Calories are calories. Cake and chips will fill you up and give you energy. If someone is legitimately living under a bridge homeless and not “lost my job, benefits expired, living in my car, trying to find something better” homeless, then they almost certainly have a long term mental health problem (which they may be self-medicating with alcohol and/or street drugs) which is of far greater concern than if they use their food stamps, if they can get them, for junk food that may not be packed with fiber and micronutrients but is actually keeping them alive.
But by all means, continue running with this game of “it’s our money so we should be able to determine what they should eat.” Because being in the midst of a financial crisis that, at this point in time, was entirely manufactured by other people and worsened by economic policies that benefited the exact people who manufactured the problems to begin with, should require immediate abrogration of every aspect of a person’s autonomy right down to every damned morsel they put in their mouth, so that strangers can be satisfied. That’s so very crucial.
This is the whole issue right here, it WAS our money, before we paid it in taxes and then it got spent by our govt in the form of food stamps that were issued to that lady in line at the grocery store. Now it’s HER money and she should be able to spend it any way she pleases.
In Tennessee, a certain percentage of folks receiving unemployment and foodstamps are required to look for work. It’s called Re-employment Services. If you are chosen for this group, you must attend a several-hour class on how to apply for jobs and how to interview–even if the job you just lost was one in which you were in charge of hiring people and know more than the leaders of the class on the subject.
After that, you must apply for at least two jobs every week and document it all–date, employer name and address, contact name and title, method of contact, position applied for and any results or follow-up action.
Every four weeks, if you have not found gainful employment, you must check back in with the RESA folks, let them look and see what you’ve been doing wrong to not get hired and you are sent off to do the same thing again for another four weeks.
The fun part of that is that you are not permitted to turn down work or you lose your benefits so if you have a family to support and cannot make ends meet on $7.25/hour, you occasionally have to apply for jobs that you are not qualified for–wasting your time and the hiring manager’s time.
All so you can get your check/card so people who were lucky enough not to lose their job (by the grace of God go them…) can make disparaging remarks about your grocery cart even though most likely you are still paying the taxes that fund the programs (you can have taxes taken out of your unemployment benefits.)
I don’t see any reason to assume that this would even be healthier, given that stress is unhealthy. We are basically talking about forbidding poor people one of the few pleasures they have, while at the same time making sure they know that every bite they eat is part of their ritual humiliation for being poor.
Right now, in the 16 rental units I own (well, 15, since I live in one of them), I’m going to estimate that 12 of my tenants are on food stamps.
I don’t think that food stamp recipients should be limited to buying “only ingredients”, for many of the reasons stated. But I do think that at least some of them would benefit from some education about shopping wisely, good nutrition, and basic cooking techniques.
Myself, even though we are (thankfully!) pretty well off, use Angel Food, which is a food co-op usually administered by local churches. Their “Signature box” is designed to feed a family of four for a week, and costs $30.00. They have supplemental boxes, too. The prices are excellent. For a long time, I had a tenant with three small children. She was on food stamps. Her card was ‘filled’ with money on the 5th of every month. Every month, I would tell her when the Angel Food order was due (you can pay for Angel Food with EBT), and that she could ride over to the church with me and place an order. Usually, it’s the second Friday of the month. She would always say “Oh, yeah, I should do that”, but without fail, by the 10th, she’d say “Well, Jim (her BIL) wanted to go shopping, so we went with him”. She never even managed to set aside $30.00 on her card for an Angel Food box. Gah. The tenant that makes me even crazier also has three young children, is on food stamps, and orders Schwann’s frozen foods. I’ve heard good things about Schwann’s quality. I’ve looked at their website. Hell, the food is too expensive for me to justify buying it!
But the bottom line is, once it’s on their card, it’s their money. It’s no more my business how they spend it than it’s their business how I spend my money.
Still, I think a program for recipients (voluntary, even) that teaches nutrition, smart shopping strategies, and maybe helps the recipients acquire basic cooking equipment could be a good expenditure of tax money!
I think in an ideal word, where there were high-quality grocery stores in every neighborhood and people would or could walk a couple of miles to get to them in the absence of cars, I would have no problem with WIC-like restrictions on food, except with more allowances. You could get ready-to-eat food from the bakery and deli. I would allow all meats, frozen and canned foods, even. Maybe selected snacks and treats would be allowed, if they met a minimum nutritional requirements. But no sodas or liquid sugar drinks that masquerade as juices, candy, Twinkies, and junk foods like pork rinds and cheese doodles.
Yes, having these things make life wonderful, but no one “deserves” them. No one is “entitled” to them. And no one is stopping someone from buying them. Just not with tax-supported dollars.
But this isn’t an ideal world, unfortunately. Sometimes you’re stuck with a rinky-dink grocery with no produce or meat aisle, and it’s either get processed foods or nothing at all. And I don’t see how to get around this that doesn’t involve interfering with the free market.
What it comes down to is that there will never be a perfect system. Either there’s a cost problem or pushback from paternalism or dietary restrictions or … the list goes on. The current system is NOT perfect, I know that galls people, but it allows poor people to eat with a minimum of bureaucracy administrative cost. For that good, maybe we should stop wanting to push for the perfect end we can’t achieve.
One thing to remember is that most people are on welfare for a short period. I imagine food stamps go on a bit longer, but still are usually a rather temporary situation. You are not going to change people’s eating habits in this short of time. All you are going to do is make their life more of a pain in the butt.
I don’t like the force aspect (and I don’t think putting dietary restrictions on foodstamps is akin to force), but I do think in a perfect world, active participation of the government in encouraging people to eat healthy would be a part of a “perfect world.” Like, why not remove sales tax from vegetables and fruits? Or if you meet minimum income requirements, regardless of your participation in other assistance programs, provide vouchers that would give you a certain dollar amount of fresh vegetables and fruit, which could also be used at farmer’s markets. Instead of restricting junk food, perhaps the government could simply incentivize healthy eating habits.
All this talk about junk food brings to mind the story my mother always tells me about her experience in a shopping center when she was on food stamps (back before food stamps were EBT.) She was about twenty or twenty-one years old, purchasing a cake.
The lady behind her made some snarky comment about her tax dollars going to buy such a frivolous item. My mother, who is not a shrinking violet, turned around and said, ‘‘I am a full time university student in mechanical engineering and a single parent. Today is my daughter’s birthday. I can’t afford to get her a present, but I figured I could at least get her a birthday cake.’’
Bottom line is, you don’t know until you’ve been there.
Shodan, I read your cite, and I feel it is misleading about the reality of poverty. As Broomstick implied earlier, ‘‘welfare’’ as traditionally understood has been dead since 1996. (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) in this country is now tied to an expectation of work and/or looking for work which requires a significant time commitment. It is also limited to no more than five years per person per lifetime. The truth is that the vast majority (something like 97%) of people who are poor are poor only temporary and require government assistance only temporarily. For some it is a periodic swing from working class stability into poverty. For this reason, it’s beside the point whether poor people are homeowners or have television or a cell phone or whatever. Because the vast majority of poor people have not always been poor. If they take care of their stuff, it’s not altogether shocking that they would still have it while poor.
I also feel there is a difference between ‘‘college poor’’ and ‘‘actual poor.’’ I’ve been both. I would argue that no matter how dire the situation, ‘‘college poor’’ isn’t anything like ‘‘actual poor’’ because schools often offer a variety of discounted and free services. When I was 17 I was actual poor, and had to support myself. I was never on foodstamps or TANF because I was not charged rent by the relative I stayed with, however, I was a recipient of Medicaid** and I was absolutely poor. I was so poor I couldn’t afford to go to the doctor when I came down with a massive throat infection. I worked 12 days with that infection and finally broke down and went to the doctor when the infection was so bad I could no longer open my mouth. I still remember how much it cost for antibiotics – $86, with Medicaid – because it was a huge financial hit. I had to work an extra shift to make up for it. It is one of the worst illnesses I have ever had and I never got one day of rest, and I was seventeen fucking years old.
**I worked 36-hours per week as a waitress, which at the time was the maximum number of hours you could work without being a full-time employee and receiving benefits. It’s a game restaurants like to play – they very rarely take on full-time employees so they don’t have to pay medical benefits. So my only option for coverage was Medicaid. Of course I often had to stay past my shift ‘‘off the record’’ in order to keep my job.
Oh, and I was a full time high school student too. So my typical day would be: Up at 6am, drive to school, attend school until 2:30pm, go straight from school to work, work until closing (10 or 11pm) come home and do schoolwork until 2:30am, get up again the next day and do it all over again. There were a lot of frozen dinners and fast food meals in my life at that time. I frankly did not give a shit about proper nutrition. I was just trying to survive. I’m rather bewildered at how many people fail to realize what a luxury it is to have proper nutrition as a priority in your life.
Once I got to college, I felt like I was in the lap of luxury. I attended an expensive school on scholarship and suddenly things like mental health, medical, etc. were covered by tuition. I only had to work part-time as a college student (until junior year, when I had to take on a second job, but that was temporary.) I had access to the best technology in computer labs and other laboratories and two enormous libraries. The dorm was wonderful, the cafeteria was wonderful, and I could see a play or concert for like $7. Not to mention all the free screenings of movies. I struggled a bit (had to charge money on CCs at the beginning of the term which got into an enormous compulsive spending issue) but the difference between ‘‘college poor’’ and ‘‘actual poor’’ for me was enormous. For one thing, people don’t tend to treat college students like shit. Since you’re living among the upper-middle or middle-class, it’s much easier to blend and avoid the stigma.
I kinda wish this thread was started four months from now. I have a class this Fall entitled Poverty, Welfare and Work and I am so excited to share anything I learn from it.
Being poor was a humiliating and degrading experience for me, because I was treated as inferior. People have no idea who you are or what your circumstances are but they’ll judge the hell out of you any chance they get. It never ceases to amaze me how many people come out of poverty and decide that means anyone can and should do it just like they did. The only thing I learned from experiencing poverty was more empathy for the poor.
Just chiming in to agree with this. Until I was 26 years old I was utterly convinced I was not capable of cooking. Then last year I finally felt like I had the time to make nutrition a priority. I started trying out simple recipes and now I can cook some fairly complicated things – I even made bread! What’s more, I enjoy it, it has become a source of stress-relief and something I look forward to. Take it from a girl who once went through ten slices of bread before she gave up on french toast: nobody is beyond hope.
And that’s assuming that forcing people to “eat healthy” IS part of a perfect world.
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No different than forcing people to pay for it. Unless you are suggesting that we pay for $20/lb steak and $50 bottles of champagne the alternative is some form of regulated use of the money. Potato chips are not food in any sense of the word and are a waste of tax payer money. That money could go toward feeding someone who actually needs food to stay alive.
The money currently spent to do this is borrowed. It is not just a burden on everybody today, it is a burden on their children’s children.
Nonsense. Not letting people starve to death is basic human kindness as well as a matter of looking out for our own, and a means of maintaining social stability since people who aren’t threatened with starving to death are less likely to start civil wars. People are “forced to pay for it” because otherwise they’d refuse to contribute what is necessary to maintain society and drag the nation down to destruction with their greed.
Your position is also fundamentally illogical; if starving to death doesn’t involve a moral obligation for other people to care about it, then why should anyone care if someone is being “forced” to pay for something?
That’s just silly. Just let them choose what to eat. And yes, potato chips are food; what did you think they were, roofing material?
And so is being forced to eat gruel and be ritually humiliated, or do you think that none of those “children’s children” will ever be poor? And again, your position is illogical; if we don’t owe people compassion, then we don’t owe those “children’s children” any consideration either.
MOST of the people currently using food stamps or receiving benefits are doing so temporarily, right? (Based on the previously posted cites).
Which means that MOST of the people receiving these benefits were at one time employed, right?
If these people were employed, it means they paid taxes, right?
If they are now receiving benefits, they aren’t borrowing anything - they are cashing in a portion of the taxes that they paid back when they were working.
Right? Or am I missing something? I mean, I’ve been working solid for about 20 years paying X% of my pay cheque into EI, Canada Pension, Income Taxes. Should I need to use one of these things (which I currently am, in fact - maternity and parental leaves are funded by EI in Canada which is paid by the government here) I’m fully entitled to because I paid for it.
With that in mind, no, there should be no restrictions on what people use their food stamps for. I’m sure there is a small percentage of people who have never contributed anything to anyone in the way of taxes, or EI payments or anything else; however, they are the minority. For anyone else using these benefits - well, they paid for them in taxes, they should be able to use them however they see fit.
What part of deficit spending do you not understand? The tax money someone paid years ago is gone just as the money paid into Social Security is gone. It’s GONE. It doesn’t exist.
There are no do-overs if the economy collapses. There is no midnight lawyer who gets our national debt of $12 trillion forgiven. If our national credit rating is lowered the cost of deficit spending goes up. China does not have to buy our debt. When that ends we still owe them trillions of dollars on top of the money needed to function as a society. There is no well to go to for more money. 12 trillion dollars divided by 300 million is $40,000 for ever person living in the United States. It draws interest over time so true number is much larger. This is just the National debt. States such as California are on the brink of financial collapse. Who is going to bail them out using the “too big to fail” wallet?
I’ll ask it again, if $20/lb steak and a $50 bottle of champagne is a waste of money then where is the line drawn?
There is also no do-over if someone starves to death, either. Or winds up with a hideous disease or permanent damage from malnutrition that is easily preventable.
Keeping poor people fed prevents riots and uprisings which are expensive and damaging and can can lead to people people maimed or killed. Giving them opportunity to eat more than just bread and water (or gruel and water) can prevent health problems that can lead to life-long disability and dependence, or shortened life spans, or simple damage that makes them overall less healthy and less able to work effectively. Preventing all of those are also important goals alongside reducing deficits and spending money responsibly.
It doesn’t matter whose money it is. If you feel like food stamp payments are too generous, that is another story. What we are arguing here is should people on food stamps- of any amount- be told what to buy?
I don’t agree with the suggestion of the OP…it’s too marginalizing, too expensive, too difficult to implement.
However, sven, your post made me laugh. You know, non-poor people don’t live in a magical land where they don’t have to have jobs and healthy meals appear on the dinner table with no effort. My life is exactly as you describe here, except that I am not poor. I work until 5, get home at 6, and they kids start getting ready for bed at 8. What are the resources you think I have that would mean that something doesn’t have to be sacrificed? I don’t think anyone here would think the fact that I work as a valid reason for me to feed my kids nothing but processed, unhealthy, fatty foods. Which is not to say I never whip up some blue box mac & cheese from time to time, because sometimes when you work and have a family, you do take the shortcuts. But they are the same shortcuts taken by ALL working parents, not just poor ones.
Just wanted to chime in with something AClockworkMelon talked about earlier (about his mom only getting six dollars a month)
I haven’t been on food stamps for years–it’s been about ten years, but when I was, I was only getting 10 dollars a month. Ten bucks. Worth it enough to buy many different things that could go over ten bucks or a simple, easy-to-make tv dinner (that were ten for ten bucks–lasting me more than a week)?
Suffice to say, I didn’t have to think about it very deep or long.