# The ethics of food stamps (AITA?)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457>\
**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:** 1\
**Showing post:** 109

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**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\
**Post date:** [December 11, 2024, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-ethics-of-food-stamps-aita/1011457/109 "2024-12-11T16:10:30Z")

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I think the concern works something like this:

- If someone needs food stamps, that means they don’t have enough money to buy enough food to be healthy.
- Food stamps should allow them to be able to get enough food to live and be healthy.
- If they’re able to afford caviar and chocolate and still get enough to eat, food stamps is paying them too much. Lots of people _not_ on food stamps can’t afford that stuff.
- If they’re buying it anyway, then any shortfall is coming out of _someone else’s pocket_, be it local food pantries or soup kitchens, etc… because the assumption is that they’re not able to cover that themselves.
- Which is a problem because they already were given enough to cover their needs, but they spent it irresponsibly on luxury items, and someone else is having to foot the bill for those luxury items.

It’s the someone else having to foot the bill that is the issue. That’s money that the government could have used on something else, or ultimately not taken out of taxpayers’ pockets, many of whom probably don’t have the financial flexibility to afford that kind of thing themselves.

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