# Financial disacuity
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 22, 2014, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949 "2014-12-22T20:10:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 25
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/481 "2015-01-08T00:49:49Z")
> [@Ruken](#):
>
> I’m having a horrible time finding typical savings. There are lots of ways to look at this. Median savings account, retirement account, net worth, overall savings. I don’t even use a savings account.
>
> I do have this:But what about all the people without bank accounts? I’m not sure they averaged in all those zeroes.
>
> 401k balances are up near $100k. But again, lots of folks don’t have those.
Good point. I’ve read news stories that claim Americans have a low, and at times even a negative, savings rate, but I don’t think I’ve ever read a detailed account about it.
[This story](http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/03/18/retirement-confidence-survey-savings/6432241/) claims about a third of Americans have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.
[This link](http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/2011/02/finances-of-the-average-american.html) says the average family has $3,800 in the bank. So the cushion is greater than I thought.
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### Author:  [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/482 "2015-01-08T00:57:55Z")
But still small. Less than a pay check for the median household.
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### Author:  [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/483 "2015-01-08T01:13:36Z")
A neighbor of mine is something of an urban farmer - he has chickens and a few years ago got a grant that allowed him the funds to plant vegetable gardens in empty lots, while paying local kids a little over minimum wage over the summer to help him maintain the vegetable gardens, sell at the big farmers market and deliver produce to local restaurants and stores. He distributed leaflets to houses all over the city and set up a FB page to let people know they could help themselves to the produce - what was going to be left over would go to the farmers market or to the restaurants and markets. That was the plan, anyway. This is a poor region with a high percentage of residents reliant on their Bridge cards.
That program died from lack of interest after two years. He had acres of produce: corn, bell peppers, chard, okra, broccoli, tomatoes, squash, basil, beans, cucumbers, you name it. The kids worked their hearts out.
They rotted. Totally. Nobody, absolutely nobody, took advantage of those lots full of free vegetables.
---
### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/484 "2015-01-08T01:18:31Z")
> [@D\_Anconia](#):
>
> I guess I did. Maybe you could be more clear?
>
> How does paying state sales tax, for example, subsidize the middle class through the federal mortgage interest deduction?
You’re missing the forest for the trees.
The point is not individual taxes, the point is _we all benefit form government programs and services_. All of us. Why distinguish poor people as having extra conditions and restrictions irrelevant to the aim of the program except that you’re treating poverty as something to be punished and the poor as lesser citizens?
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### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/485 "2015-01-08T01:19:33Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> At what point of “harder” will you concede it starts to become nearly impossible?
I can’t say for sure, but I know the average American in poverty isn’t at that point. As has been pointed out, there’s plenty of people in the US who live in poverty and eat nutritious food.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> There’s a thread around here where I point out that some friends kindly replacing my air conditioner one summer not only threatened to get me cut off, but the public aid office threatened me with accusations of fraud. For a lousy air conditioner. The system _assumes_ malice on the part of the benefit recipients and the burden of proof is on the accused - who by definition lacks resources.
That sucks. But I’m not defending the system, I’m arguing food deserts are bunk.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> It puts you in a position where there can be a perverse incentive. Unless a jump in income propels you over a certain level of income it will _harm_ a household to loose benefits. That should not happen in a well designed system. Benefits should taper off in a manner where you are _always_ better off saving money, or accepting a raise, or earning a few extra bucks.
Again, I agree the system is dysfunctional. And again, I’ll restate my conviction that if my financial situation was moving in a direction that meant I’d have to exit the system, I know what choice I would make.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Yes, actually, it does. There are all sorts of health regulations involved in selling food, even on a casual level. There are regulations on _giving away_ food in situations like soup kitchens and food pantries. Now, most of those exist as a safety measure, but they do form a barrier to entry and they do add costs.
There is no government intervention in selling specifically healthy food to poor people. It’s ludicrous to claim otherwise.
Yes, there’s zoning laws and laws regarding food safety. Those laws apply to Taco Bell just as much as it applies to a bodega that sells tons of tomatoes and beans.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> No, it’s because they’ve been _trained_ to eat shitty food. Look at TV ads - lots for processed crap, frozen dinner, donuts, candy, sugar-laden cereals… how many for raw carrots? Collard greens? Plain (not fried) potatoes? Tap water?
They were trained by their culture to eat shitty foods. I’ve been saying that throughout. People have the choice not to eat the food their culture taught them to eat.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> People are not born craving a Big Mac,
I think a taste for salty, fatty and sweet foods are hardwired into people. It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. But, the hardwiring isn’t a death sentence.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> I still think you’re looking for a single answer. There isn’t one. Food deserts are _one factor_ in obesity.
As I’ve said, I’m not looking for an answer to obesity. I’m saying food deserts are nonsense.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> The fact the break room vending machine where I work only offers candy is not why some of my coworkers are obese, but since grabbing a candy bar is sooooo much easier than getting a banana when pressed for time guess what gets grabbed more often than not?
The vending machines have candy bars because people want candy bars. If people were craving carrots and celery on the regular, there would be somebody who would meet that demand.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> It’s NOT the same because a poor person doesn’t have the same resources. A smaller “squander” has a much bigger impact and take much longer to recover from. Any mistake of any size is much, much more penalizing, which makes people much more risk averse, and much less likely to change what is sort-of-working for something new - because if the new is NOT better the consequences are much worse for the poor than the wealthy.
It is the same. Note what I said about proportionality.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Middle class people making crap decisions leading to financial ruin and poor health, even if it’s with “their money”, is just as stupid and just as draining to society as the bad decisions of the poor. If being obese is a moral failing (and many people view it as such) it’s a moral failing regardless of a person’s income.
Obesity, baring a legit medical condition, is a moral failing for anybody, regardless of income.
Middle class people making bad decisions and losing money is harmful. But if it’s their money, it’s not impacting tax payers. If you live off the public dole, your bad decisions impact tax payers. That’s not a hand wave. It’s a valid point.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Well, then since my taxes (yes, I do pay taxes) subsidize middle-class homeowners and their mortgage deductions I demand that they only eat healthy food that I dictate for them. No alcohol or tobacco for them if they want government assistance in the form of tax deductions, public schools, and so forth.
I’m not demanding anybody of any income level eat any particular food. I’m saying poor people could eat well if they wanted to.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> It’s a hell of a lot easier to do that _if you HAVE resources_. By definition, poor people don’t have the resources of better off people. What do you do if _no matter what_ your income for the month won’t cover even the most minimal expenses? If you’re middle-class or higher you probably can weather a month or two of that. If you’re poor that could make you homeless.
Poor people have fewer resources, no doubt. But it’s not a double standard.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/486 "2015-01-08T01:42:22Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> Not true, and you have persistently ignored the points I raised that answer aspects of this. Businesses do not all have perfect freedom in locating themselves, and different businesses have different incentives and constraints relative to various sitings. Real life business is not an exercise of theoretical pure capitalism, with supply elegantly moving to meet demand.
First, I haven’t ignored anything. Read this thread dispassionately and you’ll see that.
You’ve not answered any of the points I raised. I’ll specify again so we can sort this out.
What keeps somebody from selling fruit and veggies in a poor neighborhood, but not alcohol, fast food, etc.?
> [@Peremensoe](#):
>
> I haven’t seen one yet. The link I followed, purported to be such, was not. If you don’t mind, could you provide not only a link, but quote the part that you think is _showing_ this. Thanks.
From [this link.](http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/cdp/healthy-bodegas-rpt2010.pdf)
> [@](#):
>
> Store owners stock what people buy. Therefore, community buy-in and support are essential to help sustain healthy changes.
This supports the demand argument.
From [this link.](http://conscienhealth.org/2014/02/the-persistent-mythology-of-food-deserts/)
> [@](#):
>
> More discouraging for those invested in fighting food deserts is data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In 2009 and 2012 they showed that for the most part, poorer neighborhoods had more grocery stores, not fewer. Promoting access to fresh, healthy food might be a community development strategy that people want to continue pursuing. But we should stop pretending it will surely lead to lower obesity rates.
Grocery stores are as common in poor as in more affluent neighborhoods.
From [this link.](http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2014/02/food_deserts_and_fresh_food_access_aren_t_the_problem_poverty_not_obesity.single.html#)
> [@](#):
>
> A 2011 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed no connection between access to grocery stores and more healthful diets using 15 years’ worth of data from more than 5,000 people in five cities.
This supports the idea that it isn’t lack of availability that keeps poor people from eating healthy.
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### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/487 "2015-01-08T01:50:35Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Once site showed that Indianapolis had _increased_ the stores available to the poor - great, so _now_ it’s not a food desert. That doesn’t prove it never happened in the past, and even if food deserts are rare they shouldn’t exist at all.
But the point is that it never was a food desert. It was an area where people would rather eat fast food.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> If sounds like I’m saying _everyone_ gets government benefits in one form or another yes, I am. Aside from some guy living in a self-built shack in Alaska digging up his own lead ore to make his own bullets to shoot his own food and using leaves on his ass instead of commercial toilet paper, we ALL derive benefits from the government. I’ve yet to meet anyone in life who is _truly_ independent of all other people and doesn’t utilize government programs of one sort or another.
It’s about proportionality. Everybody benefits from government functions, but it’s only reasonable to expect that the more you rely on the government, the more the government has a say in what you do with the resources they provide you.
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/488 "2015-01-08T01:53:30Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> I think a taste for salty, fatty and sweet foods are hardwired into people. It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. But, the hardwiring isn’t a death sentence.
Sure, we’re driven towards sweet, salt, and fat… but those occur in natural, healthy foods as well as engineered fast foods and snacks.
> [@](#):
>
> The vending machines have candy bars because people want candy bars. If people were craving carrots and celery on the regular, there would be somebody who would meet that demand.
It’s also a hell of a lot easier to build a vending machine to sell non-perishables like candy bars than fresh food requiring specific temperature controls and limits on how long the foods can be there before requiring replacement. It’s cheaper and less labor intensive to offer candy rather than fruits and vegetables.
> [@](#):
>
> Middle class people making bad decisions and losing money is harmful. But if it’s their money, it’s not impacting tax payers. If you live off the public dole, your bad decisions impact tax payers. That’s not a hand wave. It’s a valid point.
Except middle class people making bad decisions DOES affect everyone else - it affects them if they go bankrupt, if they lose their houses due to foreclosure, if they make bad food choices and burden the health system, if they suffer chronic diseases that could have been prevented.
> [@](#):
>
> Poor people have fewer resources, no doubt. But it’s not a double standard.
I disagree.
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### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/489 "2015-01-08T01:59:53Z")
> [@even\_sven](#):
>
> Waymore, I get what you are saying.
>
> If you prioritize anything enough, you can usually achieve it. In the US, even the poorest could probably afford a Louis Vuitton or a trip to Bali if they made they prioritized it above all else. I was buddies with a band of Freegans way back in the day, and they managed to live quite well eating out of garbage cans and living in squats, and if any of them had cared to work they would have had ample money to spend on anything they wanted. When I was young I worked for minimum wage, lived low, and saved enough for lengthy overseas vacations.
>
> But just like you said, everything is a choice. And every choice involves a trade-off. And the trade-offs the poor have to make are a lot more disruptive than those of the poor.
>
> It’s just a reality that many poor families are not willing to make the necessary trade-offs to eat healthily. It cuts too many other important things too deeply.
>
> There are only two ways to make choices: rational and insane. Most of us make rational choices, choosing what we feel is the best option based on available information.
>
> A small number of us make insane choices, due to inborn or acquired mental disfunction. These people may make choice based on delusions or distorted logic.
>
> I personally don’t believe the poor are mostly insane. And for those that are-- well what are you going to do? Some people do have genuine mental disabilities. I’m not sure what value it adds to ridicule them.
I agree with what you’re saying here. But, I’m not ridiculing anybody. I have empathy for poor. It’s just seems to me that it’s demeaning to deny somebody has volition or personal responsibility because they’re poor.
But that being said, I appreciate we can discuss this without recriminations. Thanks for the mental workout.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/490 "2015-01-08T02:09:36Z")
> [@chiroptera](#):
>
> A neighbor of mine is something of an urban farmer - he has chickens and a few years ago got a grant that allowed him the funds to plant vegetable gardens in empty lots, while paying local kids a little over minimum wage over the summer to help him maintain the vegetable gardens, sell at the big farmers market and deliver produce to local restaurants and stores. He distributed leaflets to houses all over the city and set up a FB page to let people know they could help themselves to the produce - what was going to be left over would go to the farmers market or to the restaurants and markets. That was the plan, anyway. This is a poor region with a high percentage of residents reliant on their Bridge cards.
>
> That program died from lack of interest after two years. He had acres of produce: corn, bell peppers, chard, okra, broccoli, tomatoes, squash, basil, beans, cucumbers, you name it. The kids worked their hearts out.
>
> They rotted. Totally. Nobody, absolutely nobody, took advantage of those lots full of free vegetables.
That’s sad, but God bless your neighbor. That has to be very demoralizing.
---
### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/491 "2015-01-08T02:10:08Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> I agree with what you’re saying here. But, I’m not ridiculing anybody. I have empathy for poor. It’s just seems to me that it’s demeaning to deny somebody has volition or personal responsibility because they’re poor.
I think it is also demeaning to deny the role of luck or stress on a person’s circumstances. There’s personal responsibility, and then there’s blaming the victim. What is really needed a happy medium.
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### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/492 "2015-01-08T02:20:43Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> I agree with what you’re saying here. But, I’m not ridiculing anybody. I have empathy for poor. It’s just seems to me that it’s demeaning to deny somebody has volition or personal responsibility because they’re poor.
>
> But that being said, I appreciate we can discuss this without recriminations. Thanks for the mental workout.
But if people don’t even know WTF to do with the produce of course there is little interest.
> [@](#):
>
> corn, bell peppers, chard, okra, broccoli, tomatoes, squash, basil, beans, cucumbers, you name it.
Shit I’m the most adventurous eater I know or have ever met, and I don’t even know what I could do with chard? There is probably also a kind of social awkwardness with taking advantage of a program like this, I don’t care if you’re giving it away for free people probably feel like there must be some string attached or an expectation you’ll do some work or give back or…
No wonder people just choose to go grab some shit from the dollar menu at McDonalds.
Again I’m not endorsing it, but I understand why people make these poor decisions. A lot of people also have weird taboos about charity, if everyone you have ever known has used food stamps or government assistance that is different and impersonal. Asking for free veggies from an urban hippie farmer probably feels awkward.
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### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/493 "2015-01-08T02:38:23Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Sure, we’re driven towards sweet, salt, and fat… but those occur in natural, healthy foods as well as engineered fast foods and snacks.
True, but the level of difference is amazing. I’ve read _ **Fast Food Nation** _, and it describes an incredible amount of adulteration that fast and prepackaged foods go through to enhance the sweet, salty, and fatty elements.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> It’s also a hell of a lot easier to build a vending machine to sell non-perishables like candy bars than fresh food requiring specific temperature controls and limits on how long the foods can be there before requiring replacement. It’s cheaper and less labor intensive to offer candy rather than fruits and vegetables.
Maybe. Doesn’t change the underlying fact. Businesses sale what people want.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Except middle class people making bad decisions DOES affect everyone else - it affects them if they go bankrupt, if they lose their houses due to foreclosure, if they make bad food choices and burden the health system, if they suffer chronic diseases that could have been prevented.
Yes, bankruptcy is a bad thing. But wasting your own money, however bad, is not the same as wasting money given to you.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> I disagree.
Then we can agree to disagree on this point.
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### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/494 "2015-01-08T02:39:38Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> I think it is also demeaning to deny the role of luck or stress on a person’s circumstances. There’s personal responsibility, and then there’s blaming the victim. What is really needed a happy medium.
I’ve not denied the role of luck nor the stress of a person’s circumstances. I’m all with you on the happy medium.
---
### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/495 "2015-01-08T02:45:37Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> But if people don’t even know WTF to do with the produce of course there is little interest.
Nutrition is taught in public schools. The federal government has programs like **Lets Move** and others that stress the importance of produce. State level welfare programs often provide nutritional information to recipients.
It’s not esoteric knowledge. Granted, if you grew up in a household where produce was a staple of the diet, you’ll have an easier time eating healthy than somebody without that benefit. But, that’s not a lack of knowledge, but a lack of habit.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> There is probably also a kind of social awkwardness with taking advantage of a program like this, I don’t care if you’re giving it away for free people probably feel like there must be some string attached or an expectation you’ll do some work or give back or…
There isn’t strings attached to food stamps and other programs?
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Again I’m not endorsing it, but I understand why people make these poor decisions.
I think we actually agree here. I get why people eat the way they do. My point is it’s a choice, not something foisted on them.
---
### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/496 "2015-01-08T03:11:04Z")
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> True, but the level of difference is amazing. I’ve read _ **Fast Food Nation** _, and it describes an incredible amount of adulteration that fast and prepackaged foods go through to enhance the sweet, salty, and fatty elements.
So it’s hardly surprising that such foods are as tempting as cocaine, right?
> [@](#):
>
> Yes, bankruptcy is a bad thing. But wasting your own money, however bad, is not the same as wasting money given to you.
The problem is that wasting your own money can result in you needing public money.
That, and if we don’t allow people to make mistakes they won’t ever learn to make their own decisions. One mistake I’ve seen people make their first month on food stamps is making poor choices in food - not necessarily poor nutritional choices but poor choices from a standpoint of frugality. You can NOT purchase organic foods on food stamps and expect to have enough money for the month as just one example. People generally make that mistake only the first month, after which they go “oh, wait - maybe I should buy the less expensive house brand of this stuff.”
> [@Waymore](#):
>
> Nutrition is taught in public schools.
It didn’t used to be. That’s a relatively recent change - and one I applaud. But lack of such instruction can explain part of the problem.
> [@](#):
>
> State level welfare programs often provide nutritional information to recipients.
Really? I’m unaware of any such in my state.
> [@](#):
>
> There isn’t strings attached to food stamps and other programs?
There are some.
The first three months are basically a free ride, assuming you meet qualifications (low income, under asset limit). After that, you have to be employed or the parent of a minor child to keep them (why non-parents who aren’t employed are expected to starve I have no clue whatsoever). In Indiana there’s a program where you either are looking for work under controlled and tracked circumstances or going to school to keep your benefits. I don’t know if all states have such a program. Having _been_ in that program for a bit I have some issues with the practice, even if not the theory, and I don’t want to sidetrack too much into that unless there’s a real call for it.
My spouse, being disabled, is not required to meet work requirements to receive food stamps although he does manage to bring in some money from time to time. He _wants_ to work, but his limitations get in the way.
Another requirement of receiving food stamps is that you NOT have a drug conviction. Again, I don’t know why former felons are expected to starve, this makes no sense to me. It just makes them more likely to engage in crime again because they get hungry just like everyone else. This is an example of a requirement that seems to have no connection to the program’s goals and seems counter-productive to the interests of society as a whole.
> [@](#):
>
> I think we actually agree here. I get why people eat the way they do. My point is it’s a choice, not something foisted on them.
My point is that choices can be influenced. If we really want to help people and maximize the number who climb out of poverty we need to be sure we make incentives for good choices, not bad ones.
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### Author:  [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/497 "2015-01-08T03:15:57Z")
I’m imagining a mother setting a plateful of okra and broccoli and chard in front of her kids…kids who only know boxed mac and cheese and tater tots.
Maybe the mother doesn’t mind coaxing her kids to eat these strange and exotic foods if she had a normal, typical day for a middle-class person. But if her day has been chaotic and stressful, as it is for many poor people, then she probably doesn’t feel like doing the “just one bite” dance at the dinner table. And if she has any caring in her, it will break her heart too. Because her kids don’t have any luxuries. Their lives are just as stressful and chaotic as hers. Everything about their lives sucks…but it used to be they’d get a respite at the dinner table. At least at dinner time the kids could enjoy their hot dogs, tater tots, orange soda, and mac-n-cheese and experience pleasure. But a dinner of strange and exotic vegetables denies them this simple thing.
A poor mother is always telling her kids “NO!” I can see how a poor mother would want dinner time to be that one moment of the day when she can say, “Yes, baby. Whatever you want.”
Confession time: Today I went to the grocery store to pick up some chicken thighs for dinner. I just wanted the 4-pack. But they only had this ginormous value pack with twice the amount that I wanted. I was mad. Not only did the value pack cost more (overall…per unit it was cheaper) than the 4-pack, but I had to buy some freezer bags so I could freeze the portion I didn’t want.
Then it dawned on me that I could go over to the deli and buy some fried chicken thighs. I had planned on baking the chicken, but fried is good too. And not only would the fried chicken be more delicious than whatever I managed to pull out of my oven, but it was cheaper than the mega value pack. AND I wouldn’t have to cook a damn thing or wash a greasy pan. WIN WIN WIN.
I caught myself almost making a “poor decision” and ended up getting the mega value chicken thighs. But I kind of had to shame myself to do it.
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### Author:  [@Waymore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waymore)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/498 "2015-01-08T03:27:29Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> So it’s hardly surprising that such foods are as tempting as cocaine, right?
Not surprising at all. But paupers and princes are the end result of the same evolution. Poor folks can eat well if they want to. Many poor folks do.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> The problem is that wasting your own money can result in you needing public money.
True, and once you start getting public money, the need not to be foolish with money increases.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> It didn’t used to be. That’s a relatively recent change - and one I applaud. But lack of such instruction can explain part of the problem.
[According to this link](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_USDA_nutrition_guides), the USDA has been educating people about nutrition since 1894.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Really? I’m unaware of any such in my state.
Sleuthing around, I found [this.](http://www.fns.usda.gov/fmnp/wic-farmers-market-nutrition-program-fmnp) That’s federal.
Found [this](http://www.in.gov/isdh/files/2014_FMNP_Handbook.pdf) for Indiana.
> [@](#):
>
> Nutrition education is provided to all WIC participants, parents, and guardians of infants and
> children to ensure that the supplemental foods will be used properly.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Another requirement of receiving food stamps is that you NOT have a drug conviction. Again, I don’t know why former felons are expected to starve, this makes no sense to me. It just makes them more likely to engage in crime again because they get hungry just like everyone else. This is an example of a requirement that seems to have no connection to the program’s goals and seems counter-productive to the interests of society as a whole.
Doesn’t seem like asking too much for people receiving benefits not to be on drugs.
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> My point is that choices can be influenced. If we really want to help people and maximize the number who climb out of poverty we need to be sure we make incentives for good choices, not bad ones.
I don’t disagree.
---
### Author:  [@D\_Anconia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Anconia)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/499 "2015-01-08T03:29:34Z")
> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> You’re missing the forest for the trees.
>
> The point is not individual taxes, the point is _we all benefit form government programs and services_. All of us. Why distinguish poor people as having extra conditions and restrictions irrelevant to the aim of the program except that you’re treating poverty as something to be punished and the poor as lesser citizens?
Then why did you say that you’re subsidizing middle class homeowners, when it’s clear that you are not?
---
### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/financial-disacuity/707949/500 "2015-01-08T03:32:42Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> Shit I’m the most adventurous eater I know or have ever met, and I don’t even know what I could do with chard?
Use it like spinach, bok choy, or nappa cabbage.
> [@](#):
>
> There is probably also a kind of social awkwardness with taking advantage of a program like this, I don’t care if you’re giving it away for free people probably feel like there must be some string attached or an expectation you’ll do some work or give back or…
Yes, that might well be part of it. Fear of being accused of theft as well.
Maybe if they charged nickel or a quarter to harvest from those lots people would be more likely to do that? I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes people attached a vastly different value to things that require even a token payment. If it’s free what’s wrong with it that they’re giving it away? Oh, but there’s a charge? Well, it must be worth something, then! Not entirely logical but people do think like that.
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