Why is this the only food they know?
That’s shortsighted. Teach your kids to eat well will pay dividends for the rest of their lives.
And many poor folks don’t. Many non-poor folks don’t eat well. How do we solve this problem?
Whatever they’re doing it’s not working.
I don’t recall getting any nutritional education in school whatsoever. Did you?
That’s nice. You do realize that WIC is not synonymous with food stamps? As I do not and never did have children I will never be on WIC and therefore will never be offered such instruction (as it happens I don’t need it, but other non-parents do). Again, the rules are different for parents and non-parents. There are far fewer services for non-parents and I don’t understand why because non-parents get just as hungry and need shelter just as much as parents.
People bitch about the poor having children - yet the system is set up to give so much more to parents than non-parents. Is that really an incentive we want to promote?
You misunderstand.
It makes no difference how clean and sober you are now, if you have EVER had a drug conviction EVER you can never receive food stamps. Never. Got arrested and convicted for smoking a doobie in 1978? Sucks to be you. Even if you’ve been clean and sober as a Mormon since 1980 you can never get food stamps because you have that drug conviction from 35 years ago.
Does this make sense? It doesn’t to me.
Oh - delicious irony. Remember that Florida politician who wanted random drug tests for people on food stamps and other government aid? He was recently arrested for cocaine possession. If he wants to require recipients of government money to be drug free that should also apply to him, seeing as his paycheck is paid with government funds. He shouldn’t be willing to impose requirements on others he can’t pass himself.
Are you being deliberately thick?
The point is that we ALL benefit from government programs. ALL of us. The roads, the sewers, the police and fire coverage, medical research, emergency personnel, the National Guard during disasters, the interstate highway system, safety systems for transportation networks like railroads and airlines, various tax breaks, tax credits, subsidies, special programs, and so on.
NO ONE exists without benefiting from services society provides. So don’t get all high and mighty about how you’re independent and self sufficient. You aren’t. We’re all in this together. Maybe you have no qualms about chucking people over the side of the boat but I for one find it reprehensible.
Broomstick, this is what YOU said in post #466:
You don’t subsidize anything of the sort. Why are you saying things that aren’t true?
Fine, you don’t get the point I was trying to make. Keep focusing on the bark and ignore the forest.
One shouldn’t have to resort to false statements in order to prove one’s point.
I don’t know. It’s a cultural thing, but how do you change culture? I think the foodie culture that has arisen makes people think more about what they consume, but that seems like a strictly middle class phenomenon.
Yep, sure did. I graduated high school in 1996.
Always bugged me that beans and peanut butter was included in the meat group. When I substituted protein for meat, it made more sense.
I know of WIC, SNAP and so on, but not in great detail. Point is, knowledge is being disseminated.
Probably not. I agree, the welfare system screws with peoples’ incentives in a bad way.
Didn’t know all that. If a person is confirmed sober but had issues in the past, I see no reason why he or she shouldn’t be able to receive help. But, being sober while on the dole doesn’t strike me as being an egregious requirement.
Not arguing that his actions were okay, but I think there’s a distinction between earning money working for the government and being giving benefits.
I only recognize one of those…
I really don’t have a dog in this fight…but I do remember being poor and living in the sticks because it was cheap. I used to live in Spring Valley AZ. A very nice quiet and safe place to live. Look at the google map and see if you can find a store that sells real food closer than 20 miles. Even if you wanted to walk to the fast food places, it would be on an unlit highway. There were a couple of places about 4 miles from my home that carried milk, black bananas and wrinkled oranges.
I was able to deal with it because I had a job and drove 30 miles to work every day. I could stop at a grocery store on the way home.
Those other people living there because it was cheap? Some of them bought their food once a month, the rest of them lived on fast food because they couldn’t get anywhere without driving and gas was more expensive than a Big Mac.
It sounds like you just want to moralize rather than understand.
Earlier, we were talking about the smart and thrifty immigrants who know to get them some vegetables, hell or high water. That will likely change as more of the world becomes “coca-colinized”. When there are no longer any role models to point to because everyone in the neighborhood is addicted to colas and cheetos, then talking about “individual choices” becomes empty speechifying.
Go to a typical inner city public school and compare it with your typical middle-class suburban one. Which one is more likely to have vending machines stocked with junk food because it can’t fund-raise any other way? Which one is more likely to be across the street from a convenience store or a fast food joint? Which one is more likely to have a student body who is unsupervised at the end of the day, and thus better able to pig out on chips and soda and cookies? Which students are more likely to be so stressed out from their life circumstances that they will be compelled to seek solace in food?
Junk food is tragic. If a parent exposes their kid to it at an early age (whether out of ignorance, laziness, or malice), then it can be difficult to get that child on a healthier track later in life simply because their taste buds have been trained on high-salt, high-fat, high-sugar foods. If your baseline is set to “high”, then any non-processed foods you encounter will likely taste horrible. Just another reason why junk food is so addictive.
But just keep coming up with those pithy sayings. That should fix this very complex problem.
Explaining away dumb behavior never solved anything. Neither did snark.
Just for reference, a LV purse new is about $1500 - a starter purse. A clutch, you might find used for $200. You aren’t going to find them at a thrift store even if you know what you are looking for, unless lottery tickets are a realistic investment item for you (another case of financial questionable behavior)
Those LV purses you see people carry are counterfeits. Unless you live in the type of area where people carry $2k purses.
Hermes, Gucci, and Prada are similar. If you are seeing them in a thrift store, its almost certainly a counterfeit item - reputable thrift stores won’t even touch them because selling counterfeit is illegal and they aren’t staffed to evaluate them. If you know what you are doing and ever see it in a thrift store, its like winning a lottery. Poor folks are not getting their LV bags from a thrift store - they are buying counterfeit ones from the back of a truck.
Now, I saw a really cute Kate Spade at my local Goodwill - that was a $300 purse new for $45 used (and not gently) at Goodwill. But even Goodwill knew a Kate Spade purse was a $45 purse. And if poor people are buying $45 designer purses in bad shape a Goodwill, that isn’t a great financial decision - you can get a new Dooney or Michael Kors (sometimes a Coach, and almost certainly a bunch of mid-range designers) new from TJ Maxx for that if you shop regularly enough to score a Kate Spade at Goodwill.
Another problem with the foodie phenomena is that there is far too much emphasis on organic foods and high-end items.
You don’t need balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil to make an acceptable salad dressing. Bog-standard red wine vinegar and standard cooking oil like canola or soy will do just fine, add a sprinkle of a cheap herb mix and a dash of pepper. But that’s not what foodies promote, it all seems to be exotic ingredients.
What we need is a foodie promoting inexpensive foodie stuff.
Well, there’s a difference, then - I graduated in the early 1980’s, over 15 years earlier than you.
Those who are not interested are welcome to skip the next bit…
SNAP is “food stamps”. A case worker looks at your income and assets and plugs it into a formula, counts up the size of your household, and determines your monthly benefit. This does not allow for a luxurious sort of diet, but will allow someone to eat an adequate diet for the most part. It could be a problem for a highly active male teen, as they tend to inhale vast quantities of food, and when I was still working construction I had some problems getting adequate amounts of protein (always seems to be the most expensive part of a diet, doesn’t it?) but since the boss would buy me lunch occasionally it was tolerable. I’ll also point out that I have had a large garden most years, growing most of our vegetables which also helped out. For those unable to garden, being in the SNAP program pretty much automatically qualifies you to eat at local soup kitchens and go to local food pantries - although those can have issues, too.
SNAP is a “cash” grant - it’s not really cash, it’s a plastic card attached to an account. You can ONLY spend that money on food. Most stores distinguish between qualified and unqualified items automatically so there’s a lot less human error and/or cheating than in the past. However, there is no restriction on what sort of food you can buy. You get your benefit, you make the choices. If you do really well not only can you eat adequately you might well have sufficient funds to pay for a luxury item or two once a month. (There’s a customer at my current store who waits for lobster tails to go on sale and buys two - some people would get hysterical over that, but she’s damn frugal otherwise, why shouldn’t her financial savvy be rewarded by an occasional treat?)
The disabled get a slightly higher amount than the able-bodied. It’s not much, but for someone like my spouse who has issues both because of medical conditions and physical limitations it does help out. Unfortunately, I get no breaks despite my food allergies - I can’t eat peanut butter, it makes me sick, but the equivalent other nut butters are 2-3 times more expensive. Well, there’s a reason I have a large garden, you know? It helps immensely. Unfortunately, it didn’t do well this last summer so I’m buying more vegetables than usual these days. Fortunately, my employment situation is improved so that’s not a calamity.
Your benefit scales with your income. Up until about 4 months ago my household was getting $347 a month for two people. Then my income went up. Right now we’re getting $150 a month - but we can live with that. I am making sufficient money to kick in the rest we need to eat decently. Yay, me.
Back in 2009 I did a thread called Ask the Person on Food Stamps which gets into more details on the first time we were on the program, including work/job search requirements. I did get off them for a few years, but then the asshat I was working for decided to stop paying her employees and we fell off a financial cliff again. I’m working my way back up from that.
Issues with food stamps: The aforementioned stupidity regarding convictions in the distant past. Filling out the required forms and documentation is like doing my taxes, except I get to to do it twice a year. Seriously. The official form is like two pages but you have to supply a crapload of information in addition to that, especially if you’re self-employed, have a retirement account (which may or may not be counted as assets), more than one vehicle, more than one employer… Not fun. Disabled people on disability benefits have those benefits counted as income which results in seriously diminished benefits or disqualification, despite the fact that it generally costs more to be disabled than able-bodied and arguably these people need more help, not less.
WIC is for Women Infants and Children: yeah, duh, but stop and think about it - back when I worked in social services we had to go to court so a father could get this for his kids. No, HE didn’t qualify but his infant son and two toddlers did (mother was in an irreversible vegetative state, not in the picture anymore). Normally it’s mothers in this program but yeah, fathers or other guardians can collect on behalf of children.
The point is to ensure that pregnant women, nursing mothers, infants, and toddlers get adequate nutrition. (This is important. My spouse’s birth defect has a very high correlation with poverty and inadequate nutrition, maybe if his mom had had access to WIC her first child wouldn’t have died and her second would have been able-bodied. He did pretty well anyhow, for awhile. When I met him he had a six digit income but then he got older and less able.) Anyhow, it’s a pain in the ass. Instead of a plastic card you have paper vouchers which must be filled out at the cash register. The vouchers are VERY specific, ridiculously so - it might say something like one 36 ounce juice or two 18 ounce bottles of juice and that’s all you can use - you can’t substitute six 6 ounce juices or three 12 ounce bottles. Or might say 48 ounces in one or multiple bottles. It’s confusing as hell, so when a customer is checking out and presents one of those I always call over someone more experienced to help me out.
Issues with WIC: As noted, it’s a pain in the ass to use those paper vouchers, and the time involved will often piss off anyone standing in line behind the new mom, infant, and possible other young children in tow. It is VERY heavy on dairy, which sucks if you’re lactose intolerant, which about 2/3 to 3/4 adult humans are. Bizarre specifications. There’s got to be a better way to organize that program.
Yes, but there are ways to mitigate the system even as it is.
As an example, Eastern Market in Detroit not only came up with a system allowing their vendors to utilize the food stamp program without undue burden, but it also has a program where food stamps go 2 to 3 times farther - $1 in food stamps are treated as $2 or $3 when purchasing fruits or vegetables or other features items (someone is subsidizing this so the vendors aren’t out the money). Now, there’s a incentive to buy healthy food. Does it always work? Probably not, but hey, it’s an interesting attempt.
I think the way unemployment benefits scale out does work. I think it should be considered for other programs rather than a sudden cut off.
I would like a little bit more benefit with the SNAP, with today’s prices it really is a tight amount, but yeah, you can live on it if you have to. As noted, being on that program makes it pretty certain you can use soup kitchens and food pantries if you need a little more help.
I’d like some sort of help for the very poorest (like homeless folks) for purchasing necessary toiletries like, well, toilet paper, tooth paste, shampoo, soap, shaving supplies for men, menstrual supplies for women, and the like. Currently, if you’re truly destitute you have three choices: 1) steal what you need, 2) somehow convert your food stamps to cash (which is illegal) or 3) hope your local food pantry/kitchen/shelter has free supplies of that sort for you (a lot do, but not all). Not sure of the logistics of all that, but if we can make a voucher or account system work for food surely we could do this for grooming products?
Well, except for the whole problem of addiction not having an instant cure… We let alcohol and nicotine addicts get food stamps, why is that different?
Anyhow, IF we have adequate amounts of addiction treatment programs (we don’t. We just don’t.) I’d say either clean OR in treatment… but saying “you get to starve” because of something that happened 10 or 20 years ago is just stupid to my mind.
Why?
In either case the money is coming from taxes. Again, that’s just treating the poor as second class citizens.
That’s why I listed three items, I figured 99% of people would recognize at least one of them. 
Yes, actually you can. Sure, lots of knock offs (and some of those designer things on poor people that wealthier people complain about are, indeed, knock offs, particularly Vuitton stuff) but back when I was working as a cobbler we saw a LOT of designer goods come in for repair/cleaning that were bought at thrift stores.
You’re assuming the people processing donations would even recognize the real thing.
Yes, I agree the Vuitton stuff is almost always fake. Other stuff isn’t. Coach, in particular, seem to last forever if they’re given any care at all and I think a lot get tossed/donated from the estates of little old ladies when their heirs don’t recognize the value of what they have.
I’m with you on this.
True. But the government’s been schooling folks on how to eat for decades and decades. Obviously they haven’t reached everybody, but the information is not hard to come by, and is sometimes is hard to avoid.
Lots of good ideas here.
Alcohol and tobacco aren’t illegal.
Because there’s a difference between earning money and being given money. I’m not saying it’s cool for government employees to be on drugs. But the statistician that works for the Census Bureau and the guys who pick up trash for the city are in a different category than somebody who receives benefits, even if the money ultimately comes from tax payers.
Plus, passing a drug test is a must for pretty much any job. Lots of places test employees regularly. If somebody has drug issues such that it interferes with their ability to hold a job, they suffer negative consequences.
So, being sober, or at least able to consume while still being productive, is part of the employment culture in the US. Only makes sense that we would encourage those who are having a tough time financially to be part of the same culture.
This thread has become hijacked unrecognizably from the OP, which was about people who, by their own description, make blindly erroneous financial decisions. Instead, it’s become, once again, a thread about how Broomstick makes wise choices.
It’s a really neat system that’s also super simple. There are several stations throughout the Market set up for this. Essentially, you swipe your Bridge Card* and you “buy” X number of tokens for Y amount (they have the exact value on display). Then you go around the market.
All the vendors that participate have their prices in both dollars and tokens. You can buy their products with your tokens. At the end of the day, the vendors turn in the tokens they’ve gotten to the Market, which then gives them the equivalent cash in exchange.
- the name of Michigan’s EBT card.
Monstro: Do you understand what poor means? It means a severe shortage of money. So it doesn’t matter whether the school has vending machines, or is across the street from convenience stores or fast food joints: poor students can very, very seldom afford to buy anything from them. A poor student’s choice for food are subsidized school meals or perhaps sack lunches from home.
Are you saying that poor kids do NOT have vending machines stocked with junk food, do not attend schools that are in easy access of fast food, and do NOT have have life circumstances that enable overeating?
Because regardless of how much disposable income they are supposed to have, these are basic facts. And I’d argue that it almost doesn’t matter if they don’t actually buy anything. They are still heavily marketed to. A soda machine next to the cafeteria is an endorsement of soda.
There’s a whole black market of dirt cheap junk food, managed by entrepreneurial-types. My school bus driver in middle school was our main supplier. If you wanted blow pops, hot fries, cheetoes, little Debbies, she’d hook you up for the low low price of a quarter. Everyone on the bus–middle-class and poor kids–would fill up on all these goodies (what else are you gonna do on an hour-long bus ride?). Very few people are too poor to scrounge up fifty cents over the course of a day. If it hadn’t been the bus driver(!) supplying this demand, it would have easily been one of the kids. My high school orchestra had its own “candy dealer”, who got us all hopped up during rehearsals. The girl was so savvy that she let us buy on credit (I once googled her name and found that she’d become a fitness instructor. The world is so funny sometimes!)
Ha! 
These threads always turn out the same: the apologists for the poor & downtrodden versus those who have the nerve to expect a certain amount of personal responsibility from people. The solution from the former is always the same: a new/better government program! :rolleyes: