Food Stamps: What can and can't you buy?

Great Debates
21

In 70s they gave you food instead of stamps. The agriculture department gave the food. It was the most foul tasting food you can imagine. You’d get like 10 lbs of dry milk per week & 20lbs of flour, 10 lbs corn meal, canned orange juice. yuck.

My friend asked me to buy some food for her once with her food stamps. I went to the same store as usual & the clerk gave the most foul look. All that just for using 2 bucks of stamps. sigh. The things people who are trying to make something of themselves have to deal with. sigh

22

I remember seeing something on 60 Minutes about 5 years ago that indicated you could buy a rocket launcher with food stamps (at least in south Florida).

23

Wow, amongst all the topics where the best I could do was a smart-ass remark, I finally get a topic I know something about.

During the first three-and-a-half years of my college life, I was a cashier at Albertsons #4235 (located in Wichita Falls, Texas). We took food stamps and also particpated in the Texas WIC (“Women, Infant, and Children”) program.

Dr. Jackson was dead on the mark.

We had basically three kinds of products at our store:

– Non-taxable food you could buy with food stamps, like cereal, milk, and bread.

– Taxable food you could buy with food stamps, like soda and chocolate bars. Naturally, we had a special cash register key that removed the tax calculation when the purchaser was paying with stamps.

– Everything else, which inluded beer, cigarettes, tennis balls, and hot food prepared for consumption (such as fried chicken) in our store’s deli. In all honesty, this category was subdivided by department, but that’s not relevant here.

The whole time I was there, I probably reprimanded less than ten customers on the proper use of food stamps. Of course, there were the folks that would purchase just enough to get $0.90 in change and then come back later to buy cigarettes with three such handfuls of coins, but they were a rare (and desperate) breed.
Now, on to WIC:

Each WIC card was marked by the goverment to allow the bearer to purchase a specified portion of food, with a maximum dollar value not to be exceeded.

In some cases, like for baby formula, customers could choose from a certain number of brands allowed them, while in other cases, like eggs or beans, the card simply required that they choose the least expensive brand that had packages in the correct sizes.

Over the years, the most common cards I saw were for baby formula, milk, cereal, eggs, and beans, but there are/were doubtless more than that.

As with food stamps, there was the requisite number of folks who didn’t read or couldn’t understand the instructions, plus a handful that deliberately tried to put one past us - say purchasing expensive, sugary cereals like Lucky Charms or Froot Loops when then were supposed to be more nutritious corn flakes or oatmeal.

Pete
Long time RGMWer and ardent AOLer
[and former supermarket cashier]

24

I’m probably admitting to a felony, but here goes…
A few years ago, a friend of mine went on food stamps. You most definitely can not buy booze or cigs. He cooked up a little scam whereby he and a handful of friends would hit every grocery store in town, each buying the cheapest item of “real” food possible with a $1 stamp (ie, a pack of gum, a 25 cent bag of chips). You got your change in coins. After a few hours of this, we scraped enough dough together for a couple of cases of Schlitz. Ahhh, how I miss Schlitz in longneck bottles…

25

When I was very young, my family was poor enough to qualify for food stamps, but we were repeatedly turned down. The folks running the program refused to believe that a woman with a Master’s degree and a man with two years of college (my parents) could be out of work. It also probably didn’t help matters that they dressed in such a way as to attempt to make a good impression.
We did make it onto food stamps for a few months, and Mom was astounded at how much they gave us-- She saw it as an opportunity to stock up for leaner times. That ended up being the same time period that we were sponsoring a family of Vietnamese refugees, and feeding 10 people on the stamps, rather than the 4 they were issued for. They (just barely) stretched that far.
A lot of it comes down to your standard of living: If you’re using those stamps to buy Twinkies and Pepsi, they won’t last you the month. If you’re buying rice, cabbage, and powdered milk, they’ll go a lot farther. Even at that, even the poorest folks are a lot better off here in the U.S. than in many third-world countries, where a half a bowl of rice a day and dirty water is the norm.

26

Yep, you can buy seeds for food-bearing plants with foodstamps. So, you could buy carrots, but not pansies.
You can buy from the salad bar, but not the deli case. You can buy cans of coffee or coffee beans, but not hot coffee.
In Vermont we don’t have a ‘junk food’ tax, though it has been proposed. The things that fall under the ‘rooms and meals tax’ are excluded from food stamp eligibility. That’s why it’s prepared foods.
The debit-card thing is much better. It’s more unobtrusive and a little bit harder to abuse.

I was a cashier in a grocery store for 3 1/2 years, and it never ceased to amaze me when people would come through with foodstamps and buy fresh shrimp and $12 a pound steak. It was pretty sad, but I ALWAYS tried my best to make them as comfortable as possible while in my line. After all, I have no way of knowing why they’re buying the things they are. It could be for a birthday. They could have been saving up their stamps for a special occasion. I know that there are folks who just buy junk. My town is small enough I knew most of them by name in about 4 months. But I’m not going to punish and embarrass someone just because they’re not buying what I would have. Unfortunately all the cashiers weren’t as thoughtful. I have seen a woman who rushed out of the store crying because the clerk chastised her for buying frozen meals and ice cream instead of fresh vegetables and cheap meat.

In Vermont, the WIC program drives around and drops cheese, milk, OJ, peanut butter and corn flakes/wheaties/cheerios off in person. You don’t get a choice and you take what you get.

K.

27

Also known as, “cracking tramp stamps”.

28

Just a note about the other programs mentioned:
HUD waiting lists are at least 2 years long in California, and you have to find a landlord willing to rent to you under that program. The State pays the landlord, so they know. Only really crappy places take it, because of the increase in paperwork. The places no one will pay for.

HEAP pays once a year for large heating/power bills, at least out here. The Electic company here, PG&E, has a low income rate, around 15%.

WIC is for pregnant womend and children under 6. Specific coupons for specific items.

USDA also has surplus food giveaways, once a month. Usually things like oatmeal, rice, canned fruit, peanut butter. The amount given for a family is laughable.

Anyone living on aid with a decent quality of life is cheating the system somehow.

29

I rather take issue with that last statement, dragonlady. Maybe what you meant was standard of living, but standard of living and quality of life are most emphatically not the same thing. As I mentioned, my family was not only not cheating the system, we weren’t even on the system. Our standard of living was about as close to rock-bottom as you can get in this country. However, our quality of life was very good, probably better than that of most rich folks.

Of course, there’s also the question of what you mean by “decent”. If you mean being able to put food on the table, and keeping the kids from suffering from malnourishment, then yes, it’s possible. If you mean four ounces of meat with every meal, soft drinks, and junk food snacks, maybe not, I don’t know.

30

In Nebraska they still use stamps, not debit cards. My mom gets them and I spend them for her. I have never had a problem with anyone questioning what I buy even though I purchase TV dinners, pudding cups, cookies and ice cream. Mom has arthritis and would have trouble standing long enough to cook some things. She has a sweet tooth and buying things like ice cream help keep her calorie count up. It is often hard to get the elderly to eat enough. At least pudding and ice cream has some protein and calcium. I do get crusty looks from other customers but I just ignore them
From my days as a single mother i remember the government giving away cheese. Big 5 lb. blocks of it. Free well aged cheddar, yum.

31

I used to make the deli sandwiches in a convenience store. It was the first time I realized that there were some huge problems in the food stamp rules. Everyone I knew that had used food stamps before bought real-family-dinner-type food with them. At the C-store, the only “real” food (with any nutritional value) we had was the deli sandwiches. They couldn’t buy those, but they could get all the chips, soda, candy bars, and Little Debbies they had stamps for. Why was the store even approved to take food stamps?

32

"
From my days as a single mother i remember the government giving away cheese. Big 5 lb.
blocks of it. Free well aged cheddar, yum."

yeah, those were fun but we only got processed cheese. Like say, Velveeta.

33

Zenith, people in Nebraska must have better manners then the do in Illinois.

I still don’t understand where my using food stamps gave anyone the right to judge me and my grocery habits in any way, except whether the items I purchased could or could not be bought on food stamps.

Do people sneer at major and class choices of those with Pell grants? Same situation. The government is giving you power to purchase something that you could not otherwise afford because you meet the requirements. Why is there such a difference?

34

the difference is that when you are going to college on a Pell grant, the only time this is known is at the registrars office. You aren’t labled in class every day, as you go in and go out. they don’t stamp your tests “PELL GRANT” so that the next student over can see that you’re there on a PEll grant.

I was happy to see that in my son’s school, they’ve initiated a new form of payment at the cafeteria. Everyone uses a little computer card. the computer cards look the same (are issued to individuals, but are the same color, shape size etc). so, if the kid gets free or reduced price lunches, that info is there, but also a parent can pre pay for meals, so there would be no difference to the next student in line.

FTR, I look at what EVERYBODY buys… :smiley: - especially wondered about the guy who was buying a dozen doughnuts and some liver sausage… :confused:

35

> Lots of people are really snotty and judgemental when you use food stamps.

Maybe they’re tired of working to pay for your groceries as well as their own.

36

I was on food stamps for a few months. I needed them because even working as many hours as I could, and my husband working as many as he could get, we still did not earn enough to pay for basic necessities. I was in my last year of college. If not for that assistance, I would not have been able to finish. I now earn more in a week than we used to live in for an entire month. I pay more in taxes than our annual household income was for that year.

Would it really have been better for us to not eat? To not pay rent or utilities? Should I have dropped out of school and gave up my campus apartment and my work study job? Would that be a better thing than for me to do than accept food stamps, eat well, graduate and get a good job AND PAY OFF ALL MY DEBTS?

Sneering at people on food stamps is ignorant, selfish, and rude. The reason you cite shows a lack of thought and no compassion.

37

lee,

Because those people are paying for your groceries. And the reason they are paying for it is because, they have been told, you would be dying in the gutter otherwise. Therefore, if they see reason to believe that this is not the case they can be resentful. Imagine that you gave money to a poor person for an operation and found that they really needed it to rent a fancy car.

What’s really tragic about your attitude is that you don’t seem to acknowledge that you survived in those years (or months) off the labor of other people. It’s as if money came down from the sky.

38

I believe that in your reply to Tampa, you forgot “Shortsighted”.

I believe that it is audacious to assume that you will never need a temporary leg up, for whatever reasons.

A friend of mine was married to a State Employee, he was working full time, she was working full time, they had 2 sons. Her husband had a mental breakdown. During this time, although he got disability payments (70% of his check), they depleted all of their savings, trying to make ends meet, he was eventually hospitalized, then in his depression, started threatening her life, and ended up nearly killing her, and killing himself. So, after 6 months of living on reduced income because of his illness, her household of 3 were attempting to live off of her wages. Yes, she was ** going to get ** for insurance payment from his death, Social Security payments for her sons because of his death, but in the meantime, it was winter, and her heating bill had gone up, and she didn’t have the money ** right then **. she went on emergency assistance for a couple of months.

It’s really nice that you personally are assured that you and your household will never experience a sudden catestrophic event, but for the rest of us, I’m glad my taxes support things like food stamps.

39

Part of the problem, too, is that there’s (at least) two kinds of folks on food stamps. The first is people, like lee and my mother, who are genuinely trying their darndest to support themselves, and who need a little help until they can get a degree/job, and can start paying their own grocery bills and taxes. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this, and I have no problem whatsoever with helping such folks out. On the other hand, some folks on aid programs are just plain lazy slobs, who have no intention of ever doing their part to aid society, and who may well be actively cheating the system. For these folks, I (and most other people) have very little sympathy. Of course, the problem comes when you try to separate the two groups, and only give the aid to the ones who truely ought to be getting it. If this were easy, it would be the end of yet another Big Debate in the country right now. Unfortunately, it’s not easy.

40

IzzyR,

I believe that foodstamps come from the government, not from the sky. The Government gets money from taxpayers, past present and future. I now gladly pay all my taxes, and as the government is still paying off the debts it has from that time period and has just bought back some of that debt, I may be paying for my own food stamps.

The government props up the prices for food for various reasons. The government gives food stamp out to people that could not otherwise afford the artificially high prices on food.

By using food stamps when I did, I made it possible for me to pay more in taxes than I would have otherwise. The government made a very good investment in me.