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Where did you get the 40% figure? Did you just make that up as a "what if"/hypothetical situation, or do you truly believe the 40% of U.S. citizens are in danger of dying from malnutrition/starvation?
Or perhaps you are saying that because 40% have some kind of food assistance, that means that without it, they would be in dancer of starvation/maltnutrition? If you are saying that, then I think you are wrong. According to the following link from the U.S. government, approximately 45,400,000 people in the U.S. now have some kind of food assistance. If you use the estimated population of 325,000,000, that is about 14 percent, not 40 percent. (Yes, these are only approximate figures, but no way is the 40 percent figure that you used accurate.)
I pulled that number out of the air. My point was that if the government can't protect its citizens, or at least try to, then they're not much good. Helping citizens is literally the govts only job. 45,400,000 is still a lot of people, even if it may only be 14% of the total population.
I pulled that number out the air. My point was that the government can't protect its citizens, or at least try to, then they're not much good. Helping citizens is literally the govts only job. 45,400,000 is still a lot of people, even if it may only be 14% of the total population.
Thanks for replying.
However, I think you are also wrong when you said that "helping citizens is the government's only job," although I do think that I understand the point you are making. Still, according to the U.S Constitution, that is NOT the government's only job, I also think this debate is also discussing, in addition to the title of this thread, the following:
To what degree SHOULD the U.S. government care for its citizens and/or residents? When does caring for people cross the line into spoiling and coddling them? Should there be different standards for people with children and people without them?
Again, I do realize that different locations have different experiences for the poor. However, here in the Denver metro area, at least one local TV station, supermarkets and at least some food banks have school supply drives, so there are a LOT of them....
Those are great programs and I'm glad they are offered in your community, but my guess is that things are not that much different in Denver than in the two states I am familiar with, Nevada and California. They have toy drives holiday turkeys, and food banks but they only reach a tiny number of poor families. In Northern Nevada the toy drive served 175 families, that is 175 out of a greater metro population of almost 400,000. The toys for tots wish list closes in July, there were several hundred families on their 'wait list'. for several years some of my friends and I adopted some of those families, but we weren't able to help more than 5% or 10%. Last year in Sacramento County the Salvation army with help of some retailers gave out 400 decorated Christmas trees to the poor, the population of Sacramento County is 1.46 million and believe me a fair number of the residents here are poor. I don't pretend to have any quick fixes, but I think it would help if we quit infantilizing the poor by doling out wic vouchers and food stamps and a tiny bit of cash because we have decided that there is something about being poor that makes people incapable of making rational decisions. Give them the cash equivalent, whatever that might be, $700 or $800 a month and let them spend it as they see fit, at least by doing so they will be able to buy the kids a toy for Christmas instead of a stocking full of candy bought with SNAP benefits.
I'm a social worker and I don't think our government coddles people at all. I'm reposting this from galaxyhi because it's comparable to my experiences with people on TANF.
Quote:
Originally Posted by galaxyhi
...At least in MY state at the time i was medically eligible for welfare, and now, the ONLY accrual allowed was/is from one month to the next. If one got $125 in food stamps {my allotment at the time} in January, one had until FEb. 28 {29th} to use them all or they were removed from the card.....so NO they can not be accrued from month to month endlessly as your post implies. Monthly "cash benefits" were all of $189/month for me. That had to cover rent, electricity, basic phone service and whatever heat I could afford to put in the propane tanks {I kept it at 52F until HEAP came in as that was all I could afford to use at $3 and change per gallon at the time, not cheap like now.} Now my state doesn't send out but about $20 in cash benefits/month for that much needed TP every taxpayer is concerned they are paying for. REASONABLE rents are paid directly to the LL now. Utilities can be put on automatic payment at a discounted rate, or paired to Power Partners charitable contributions.
I'm not sure how it works in other states, but in Maryland the process to get welfare is very complicated and long. You don't just apply online and you're done. You have to show up, in person, to each individual office you're applying to and they can be 10+ miles apart, hard to get to.
There are separate offices for WIC, Medicaid, Heating/Cooling, cell phone assistance, rental income assistance, childcare assistance. The workers who work there are poorly educated and underpaid. Sometimes they lose not just your paperwork, but important documents like your Social Security Card. If you forget to bring one document, you have to leave and come back and start the process over again. Have you ever gone to the DMV before everything became more automated? It's kind of like that, but with separate entities. You have to reapply every year. If you actually qualify, you're given the bare minimum to cover expenses.
Also WIC in Maryland is very basic. They only subsidize one type and brand of formula and if your baby is allergic to it (which happens often), you're on your own. You get 8oz of cheese (it must be WIC approved, so no fancy, expensive cheeses and they must be solid, no jalapeños or anything in them), 2 cartons of cereal, a can or bag of beans, whole milk (cannot be anything but whole), eggs (the cheapest dozens), 1 jar peanut butter, 2 cans tuna fish and a $10 voucher for vegetables and fruit biweekly. That's it. No meat. No anything else than what I just described.
Put your numbers in context please.
TOTAL Government Spending in 2015: 3,504 billion (100%)
Government Spending on Handouts in 2015: 2,207 billion (63%)
Made up of Social Security (814 billion), All forms of Government Assistance to the poor (537 billion), Medicare (498 billion), Medicaid and Health Insurance Subsidies (358 billion)
Defense: 633 billion (18%)
Everything else: 664 billion (19%)
Breaking down some pieces of the above:
Homeland Security (60 billion), SNAP/Foodstamps (74 billion), SNAP/Foodstamp Fraud (0.75 billion)
We, as a country, spend 2,207 billion on handouts to the poor/elderly/disabled, for everything, including food. And 633 billion on the military. The military is what tax money is SUPPOSED to be spent on, according to the constitution.
The military is not the problem. And food stamp fraud? That's not even big enough to be "chump change" lol.
I don't consider medicare and social security handouts to the poor. Those are programs people pay into for most of their working lives and while you can say that some people realize more than they put in there are plenty of people, like my father who die before they ever see a penny of their contributions. 2014 Federal Spending: SS & Medicare
Social Security 851 Billion
Medicare 511 billion Total: 1362 billion Need Based Programs
Medicaid and CHIP 325 billion
Safety Net Programs 370 billion (including)
Earned Income Tax Credit
Child Tax Credit,
Supplemental Security Income
SNAP
school meals
low-income housing assistance
child care assistance
energy bills assistance
various other programs such as those that aid abused and neglected children.
Some commentators need to get a grip. None of us are insulting welfare recipients. We're not talking about cutting anybody off. We are discussing the fraud committed by some. Fraud is an expense to the taxpayers. We have every right to discuss a means of lessening the fraud without hurting the recipients.
I don't really care if welfare recipients were able to buy "junk food" snacks. That only means they'd have to learn how to budget and plan meals around those purchases. Gosh, why such a big deal?
Someone brought up the issue of toiletries and other non-food items. I'm sorry, but what makes you think the taxpayer should pay for everything? There are many ways of making enough money to buy those extras -- raking leaves, shoveling driveways, walking dogs, washing cars, etc. The taxpayer shouldn't be expected to take care of all needs and wants of people who won't lift a finger to help themselves. If we make welfare too comfortable to be on, everyone will want to be on it.
It's my understanding that most of the people on food stamps get extra money for the non food items. I got curious when I first saw a Latino family with about 8 kids and 3 grocery carts and had non food items , and used the card. Someone said they thought you couldn't use a food card for those things, and the cashier said "They can. They get cash benefits too." I couldn't believe that, so I looked it up, and sure enough, they do. I don't know if you have to have a certain amount of kids (they seem to get a lot) or any of the details. I had never heard of anyone getting that before, even working closely with people needing help. They always got regular food stamps, no extra cash.
"I have seen people purchase non-food items with an EBT card. I thought SNAP was only for food?"
Yes. SNAP benefits are only for food. However, some people have an EBT card for their TAFDC (cash assistance) benefits. You can use TAFDC benefits to purchase food and non-food items. For information on TAFDC eligibility, contact your local DTA office.
For a comprehensive list of permissible foods to purchase with your SNAP benefits, please visit the USDA website.
Our primary data source was the USDA/FNS, the agency that directly administers the program. They keep much more detailed reports, and a wider variety of them, than what you'll find through the CBO because it's their own program. We went to Washington ourselves; we interviewed figures in program administration and had access to data current to the end of the 2013 budget year, which at the time was the latest available.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow
They blame it on the recession. Yes, we got raked over the coals then, didn't we? Our tax dollars went to give more food stamps, in addition, 99 weeks of unemployment paychecks.
Don't forget that those who had recourse to unemployment benefits had been paying into the system themselves as taxpaying workers, often for many years, before they ever applied for benefits. That's what a safety net is for. You pay in, and if you need it, it's there. That's hardly theft, or even reallocation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow
I would like to know the definition of "many communities and households". Is it even half of the 18 million reported in 2010? A quarter? Ten percent? Even 1%?
I have no problem revealing my numbers. We went to three diverse states, and worked with seven different Department of Social Services offices in both urban and non-urban areas. We said we wanted to interview a wide variety of SNAP recipients: We gave them a sizable range of criteria suggested by our contacts at the USDA/FNS, cases were selected for us by DSS caseworkers based on our list and the willingness of clients to be interviewed, and from our final list we talked with a total of 97 selected households. We also spoke with owners and managers of over a dozen different shops, of four types, that accept EBT cards, and did on-the-spot interviews with 186 clients waiting for counter service or appointments at DSS offices.
While you may not be satisfied with those numbers, I have no doubt that this exposure gave us a much clearer picture of the situation than the average forum participant. And that's precisely why I joined this thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Three Wolves In Snow
what you may have run in to are those who were ineligible to receive food stamps longer as something in their household income level changed. However, that does not negate the fact that people will do all kinds of things to skirt the rules in order to show that they have no income.
The states we selected permit SNAP recipients to stay on the program for several years if not indefinitely, if they continue to qualify, yet the average time on benefits still averaged out to 8-10 months, except for in two urban service areas with uncommonly high unemployment due to migration of jobs to outlying suburban areas that can't be accessed from the inner city by public transportation.
Our DSS contacts explained that most people do indeed stop receiving benefits because their income changes. That's the point; it's meant to be "supplemental" in times of inadequate income, and that's how we found the vast majority of able-bodied, working-age adults use it.
We did find that many of the households we visited had at least one able-bodied adult in the home, and those individuals were in fact employed in every case except for a few in those two markets mentioned above, and five households where the adult in question was the primary caregiver for a disabled or elderly person, or children under the age of five. Benefits were needed in the working households because their weekly cheque was inadequate to support the family.
Not one person we spoke to said they liked being or wanted to be on SNAP, black, white, or brown. Many of the stories SNAP recipients shared with us were downright heartbreaking, and we saw a good many people in tears as they talked about their lives. They are aware of the stigma, and they feel it, even in neighbourhoods where most everyone receives some sort of social welfare benefits. The stereotype of people delightedly accepting every handout they can get didn't jibe with the reality we saw, even at inner cities. The closest we found were individuals who had simply "given up" in the face of sustained adversity.
We also spent a good deal of time observing and interviewing clients at DSS offices, went through a SNAP eligibility interview in each state (which we found to be quite thorough), and attended mandatory job-seeker programs many states require for participation in SNAP by healthy working-age adults. It's no fun having recourse to benefits. I'd call it demeaning, and most of our interviewees on both sides of the counter agreed with that assessment.
Exemptions from the job classes for able-bodied adults are hard to come by, by the way, and the participants we interviewed seemed to genuinely want to find employment. Many we spoke to were frustrated in their search primarily because they did not own or have access to reliable transportation to get to the jobs to which they apply.
I don't expect you to change your opinion, here. I'm simply reporting what I saw for myself, which again is considerably more than what the average person on this forum ever would. I used to buy into some of the stereotypes myself. I can't do that now. DSS caseworkers we interviewed say the iconic "welfare queens and kings" are actually quite rare, and I believe them. I was glad to wrap that project. It was depressing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whocares811
I think the above is an excellent post and makes some good points, although I would disagree that it is "essential" (psychologically or otherwise) "to be able to enjoy a little comfort food." People in many other countries do not, I think, even know what comfort food is, and yet they manage to get by without it. I think that to encourage the consumption of food for "comfort" is to encourage poor nutrition, bad health and/or obesity.
If people need "comfort" to deal with misfortune, I would suggest such things as a walk or a good book from the public library or conversation with friends -- and none of these cost even a single penny.
I can see where you're coming from, and for myself I would agree that other things are a better comfort than a bowl of ice cream or a bag of crisps. To venture into the factors that cause people to lean on junk food for comfort would take this thread far beyond its intended scope, but suffice it to say that I do understand that for many people, junk food feels better than just about anything else when they're feeling low. (For one thing, there are more serotonin receptors in the gut than anywhere else in the body.)
I would challenge your comparison of American/Western poor to the poor in other countries with this, however. Those people aren't surrounded by junk food, or bombarded with advertisements for it in the media. The feeling of deprivation is a powerful thing when everyone else around you can enjoy something so simple and you can't. I'm not advocating for using all of one's SNAP benefits for unhealthy foods by any means, but to completely disallow them for people whose lives are already pretty miserable, especially the elderly, disabled, and children is a bit harsh.
What we found on our project is that a good many of the able-bodied adults exempted from the DSS job-seeker programs are exempted on mental health grounds, most commonly for diagnosed depression (you have to provide a doctor's letter). Whether that depression is down to genetic major depressive disorder or situational depression from current circumstances, deprivation of simple pleasures has an effect on mental health, especially if a person had access to those foods before they found themselves needing SNAP benefits.
And anyway, it's not as though these people get extra SNAP money to buy junk food on top of everything else, or that many of the rest of us don't eat badly enough ourselves.
This isn't directed towards you, but the most common arguments I've seen on forums like this one for wanting to disallow SNAP recipients from purchasing junk food aren't about wanting them to eat healthy food for their own good. The arguments are generally punitive in nature. Imagine living your life knowing many of the people around you loathe you for being poor. Isn't that, and all of the other fairly basic things you can't do or have in a wealthy nation, punishment enough without denying someone the odd treat?
I pay taxes so street lights can light the street, supposedly to keep people safe.
I just realized my tax dollars ALSO go for lighting the way for thugs from the big city to come here {and often double dip the system by claiming here AND there{fraud}} and commit crimes under the streetlights, like robbery, theft, muggings, rape etc that they THINK won't be seen as it is "dimly lit" in areas near the street lights.
Recently a vacant house was afire with no utilities turned on the other night, and is being investigated. Gee street lights lit the way for a potential arsonist to find his/her/their way to the vacant house to set it on fire?
SO I think it is a FRAUD event that my taxpaying dollars were used in this manner!!!!
Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
Any nonfood items, such as:
pet foods
soaps, paper products
household supplies
Vitamins and medicines
Food that will be eaten in the store
Hot foods
Additional Information
“Junk Food” & Luxury Items
The Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (the Act) defines eligible food as any food or food product for home consumption and also includes seeds and plants which produce food for consumption by SNAP households. The Act precludes the following items from being purchased with SNAP benefits: alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, hot food and any food sold for on-premises consumption. Nonfood items such as pet foods, soaps, paper products, medicines and vitamins, household supplies, grooming items, and cosmetics, also are ineligible for purchase with SNAP benefits.
Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items
Seafood, steak, and bakery cakes are also food items and are therefore eligible items
Since the current definition of food is a specific part of the Act, any change to this definition would require action by a member of Congress. Several times in the history of SNAP, Congress had considered placing limits on the types of food that could be purchased with program benefits. However, they concluded that designating foods as luxury or non-nutritious would be administratively costly and burdensome. Further detailed information about the challenges of restricting the use of SNAP benefits can be found here:
Energy Drinks
When considering the eligibility of energy drinks, and other branded products, the primary determinant is the type of product label chosen by the manufacturer to conform to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines:
Energy drinks that have a nutrition facts label are eligible foods
Energy drinks that have a supplement facts label are classified by the FDA as supplements, and are therefore not eligible
Live Animals
Generally live animals and birds are not eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits. Live fish such as lobsters and other shellfish may be purchased with SNAP benefits.
Pumpkins, Holiday Gift Baskets, and Special Occasion Cakes
Pumpkins are edible and eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits. However, inedible gourds and pumpkins that are used solely for ornamental purposes are not eligible items.
Gift baskets that contain both food and non-food items, are not eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits if the value of the non-food items exceeds 50 percent of the purchase price. To read our most recent notice about Gift Baskets, click here.
Items such as birthday and other special occasion cakes are eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits as long as the value of non-edible decorations does not exceed 50 percent of the purchase price of the cake.
Listing of Eligible Food Items
How FNS Determines Product Eligibility for SNAP Purchase
(Updated 01/26/10)
It's my understanding that most of the people on food stamps get extra money for the non food items. I got curious when I first saw a Latino family with about 8 kids and 3 grocery carts and had non food items , and used the card. Someone said they thought you couldn't use a food card for those things, and the cashier said "They can. They get cash benefits too." I couldn't believe that, so I looked it up, and sure enough, they do. I don't know if you have to have a certain amount of kids (they seem to get a lot) or any of the details. I had never heard of anyone getting that before, even working closely with people needing help. They always got regular food stamps, no extra cash.
"I have seen people purchase non-food items with an EBT card. I thought SNAP was only for food?"
Yes. SNAP benefits are only for food. However, some people have an EBT card for their TAFDC (cash assistance) benefits. You can use TAFDC benefits to purchase food and non-food items. For information on TAFDC eligibility, contact your local DTA office.
For a comprehensive list of permissible foods to purchase with your SNAP benefits, please visit the USDA website.
And in many states TANF cash benefits are loaded on the same EBT card as SNAP benefits
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