Food stamps- should there be restrictions on what you can buy?

[Eva_Luna]

*Originally posted by KellyM *
**Eva Luna, make up what money? When you’re buying food with food stamps, there’s no money to make up. You can’t use food stamps to buy cooking utensils. **

I am well aware that food stamps cannot be used to buy cooking utensils.

That said, if part of the concern about processed foods is that they require less time and effort to prepare than staple foods, my point was that one can overcome that minor barrier with a rather small expenditure of cash. The small expenditure of cash will, even in the relatively short run, assist in keeping the food budget low and thereby stretching the food stamps; as I believe MsRobyn mentioned in an earlier post, the food stamp average budget is about $.80 per person per meal, which ain’t much. If you eat mostly staple foods rather than more expensive processed foods, the food dollar can stretch much further, which in turn leaves more room to eat healthier, but perhaps more expensive things. (Milk instead of soda, for example, or leaner cuts of meat.)

[lee]

It took me a few months to save up for clothes line, a drying rack and clothes pins. IIRC the drying rack was six dollars. The total cost was well under $15. But that was well before we went on food stamps. We were living on $500 a month, but were not on welfare or food stamps. At that time I was able to feed my husband and myself for between $50 and $90 a month. That did mean no convenience foods beyond the fifteen cent a box mac and cheese. I also had to spend enough of my day cooking and doing laundry and such that I could not have worked. As it was the only job I could have gotten was night clerk at a convenience store and I did not think it would be worth the $3.35 an hour to walk that far alone at night.

We went on food stamps my last semester in college, about 6 years after the $500 a month stage. I had no trouble feeding my husband and I on the food stamps we were issued, but then that is the reason for this silly debate. People on food stamps are given enough generally that they can eat decently and even afford some relative luxuries and that has angered some.

[MsRobyn]

*Originally posted by Thea Logica *
**Mtgmt, I agree in principle that the poor shouldn’t have their diets legislated, but when it comes to welfare recipients, we are talking about people who are using other taxpayers’ money to purchase their food, and I think the taxpayers should have a say in how that money is spent.

**

That logic isn’t very good. After all, Airman and I use taxpayer money to buy our food, and no one would dream of telling us what to buy.

**Also, I do believe that working people who are just scraping by should have an easier time getting government aid- the eligibility requirements are such that someone working for a low wage in an area where the cost of living is high (like Las Vegas, where the wage scale vs. cost of living is so skewed that people work two jobs and share rent with a roommate and are still just hanging on by their fingernails) doesn’t really stand a chance- say you live in an apartment where the rent is $600 per month- only $400 of that can be credited toward your expenses, so a pretty good chunk of your outgo is not taken into account when eligibility is determined (at least for a County medical card, I don’t know about food stamps and other forms state and Federal welfare programs). **

Different programs have different eligibility criteria. Some don’t include certain kinds of income at all (the job-training program I went to school on in 1996 didn’t count unemployment or disability income at all, and since that’s what my ex and I were living on, we had an income of zero. Literally zero.), others include every penny that comes in, even the two-dollar rebate check you got when you bought batteries. I kid but little; I once had a caseworker ask if my mother was in the habit of slipping me money when I’d go to visit. If I got any money, I was supposed to report it.

Lots of cities have a disparity between income and cost of living. Los Angeles is a good example. So’s Boston. Sadly, this is not taken into consideration when determining eligibility for aid. They consider the state as a whole, so if rent in Reno is half of what you’re paying in Las Vegas, tough for the Las Vegan.

Robin

Robin

[sghoul]

Mtgman,

I don’t really care about their nutrition. If someone wants to be unhealthy, that is fine. What I care about is using other people’s money to buy luxuries. Foodstamps should be in place to provide the basic nessessities, and cookies and soda don’t fall into that catigory IMHO.

When it comes down to it, when you are spending other people’s money, they have a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it.

[lee]

*Originally posted by sghoul *
**
When it comes down to it, when you are spending other people’s money, they have a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it. **

They do tell you, food stamps can be spent on food.

What is a luxury? When I was spending less than a hundred dollars a month on food, before I went to the store, I marked my grocery list to prioritize it. Yellow was essentials, usually flour, rice, chicken, onions, etc. Then the rest in other colors meaning really should buy, would like to buy if there is enough, and treat. We usually bought one or two treats each month.

Generic sandwich cookies and even some ice cream were good buys and fell before the treat category because they had a high calorie density for the cost. Canned mushrooms at 39 cents for a small can were another expensive food that we chose to buy because the flavor really helped a lot of recipes. Peanut butter was a treat. We got some about every other month because my husband likes it so much.

What would you define as a luxury? What about cheese? The cheapest cheese, not cheese food, costs more than some steak, and steak has been condemned as a luxury. How are you going to limit luxuries? Is chicken a luxury? What about boneless skinless chicken? What if the steak is on sale for less than the chicken? Would you still want those with food stamps to not be allowed to purchase it? What about hot dogs? Are they luxury? Some brands cost more than some steak. Are you just going to put a cost per pound cap on all food? That doesn’t take into consideration how much waste is in a package of meat. I figured out about how much was in bone and in unusable fat when I compared prices: how would you manage that determining cost? How would you factor in changes in relative cost? There are times when some foods are more expensive than others and then some other time when they are cheaper.

[wonky]

*Originally posted by sghoul *
**I don’t really care about their nutrition. If someone wants to be unhealthy, that is fine. What I care about is using other people’s money to buy luxuries. Foodstamps should be in place to provide the basic nessessities, and cookies and soda don’t fall into that catigory IMHO.

When it comes down to it, when you are spending other people’s money, they have a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it. **

Interesting. This goes for people on welfare, people on disability, and people receiving Social Security, right? I mean, that’s not their money they’re getting, so they’d better not be spending it on luxuries.

What’s going to be funny is defining “luxury.” I live in Amish country, so you might be surprised what I consider a luxury.

Julie

[lee]

Disability too? Interesting. Is disability from the government a form of welfare too?

[KellyM]

Is a benefit from a private disability insurance program offered by your employer “welfare”? Why or why not? How is this different from a disability insurance program offered by the government to government employees?

[Guinastasia]

When it comes down to it, when you are spending other people’s money, they have a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it.

And, as MsRobyn pointed out, sghoul, that would include:

Those in the military
Teachers
Police Officers and/or Law enforcement
Politicians
Fire fighters

And anyone else who has a government job. Guess what? Once you pay that money to the government, in your taxes, it’s no longer YOUR money. If it was, by that argument, my boss could say when he pays me, he has a right to see how I spend my money, because it’s reallY HIS money.

[KellyM]

Well, if you ask me I think we should be allowed to say what politicians get to eat. “Dammit, you voted for that bill? Water and stale bread for a month, damn you!”

[Shodan]

*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
**
When it comes down to it, when you are spending other people’s money, they have a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it.

And, as MsRobyn pointed out, sghoul, that would include:

Those in the military
Teachers
Police Officers and/or Law enforcement
Politicians
Fire fighters

And anyone else who has a government job.
**

I’m sorry, but that is ridiculous.

If you work for the government, or for anybody else for that matter, you are entering into a contractual relationship with an employer. You agree to provide a set of services in return for an agreed-on set of compensatory benefits. If you provide the services, your employer has a legal and moral obligation to provide you with the compensation, which has become your property by virture of the fact that you fulfilled your half of the contract.

No such contractual relation exists between welfare recipients and the government. They are not, in other words, doing anything to earn their benefits. That is why it is charity rather than a job.

*Originally posted by Guinastasia *
**
Guess what? Once you pay that money to the government, in your taxes, it’s no longer YOUR money. If it was, by that argument, my boss could say when he pays me, he has a right to see how I spend my money, because it’s reallY HIS money. **

Actually, he could. Contracts often have “morals” clauses (at least they used to) under which the parties agree not to do certain things - and by extension, not to spend their money on certain things - that would interfere with the ongoing relationship between the parties. I could work for a company, for instance, as long as I don’t spend my salary on drugs and hookers and get arrested for it. As long as these conditions are clearly part of the contract, I don’t see any problem. If I don’t like that clause of my contract, I can have it taken out, or go work somewhere else.

Restrictions on what you can buy with welfare benefits are no different. The government seeks to ensure that its charitable benefits are not wasted, by requiring welfare recipients not to spend the money in wasteful or inefficient ways. If the welfare beneficiaries don’t like the restrictions, they can get their money in some other way.

But they have no moral or legal standing to argue that they have fulfilled some service agreement with the government, and are therefore entitled to unencumbered use of a pre-determined amount of money. They haven’t done anything to earn it.

This is not to argue that nobody should ever receive welfare benefits, or that the interests of the recipients are of no interest to the state in setting benefit levels. But if someone is giving out free money, and holds it back until you agree that you won’t use it to buy something he doesn’t like, it doesn’t become your money until after you agree. And then you are obligated to do what you promised.

Regards,
Shodan

[KellyM]

Actually, Shodan welfare does rather resemble a contract; recipients agree to do certain things and the government agrees to do certain things. They even make you sign a document that very much resembles a contract.

[SnoopyFan]

Let’s say you’re one of the people in this thread that believe that people on food stamps shouldn’t be allowed to buy lots of junk food (but shouldn’t be totally forbidden from the occasional yummy).

Let’s say we have a family of 3 and they get, oh, $350 a month in food stamps (seems to be about the average, anyway). And let’s say that the gubment says “Okay, poor people, you can have cookies, but only a certain percentage of your food stamps per month can go to junk food. Junk food is defined by us, here is our handy-dandy list of what is considered junk food. Have fun.” (I could see this working a heck of a lot better than I could other means of control proposed in this thread.)

What percentage should welfare recipients be allowed to use for junk food? Is 5% fair? 10%? Etc etc?

Just curious.

[SnoopyFan]

<Ben Stein voice>

Anyone? Anyone?

</Ben Stein voice>

[amarone]

OK - I’ll kick this off with: 100%

I’m fed up with government interference in our lives. I’m not overenthused with the current welfare programs. But if they offer welfare in the form of foodstamps, they can then just butt out and let the receipient buy whatever food they want.

There ya go - if you want to revive this thread, we might as well start with an extreme position.

[Mockingbird]

*Originally posted by lee *
**Disability too? Interesting. Is disability from the government a form of welfare too? **

It depends if you are talking SSD or SSI.

SSI(Social Security Insurance) could be seen as welfare for the disabled(and they have clamped down because of fraud and are very careful in the review process - almost everyone gets rejected and has to appeal).

SSD(Social Security Disability) requires that you have paid in enough FICA to qualify for recieving benefits. Thus, it is little different than an insurance policy in that event. It is still hard to get through the process because of fraud and those who once were considered disabled on the basis of alcoholism(I am SO not kidding).

[lee]

And VA disability for someone that served less than a month?

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

Shodan, no one would suggest for a moment that those who collect a paycheck from the government are collecting welfare. My remark was made in response to sghoul’s statement that

When it comes down to it, when you are spending other people’s money, they have a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it.

It was a ridiculously broad answer to a ridiculously broad statement.

Robin

[MsRobyn]

On further reading, that was me, not Airman.

Robin, who is going to get him in the habit of logging out one of these days

[Shodan]

*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF *
**Shodan, no one would suggest for a moment that those who collect a paycheck from the government are collecting welfare. My remark was made in response to sghoul’s statement that
quote:

When it comes down to it, when you are spending other people’s money, they have a right to tell you what you can and cannot do with it.

It was a ridiculously broad answer to a ridiculously broad statement.

Robin **

I thought that was what Guinastasia was arguing, that government workers and welfare recipients were both receiving money from the government, and neither should be subject to prior restriction on how they spend that money. In other words, that welfare recipients had the same kind of claim on their benefits that fire fighters and teachers, “and anyone else who has a government job” have on their salaries.

Which blurs the distinction between earnings and gifts. You have a right to what you earn, but not to gifts, by definition.

Originally posted by KellyM *
**
Actually, Shodan welfare does rather resemble a contract; recipients agree to do certain things and the government agrees to do certain things. They even make you sign a document that very much resembles a contract.*

What kind of things do you have to agree to?

Does it include some kind of formal agreement similar to “I won’t waste this money on…”? If so, then we are already doing things similar to what the OP mentioned.

I think part of what is driving this discussion that has not been explicitly brought out is the resentment that many feel when welfare recipients complain that their benefits are not enough to live on. A natural reaction from some people is, “Well, if you didn’t waste your check on junk food, it would go further.”

Obviously, I tend to be one of those people. I remember a woman who works at one of our local food shelves who came to our church to thank us for our support of the shelf, and to talk about what she did and ways in which we could be more effective in our support. One of the things she mentioned was pretty much what we have been discussing, that she was hoping that we would donate more money and less food. Her argument was that then they could buy what they really needed, instead of relying on whatever was on sale at our local grocery store. This made some sense, but then someone (not me) asked what kinds of food donations they really wanted. The food shelf director mentioned two things that stuck in my craw:
[ul]
[li]That she wanted name brands, not store brands. [/li][li]That she would like to see more processed and prepared foods, since, as she put it (this is a direct quote) “These people are not into cooking”.[/ul][/li]Which, as I say, stuck in my craw. The perfectly good and less expensive store brands, which I generally get for my own family, and which can make your food budget go that much farther, are rejected in favor of what people see on TV. For no reason.

And I didn’t think that choosing not to cook for your family was an option. Even for those who work a full-time job.

So I was annoyed, and had to stifle a lot of grumbling under my breath about ingratitude. Fortunately, the food shelf director also mentioned that disposable diapers are always in demand. So when I donate in kind to the food shelf, I give the biggest box of disposable diapers I can find.

But I get the store brand. They can deal with it.

Anecdotal, all of this, certainly. YMMV.

Regards,
Shodan