 3 years. How, I have no idea, because it's the only income I'm getting right now.
I've already told Social Services I filed for federal and the advice I was given was to just let them find out I was denied by the state on their own. And I've been told by both the lawyer and Social Services that as soon as I receive a letter stating that I am to be cut off of state disability, I should reapply. Apparently, a lot of people get approved on state the second time around while their federal case is pending. Go figure.
But since the judge that heard my case made so many errors (example: he claimed I had no medical evidence to show I was hard of hearing - the medical record was in the file in front of him!), I would probably file for state again and hope I got a different judge this time. One who had more on the ball than the last one.
The one thing I don't have to worry about is food stamps (thank the gods) and that's because I'm over 50. However, for those who want to limit food stamps to 6 months or less, consider what happens when someone who is younger than me is denied state disability but isn't approved for federal disability yet. They are technically not considered disabled and if they are younger than 50, they get cut off. But they still may not be able to work.
The whole thing is confusing and if I've posted anything in error, please feel free to correct me.
I don't know if I could teach anyone to cook. I learned from the internet and I'm sure no expert, but also, I have the time to practice. People working 2 or 3 jobs aren't going to have the time to do that.
I think a long term solution would be to create a permanent labor shortage by deporting millions of illegals and eliminating most if not all H1B and other work VISAs. Why not? The business and political elites had their way with immigration for 30 some years so go the other way for the next 30 years. Labor shortages equals higher wages etc...less welfare and less taxpayer burden.
If food is the only thing they need to keep from starving:
Eliminate EBT cards and just have a location they go to, to pick up food. They shouldn't be given the option of being able to go to the same grocery stores that people who are using money they work for go to get food at.
And have a rule: Anyone that qualifies to pick up food at a designated location who also does not work, has to wait in a line (standing) for at least three hours to get their stuff.
If I have to work to buy food, then lazy people should have to wait in line to get free food. Note: no $600 smart phones allowed in line either. Poor is poor. . . . Not poor after having a bunch of stuff.
What would you truly consider viable reasoning with ensuring food stamp recipients stand in line for three hours?
Possibly I should make statements as such; those without a PhD should stand in line for two hours at an undisclosed location designated for lower middle-class. Because if I had to work to obtain my PhD; lazy members with a graduate degree and below shouldn't be afforded the option to shop in stores where the intellectuals use their money.
Appears to be issues with most everyone while the exception (those the populous should maintain issues with) i.e. congressman, government officials, geriatric board members and their outdated cancerous idealities; go untouched.
I recall segments of the population up in arms because FS recipients feed their children unhealthy food or maintained unbalanced diets etc. Soon after they began to purchase lean meats, expensive so-called healthier options, to include beverages and the world was on fire again!! Comments to include: "They" eat better than those of us that work, I can't afford such meat or products, they shouldn't be able to shop here or there.
Complete rubbish. Most of you actually receive more Welfare then those associated with food stamps in the form of tax breaks, subsidies (copious types), write offs, etc. Honestly the laundry list goes on, thus my friends you are coupled in the pool of social sludge with recipients of food stamps.
Why don't they just bring back the list of items that could not be purchased that was around up until the mid 1990s? It was no high end cut of meat (filet minor and what not unless discounted) no chips, soda, candy or even ice cream which was empty calories. That had to be paid for in cash and the register rang it up that way automatically.... so it can be easily done again with today's computer based registers.
I still remember my Grandma driving 30 minutes to go get in line for the surplus butter, cheese and powdered milk. This wasn't bad stuff. Often they had day old bread on site. Many meals were prepared just from that. Bring that back too. Many places abandoned that program.
Get people back to healthy whole food not the processed crap and they will eat better, the kids will get healthier and learn better and they will spend less in the long run.
I was on the old food stamps when they were coupons back in 1995. I remember the restrictions. If I wanted a .50 candy bar I saved money from laundry day. Otherwise it was a no go. And the stores were strict about it since they were audited often. But now it's all about the bottom line and I bet some of the big box stores have alot to do with it.
Why don't they just bring back the list of items that could not be purchased that was around up until the mid 1990s? It was no high end cut of meat (filet minor and what not unless discounted) no chips, soda, candy or even ice cream which was empty calories. That had to be paid for in cash and the register rang it up that way automatically.... so it can be easily done again with today's computer based registers. I was on the old food stamps when they were coupons back in 1995. I remember the restrictions. If I wanted a .50 candy bar I saved money from laundry day. Otherwise it was a no go. And the stores were strict about it since they were audited often. But now it's all about the bottom line and I bet some of the big box stores have alot to do with it.
I've never heard of such a thing...I used to take my great aunt shopping in the 90's she had a little booklet of food stamp coupons and could buy any food items she wanted, the only restrictions were the same ones there are now - no alcohol, tobacco or non-food items. And here's a history of the food stamp program and I can't find any reference to a restriction of any foods, congress has tried that a few times but it never passed. https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/h...pdf?sequence=1
That's silly. No one wants to punish the poor. They just don't want to give the poor the money that they earned, that's all. They just want the poor to LEAVE THEM ALONE.
If I don't want to give my neighbor my money for no reason, that's not a punishment. Thats not envy. That's just I want to keep my money. That's all.
Then why aren't you out there protesting CVS, who bought Duane Reed in Canada so they can avoid paying taxes? You're giving much more of your money to corporate entitlements and the military profit machine than all the other government "handouts" put together.
I think a long term solution would be to create a permanent labor shortage by deporting millions of illegals and eliminating most if not all H1B and other work VISAs. Why not? The business and political elites had their way with immigration for 30 some years so go the other way for the next 30 years. Labor shortages equals higher wages etc...less welfare and less taxpayer burden.
Most food stamp recipients DO work. You subsidize their lives because the companies they work for choose to have you pay rather than them. It doens't work that way anymore, supply and demand doesn't cut it, because they are constantly decreasing the supply they need either through automation and/or making fewer and fewer people do the work of many. My nursing home just transferred to new owners, and the first thing they did was cut the CNA staff down by 2 per shift. When someone calls out, they can no longer get agency coverage. So now patients have to wait 40 minutes to go to the bathroom instead of 20 (because they were already short-staffed even before), and people on online care giving forums will rant about the "lazy" CNAs at their mom's home who make their mom wait too long...blame the little guy, always, never the ones who actually choose the staffing ratio that doesn't work. This is getting worse and worse, because companies see we will simmer like the proverbial frogs in the pot and never actually try to get out of it.
I'm a therapist in the nursing home. I make good money, but I work with CNAs (certified nurse's aide's) who have been full time in my facility for years, and they still qualify for subsidies for heat. These are hard working, skiled people who sign up for extra shifts and do all they can to get by. I pass countless people standing in frigid temperatures at bus stops waiting to ride for 70 minutes to get to a job 20 miles away that pays them enough to pay their rent and have maybe a hundred or 2 left over after that, so will never be able to save for a car. While I ride by in toasty warmth, having started my car from inside the house. To say I "deserve" that, and the people at the bus stop don't, to me is the height of arrogance. I have that because I won the lottery in terms of where I was born, the IQ and social skills I was born with, what I look like, the opportunities I was born into. It more cases than we care to admit, it's nothing more than cosmic luck that we are here and not in some village in Africa brushing flies off our dying kids. The saying "There but for the Grace of God go I" is one that echos my beliefs.
The picture so many have of food stamp recipients as druggies in the ghetto, it is not the case anymore.
My own niece, who is a teacher, had to go to a food bank several times last winter when her husband lost his job and it took him 9 months to find another one, at $8 less an hour than the one he lost. My mother, who worked her butt off raising us and working as a secretary for decades for a pittance and now gets a big $400 a month pension for it, qualified for subsidies for home health aides when she was still home. She'll be applying for long term care Medicaid this month because she has spent all her savings on her medical care. It wasn't her fault, she did the best she could for a woman who had to find a job with a high school degree and 2 kids in 1968 after my father got sick. A lot of people do the best they can and still need help. That is the beauty of the American people to me, that we will help, that we hold up our own when they need it.
This is not the poor against the rest of us, it's the 1% against the rest of us, but I know that will be vehemently denied here.
Most food stamp recipients DO work. You subsidize their lives because the companies they work for choose to have you pay rather than them. It doens't work that way anymore, supply and demand doesn't cut it, because they are constantly decreasing the supply they need either through automation and/or making fewer and fewer people do the work of many. My nursing home just transferred to new owners, and the first thing they did was cut the CNA staff down by 2 per shift. When someone calls out, they can no longer get agency coverage. So now patients have to wait 40 minutes to go to the bathroom instead of 20 (because they were already short-staffed even before), and people on online care giving forums will rant about the "lazy" CNAs at their mom's home who make their mom wait too long...blame the little guy, always, never the ones who actually choose the staffing ratio that doesn't work. This is getting worse and worse, because companies see we will simmer like the proverbial frogs in the pot and never actually try to get out of it.
I'm a therapist in the nursing home. I make good money, but I work with CNAs (certified nurse's aide's) who have been full time in my facility for years, and they still qualify for subsidies for heat. These are hard working, skiled people who sign up for extra shifts and do all they can to get by. I pass countless people standing in frigid temperatures at bus stops waiting to ride for 70 minutes to get to a job 20 miles away that pays them enough to pay their rent and have maybe a hundred or 2 left over after that, so will never be able to save for a car. While I ride by in toasty warmth, having started my car from inside the house. To say I "deserve" that, and the people at the bus stop don't, to me is the height of arrogance. I have that because I won the lottery in terms of where I was born, the IQ and social skills I was born with, what I look like, the opportunities I was born into. It more cases than we care to admit, it's nothing more than cosmic luck that we are here and not in some village in Africa brushing flies off our dying kids. The saying "There but for the Grace of God go I" is one that echos my beliefs.
The picture so many have of food stamp recipients as druggies in the ghetto, it is not the case anymore.
My own niece, who is a teacher, had to go to a food bank several times last winter when her husband lost his job and it took him 9 months to find another one, at $8 less an hour than the one he lost. My mother, who worked her butt off raising us and working as a secretary for decades for a pittance and now gets a big $400 a month pension for it, qualified for subsidies for home health aides when she was still home. She'll be applying for long term care Medicaid this month because she has spent all her savings on her medical care. It wasn't her fault, she did the best she could for a woman who had to find a job with a high school degree and 2 kids in 1968 after my father got sick. A lot of people do the best they can and still need help. That is the beauty of the American people to me, that we will help, that we hold up our own when they need it.
This is not the poor against the rest of us, it's the 1% against the rest of us, but I know that will be vehemently denied here.
Very well read.
You have touched on very good points. Many take position on the side of negativity and usually project misplaced angry upon the wrong party (people).
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