# The ethics of food stamps (AITA?) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2024, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457 "2024-12-10T20:51:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 18
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/342 "2025-11-02T05:55:45Z")
Maybe if it’s like this. > **[Super Fun Penis Candy 3oz BagDefault Title](https://libihealth.com/products/super-fun-penis-candy-3oz-bag?variant=45919351505116&country=US¤cy=USD&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=857678553&gbraid=0AAAAADKjifuQm8O3Dhnu8xvchqQDmVrp3&gclid=Cj0KCQjw35bIBhDqARIsAGjd-cYhTnyZhYKk81Rm0EX8PaeYZzINC6rNLlYzxamE8vNeNqgMKY4vRpMaAgOEEALw_wcB)** > > Delicious fruit-flavored Super Fun Penis Candies are more fun than a person should have! These charming fellas come in a 3 oz. package that contains 100 pcs. Fill a bowl with these little cuties. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/343 "2025-11-02T08:50:09Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > She went to the aid office, and they told her that she “made too much money”. Her reply? “I bet if I was black, it would be a whole 'nother story.” I had no respect for her after that. During the Great Recession when me and mine had to go on food stamps I went down to the local aid office. Yep, most of the folks in the place were Black. Well, it was located in Gary, Indiana which is like 80% Black so, wow, it matched the local demographics. Instead of whining about Black people getting benefits this White chick offered to help a woman chasing multiple children around the place. As I held the baby and she reined in the toddler I remarked it was my first time there and did she have any useful advice? She sure did. Told me exactly what to expect, what documentation would be needed, and so on. Saved me a lot of headache and wasted time. Meanwhile, an elderly White couple was moaning about needing to prove the two of them were married. Sorry, folks, suck it up and either find your marriage license or get a new copy if you can’t find it - that’s what I had to do. That’s what everybody has to do. The fact is the largest group of people receiving these benefits are White. Then again, Whites are still the largest demographic group in the US so … yeah, that makes some sense, doesn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/344 "2025-11-02T13:16:56Z")
But, but, but, … That doesn’t fit the narrative I’ve been sold by the propagandists. And everyone I know knows that rage-ogenic narratives beat reality hands down. [/sarcasm] if is isn’t obvious. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/345 "2025-11-02T13:55:31Z")
Ahhhhhh. What’s old is new again. That train … ain’t never late: > **[The politics of hate: Republicans call SNAP beneficiaries "crack addicts,"...](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/10/31/2351437/-The-politics-of-hate-Republicans-call-SNAP-beneficiaries-crack-addicts-beasts-and-illegal)** > > "President Trump isn't starving kids – he's starving socialist beasts." A knife in the back The Government has been shut down for a month. The closure has furloughed thousands of government workers. Many others, deemed critical, are mandated to... > Decent human beings contemplating their fellow citizens going hungry or forgoing health care because of its newly unaffordable cost, feel empathy. Republicans do not. In their imagination, people receiving SNAP are subhuman, drug addicts, wastrels, politically suspect, and illegal aliens. See the article for a few stellar examples. Lovely. Saint Ronnie of Reagan is, somewhere, smiling right now. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/346 "2025-11-02T18:44:02Z")
What I find bizarre about the situation is those people working without getting paid? If they aren’t already eligible for food stamps, they will be soon. But I guess that’s when they go from good people to beasts, when they apply for benefits. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2025, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/347 "2025-11-02T23:20:17Z")
Every once in a while I wish the boards had a like button. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/348 "2025-11-03T00:12:24Z")
This was in rural Illinois, in the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/349 "2025-11-03T00:25:26Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > What I find bizarre about the situation is those people working without getting paid? If they aren’t already eligible for food stamps, they will be soon. But I guess that’s when they go from good people to beasts, when they apply for benefits. It is not enough to be merely unemployed, and merely without income. To qualify for SNAP you must also have an extremely low level of assets. This, apparently, comes as a surprise to many. SNAP limits you to about $2500 in assets - so drain those bank accounts. It allows one vehicle per adult in the household (at least when me and mine were on it) but also counts as vehicles not only cars, trucks, and motorcycles but also things like boats, jet skis, ATVs, etc… so you’ll have to sell all of those off. Remember, only 1 per adult! And so and and so forth. You really have to have very little to qualify. When I lost my job in 2007 it was four years of unemployment before my family qualified. Meanwhile we were bleeding money. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/350 "2025-11-03T00:49:16Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > It is not enough to be merely unemployed, and merely without income. To qualify for SNAP you must also have an extremely low level of assets. This, apparently, comes as a surprise to many. I know that - but I also know that your primary residence and most retirement accounts don’t count as assets. ( If you even live in a state that still has an asset test - [most either don’t](https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/broad-based-categorical-eligibility) or have a limit higher than $2500.) In any event, it’s not only highly paid federal employees who are working without being paid - average salary for a TSA officer is around $50K. I’d be shocked if most of them had more than $2500 in assets exclusive of a primary residence and retirement accounts. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/351 "2025-11-03T01:00:07Z")
I know that when I was a kid, my mom had a hard time getting food stamps, because the folks at the aid office couldn’t believe that someone with a master’s degree could make that little money (Catholic school teacher). ---
**Author:** ![Cmyers1980](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyers1980/32/11814_2.png) [@Cmyers1980](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cmyers1980)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/352 "2025-11-03T15:36:41Z")
I think people should eat healthy (why unhealthy food is so popular in the US is another matter) but I’m not particularly concerned with a poor person buying soda and chips with food stamps when the wealthy elite routinely waste and misuse billions given to them by the state and what they obtained through exploitation. It’s like focusing on someone jaywalking while Jack the Ripper skins a prostitute in front of you. One is clearly worse than the other. We should be asking why food stamps and welfare are needed in the first place in a country that’s ostensibly wealthy and the greatest in the world. Why are there millions of people who work for billion dollar corporations like Walmart that rely on government assistance? They can’t all be lazy bums or idiots. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/353 "2025-11-03T18:49:53Z")
> [@Cmyers1980](#): > > We should be asking why food stamps and welfare are needed in the first place in a country that’s ostensibly wealthy and the greatest in the world. Why are there millions of people who work for billion dollar corporations like Walmart that rely on government assistance? They can’t all be lazy bums or idiots. I assume that’s a rhetorical question, but in case it isn’t, I’ll give the obvious answer. It’s because we, collectively, refuse to demand that the oligarchs do their part for the good of society as a whole. Why we, collectively, refuse to do so is another matter, and one that I don’t know the answer to despite having pondered the question since I was old enough to realize that it’s a question that needs answering. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/354 "2025-11-04T00:30:45Z")
The biggest justification that even the “welfare breeds dependency” conservatives have trouble denying, is children. Children are the most innocent victims of poverty, they don’t get to choose who their parents and caregivers are. A large part of the justification for such things as AFDC is to “break the cycle of poverty”. How well it does this is debatable but I’ve never heard of anyone explicitly saying that children should go hungry. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/355 "2025-11-04T01:13:58Z")
AFDC ended in 1996 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/356 "2025-11-04T02:34:10Z")
Because the Rs preferred that children go hungry. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/357 "2025-11-04T02:59:38Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > AFDC ended in 1996 Replaced, to some extent, by [TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families)](https://www.cbpp.org/research/income-security/temporary-assistance-for-needy-families). ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/358 "2025-11-05T22:20:31Z")
This parable, to me, seems to demonstrate exactly what’s wrong with this “do what you want with it” mentality. The beggar says “And now you’re telling me that _when I **DO** have money_, I **STILL** can’t have this sandwich?” and then the man replies “But you still don’t have the money. I only gave you $20 and that sandwich is $12.50, so you don’t have enough money to buy one.” And the beggar says “But 20 is more than 12.50.” The man replies “You need to budget wisely if you want to make any improvement to your financial situation. You would need at least $150, preferably $250 in food money before you can afford a $12.50 sandwich. Because you have only $20 from me and $5 from other people, you should budget about $3 per meal. Now, let’s go shopping and see how we can get a broad array of carbohydrate, protein, and some fat in a meal for $3.” They go buy some rice, peas, garbanzo beans, and the beggar stays full for days on that $20 bill. And then the parable ends with the beggar having sound financial habits. See how much better that vignette turned out when it works like the real world? I keep seeing this argument like “Doesn’t a poor person deserve a little happiness?” And the answer is once again teaching strong life values. Happiness doesn’t come from junk food. It comes from a safe home, a secure future, and a quiet mind. The poor person is free to go for a walk in a park if they want to be happy. Maybe cuddle a kitten. They don’t need donuts to be happy. The answer to the question “Don’t they deserve to be happy?” is “Not from food stamps, no. They deserve to be fed.” And you don’t get that from steak and lobster. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/359 "2025-11-05T22:30:48Z")
That is an incredible jump from a still-overpriced sandwich to steak and lobster. I think it comes from making a proverb about the poor without having any input from the poor whatsoever. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/360 "2025-11-05T22:34:17Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > They go buy some rice, peas, garbanzo beans, and the beggar says “wait, if you’re so concerned about how I was going to spend the money you gave me, why didn’t you just buy this stuff and give it to me instead?” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/361 "2025-11-05T22:35:49Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Happiness doesn’t come from junk food. It comes from a safe home, a secure future, and a quiet mind. And how does it come from those things? Having a safe home and a secure future means that, occasionally, you can afford to splurge on a nice sandwich. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457.md?page=17) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457.md?page=19)