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

Great Debates
141

The main reason we have food stamps is to offset the cost to consumers of agricultural price supports, such as the high prices of milk, juice, bread, etc. that everyone is here complaining about.

Both food stamps and the commodity purchase program (that Brutus talks about) are primarily farmer subsidy programs. That they also provide welfare to the poor is incidental.

The commodity purchase program, by the way, provides really good food to those who can get it. Invariably, the reason why people don’t get commodity is because their community has not bothered to set up a distribution network. The law makes this responsibility a local one (feds pass to states, states usually to local government), and generally speaking the local government has fallen down on the job. If you think more should be done with commodity food, complain to your mayor/alderman/county commissioner/township trustee/other local government official. It’s their responsibility to be distributing all this free food that is rotting in warehouses. Maybe you should volunteer at a food bank or soup kitchen and then try to get them involved in that distribution. Food banks and soup kitchens are generally eligible to receive commodity food, but it can be hard to pry it away from the people who are holding on to it for no good reason.

Also, let’s not forget that the thousands of military families who receive food stamps. Are you going to tell the families of those who serve our nation that they’re only allowed to have PeopleChow<tm>?

A final point about soda: the water in many communities is unpalatable, or at least unpleasant to drink, and many food stamp recipients live in substandard housing with inadequate plumbing. You cannot buy bottled water of any sort on food stamps. (You may be able to get it on WIC, if you do not have suitable water, but generally this is difficult to arrange and requires that you know your rights as it is unlikely your caseworker will explain it to you.) Soda (generic store brand, at least) is generally the least expensive by volume beverage sold in the store. Buying it makes sense to me.

142

I’m not really a hard ass about welfare. As others have pointed out the government spends much more of our taxes in other areas. I’m a bit worried about this “right” to food, shelter, and medical attention. I don’t believe that a right should come at the expense of other people. I might have a right to free speech but that doesn’t mean you have to pay for it.

Marc

143

McGibson:

I felt much the same way when I first read Nitro’s posts.
Hot button =Welfare=bad lazy man.
Then I went back and really read it again and took a minute to mentally walk in Nitro’s shoes.
I’m 48 years old and if I had get another job, I’m not especially confident that I’d be able to readily find emploment in either of my fields of expertise (computer and technology sales and travel).
My husband works with computers as well. IT is dead locally. We live in an area (outside of Austin TX) where something like 2000 people showed up to apply for 250 positions at the new Target…
Of course we’d take anything we could get if it came to that-fast food, retail sales, washing dishes- whatever.
We’re in a fairly decent position now as our only debt is a low mortgage and we have savings.
But what if one of us became ill.
How would we make it on $315.00 per week before taxes? (45 hours per week X $7.00 an hour.)
I’m not sure that I could do repetitive manual labor on a daily basis for more than 40-45 hours a week without really destroying my body. (And I do consider categorize at cash register or waiting tables as manual labor.)
But what if I was trying my best and we still weren’t making it. Should I feel guilty about accepting a government subsidy for a few years while we struggled to get on our feet?
I’ve worked and paid taxes for over 30 years now.
Why should I be ashamed to receive a little help?

144

Eating “junk food” isn’t healthy, I’ll agree. But eating what many people consider to be “healthy” food isn’t healthy either. I’ve seen people suggesting rice in this thread. Sure, rice is pretty darned cheap. It’s also like eating granulated sugar. If diabetes and obesity are part of the concern, then rice is definitely not the answer. Cheese is definitely not the answer if you’re concerned about obesity and heart disease. Cheap cuts of meat are rarely the answer. Hamburger is pretty cheap, but it’s a terrible nutritional choice. Ground white meat turkey? Much better nutritionally, but twice (or three times) more expensive. I’ve never been able to find a middle ground. Other than beans, I do not know of a cheap food that is good for you in any sort of bulk quantity.

My husband is a diabetic with heart disease. We don’t make a huge amount of money, but we do “waste” our money on prepackaged foods. Why? Labeling. We know what we’re getting, nutritionally. We can watch the saturated fat. We can watch the carbohydrates. If we were on food stamps, you bet we’d be buying some of these things. We’d also be buying diet pop like we do now. Most weeks, we can get 12 packs of pop at 1.50/pack, and that’s generally name brand.

I’m rambling, but I guess my point is this: You can say that someone on food stamps may not buy chips, but if they substitute cheese they won’t be healthier. Our ideas of what is a healthy food mean that there would be silly things exempted. The cheapest foods are not ones you can live on healthily, and when you go to the healthier foods, they aren’t ones you can afford as readily.

That’s the problem.

Julie

145

One could argue that we do all pay for it. Maintaining rights is not free.

146

Hi all, just wanted to throw a couple points into the mix.
I think most people would agree that govt. entitlement should be as limited as possible, and at the same time, society does need to provide a safety net of some kind. Most people on welfare would rather not be right where they are in life. What I find disingenuous is when folks rail against the poor buying items with foodstamps, but are non-plussed when it comes government entitlement programs like artificial price support of sugar. If food prices weren’t artificially higher due to our tax dollars going to support things like this, then the poor could afford more with what money they had and may not not need, or not as much, in the way of food stamps. And as long as I’m picking on sugar barons, a lot of people born into wealth never do a days worth of physical labor and receive this govt. support. I don’t hear anyone calling them lazy.

Snack foods are generally taxable. This seems like a reasonable guideline for what should not be able to be purchased with foodstamps. If it is taxable you pay cash.

People were down on Nitro for having internet access. apart from entertainment, the net is a great source of education and information. You can learn to eat more nutritiously and spend more wisely among other things, and enrich your child’s knowledge so he/she might have better opportunities. Hell, I might not be opposed to free net access as part of a welfare program. And no, I don’t receive any benefits.

147

**jsgoddess, ** unless you have specific medical issues, cheese, eggs, and even red meat in moderation are perfectly good for you. Even if you throw away the yolks, eggs are pretty darn cheap. Plus what about chicken? Cheap, unless you’re buying boneless, skinless breasts, and nutritionally excellent. Lowfat cheeses? Yogurt, which you can even make yourself with basically no equipment as people have done for thousands of years? Brown rice? All sorts of vegetables, some of which are pretty darn cheap? (There’s a reason cabbage and root vegetables are so common in peasant cuisines!) Oatmeal? Whole wheat or rye flour and breads?

Yes, many of these things take work to prepare. But that’s the price you may have to pay for good nutrition on a budget.

148

Having been in charge of IT for a chain of grocery stores, I’m very familiar with some of the issues being raised here.

In order to force nutritional goods on food stamp recipients would be a very expensive headache for the grocers. As they have ultra-slim profit margins to begin with, any additional overhead would be paid for by their customers. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that it would likely cost the average shopper more than subsidizing the current food stamp program costs them.

The problem is in the implementation. Flags, such as food stamp eligible, WIC-eligible, etc., are either UPC specific, or department specific. There is no “Only mark those items which are healthy as food stamp eligible” button. An average grocery store has a database of 15-25 thousand items in it, each uniquely identified only by UPC. The grocer will group these items by department, which are left to the discretion of the grocer. We’ll use the soda as an example. Some grocers will have a department titled Beverages that will encompass Coke, Juice, Bottled Water, and even distilled water. You have two choices, you can either flag the entire department, or you can set the value for each individual item. Considering that for Coca-Cola products alone there are probably over 100 unique UPCs, this would be a nightmare to administer. In the case of WIC, which does require such specific labelling, it’s quite a pain, but the number of eligible items is small enough that it’s not too much of a burden. Therefore, what most grocers do is simply flag everything as food stamp eligible, and turn off the flag for departments such as cigarettes and alcohol.

As for EBT being used to buy cigarettes, yes, in some cases that’s perfectly legal. You’re confusing EBT with food stamps, though. EBT is Electronic Benefits Transfer. If you are only eligible for food stamps, you won’t be getting any cigarettes. On the other hand, welfare recipients also get their money via EBT. As welfare is basically cash, you can use it to purchase cigarettes or anything else you care to.

The stated original intent of EBT was to reduce fraud, although there is some evidence that lining the pockets of large corporations was the actual intent. It did indeed cut down some of the more common methods to abuse the food stamp program, and also had the added bonus of reducing the stigma of food stamp use. You now have to be a really nosy person to know that the person in front of you is using food stamps instead of a debit or credit card. I really like this part, as I would probably feel absolutely horrible if I ever had to ask the government for help, but if it became a necessity, I’d like to suffer that embarassment alone.

There are some problems with EBT, moreso for welfare recipients than food stamp recipients. Firstly, they are basically ATM cards, and they are charged the normal transaction fees by the banks. This causes most people to withdrawl all of their cash at one time, which has many obvious problems. While they have all of the negatives of an ATM card, they don’t share the positives. If the ATM machine doesn’t give me my money, the bank has a very limited amount of time to correct the problem. With an EBT card, the regulations are much more lax. While I could do without a few hundred dollars for a week or so, a welfare recipient is in big trouble if he can’t get his money for a month or longer. Lastly, there is also the issue of privacy. While it hadn’t happened by the time I left that position, it would be quite easy for the government to track every single item you ever purchased. They already track where you use the cards, which is already more info than I’d like the government to know about my lifestyle.

149

by McGibson:

I should hope that if you ever find yourself in dire straights, your child doesn’t suffer because of your precious self-respect.

150

You seem like the right person to ask.
Per my previous post:
Aren’t snacks like snickers bars, doritos, and cola taxable where as say OJ and bread aren’t?

Aren’t they already coded to ring up that way? Seems like it would be easy to use that existing division to determine what was eligible.

151

Lots of things are fine if you eat them in moderation, including Doritos. But people in this thread seem to be assuming that if poor people would just stop buying chips and start buying white rice, everything would be hunky dory.

[quote]
** Even if you throw away the yolks, eggs are pretty darn cheap. Plus what about chicken? Cheap, unless you’re buying boneless, skinless breasts, and nutritionally excellent. **/quote]

White meat is pretty good, yes. I wouldn’t call it excellent, but pretty good. And compared to hamburger, pretty expensive.

Many of them are, sure. Limiting what people may buy with food stamps isn’t going to magically create a bunch of people who like vegetables, though. I love them. Many people don’t.

Ah! Eat like those oh-so-healthy peasants! You, too, can eat like a peasant. :smiley:

Potatoes, for example? Again, if you’re dealing with populations where you fear diabetes, potatoes are not a good choice. Sure, people can switch to turnips. I just bought turnips yesterday. Four turnips was $1.50. A five pound bag of potatoes was $1.85. Only turnips are better for you than potatoes, having both lower carbohydrates and a lower glycemic index. Again, if one of the arguments is that poor people who eat badly are more likely to get sick, there are a lot of cheap foods that don’t help the situation.

All of these things are more expensive than the Wonder bread alternatives. That is my point. A loaf of whole grain bread might cost as much as $2.50 or 3.00. (I live in rural Ohio, so my prices reflect that.) A loaf of Wonder-type bread might be as low as .50.

There is always a price to pay for good nutrition, and it isn’t a cheap one. I stand by my position that it costs much more to eat healthily than it costs (just talking food, here) to eat junk. Assumptions are that certain food are healthy when they are not.

Julie

152

I think that here in Ohio, pop is taxable (there’s a “soda” tax), but candy and chips aren’t.

Julie

153

State sales tax exemption varies by state. Where I live, food is subject to local sales tax but not state sales tax. Other items are subject to state sales tax but not local sales tax. It gets quite complex at times. Keep in mind that vegetable seeds (which are generally taxable) are eligible to be purchased on food stamps.

Back when I did get food stamps I had items ring up as “nonfood” that I knew were food. I would protest this at the counter and they would fix it. Many people will not, though.

The problem with restricting food stamps to purchasing “healthy” food is that there would have to be federally-designated standards of “healthy” – and that means that the question would be decided politically. I’d would not be that surprised that in the end result, Diet Coke would be designated “healthy” but generic granulated sugar would not.

154

Oh, and what about states (like Nevada) that have no sales tax?

155

You are correct, but that would require the state politicians to agree to such a simple proposal, which is most unlikely.

However, you don’t need to use the taxability status. The POS systems already identify items that are flagged as being eligible for food stamps. Retailers already flag the relevant items e.g. to include bread and exclude beer. Changing to a system based on nutritional value will require each state to define what those items are and for each retailer to set up their host data entry systems to get all the flags set correctly. Of course, every state will make its own (different) decisions.

156

Not only do the states vary on what is or isn’t taxable, but there is no such thing as a taxable flag anymore, as a single flag won’t cut it. There are multiple tax flags for each item, as you could technically have an item that is taxable by the state and county, but not by the city. Thus piggybacking on the taxability of an item won’t work very well.

Before it gets brought up, even if a state comes up with a master list of all UPCs that are food stamp eligible (we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of items), you have the issue of getting that information into the registers themselves. While some modern stores/chains with IT departments could probably just join the state’s database to the store’s database on the UPC and do the deal (I overly simplified, as there would be conversion issues, but it’s still manageable), there are many stores that still have old systems, where there is a master register in which all changes are made. Trying to set the flags for all of their products would require a huge amount of labor, the cost of which would be picked up by the consumer. There are also a ton of new products introduced on a constant basis, which would need to be evaluated by the state. None of these things are free, nor even cheap. Leaving the program as it is might turn out to be quite a bargain.

157

Here’s one.

No you can’t buy beer with foodstamps but,

I tried to make my own beer once. The guy at the brewery store was quite proud and vocal about the fact that the cans of malt used to brew up a few gallons was in fact a food product and that he accepted food stamps.

158

For a period of about a year ending a year ago, my mother was on food stamps and unemployment (she was on unemployment so long due to the Sept-11 extensions in 2002, even though her joblessness was completely unrelated to that). At that time I was in college out of state and she was recieving $350 a month in EBT-card style foodstamps for her and my two sisters. On one hand this was more than we had been spending on food per month in previous years when I was at home (I did the shopping at that time since my mother worked all the time). On the other hand, they all ate well and had a full fridge every week, which had never happened regularily before.

In the summer of 2002, I dropped out of college and came back to the area, and she got back on her feet and started a consulting firm. At that time she got off unemployment and cancelled her foodstamps (of her own volition, she wasn’t kicked off). She had about $300 left on the card at the time and tried to get it fed back into the system, and was told that she could not give it back! She ended up giving it to me and my boyfriend and I ate like royalty for the rest of the summer (we were both employed, but were struggling to get on our feet in a new apartment).

Just an odd little story… However, from this experience I will say that it shoul dbe up to the recipient to determine what should be bought (in NYS what is and is not food is clearly spelled out in the grocery stores and it comes up on the reciept what is FS eligible whether one is using them or not.) I love the EBT system, because it eliminates the “buying gum to get quarters” trick (I have seen people use their kids for this) and at the same time eliminates the stigma- no one else in the line, and sometimes not even the cashier can tell that you are ‘on the dole’.

Oh, and one more thing I learned from my mother- in NYS (I can’t say about other places) if you use coupons for food stamp purchases, the amount of the coupon savings is given back to you in cash, not credited to the state. This is useful to pay for things like soap that you buy at the grocery store but aren’t covered.

159

You’re half right-kids should be drinking milk, (unless of course, they are like my sister-lactose intolerant), but except for cranberry, grapefruit, and orange juice, most fruit juice is just as bad, if not worse, than soda pop. It’s all sugar, and it’s horrible for one’s teeth. The citric acid in apple juice, I believe, is supposed to be even worse.

160

Hey! Those peasant cuisines are pretty damn tasty! I don’t like all of it, but things like pierogies, cabbage stews, borsht, potatos, etc. Farmer’s food. I’d love to eat like farmers and peasants-most of it is good, hardy food.

One thing about private charities-in the past, before government welfare programs-did charities help? Not always. The Famine in Ireland is a prime example-there were private charities, but there wasn’t nearly enough-and laissez faire economics were a big cause in the whole mess. The Prime Minister, Robert Peel nearly destroyed his position trying to repeal the so-called Corn Laws.

The idea that private charities will help is ideal-but it doesn’t always work out that way.