One of my coworkers, Ms Burberry-Cartier, goes grocery shopping with her grandmother’s card. I’m sure she has all the necessary paperwork filed.
They live in a four generation household. The youngest, highs school and college age ones are eating at very posh restaurants, while their great grandparents are, on paper, quite impoverished. No fraud. Just the reality of an immigrant success story. From boat person to Bentley in three generations.
Needing to officially designate someone and having to do it at the point of application are two different things. I am certain that legally there must be an official designation and equally certain that I can designate a person years after I submitted my application.
I’m in Canada so maybe that’s the confusion. Years ago I worked as a cashier at a grocery store and so I saw lots of people using some sort of assistance. I can’t actually remember what it was called but they’d have a slip of paper with an allowed amount and they’d buy almost anything in the store with it. Just no alcohol, cigarettes or lotto. But they could buy diapers, pet food, cleaning supplies…
I’ve been on food stamps off and on over the years. Never bought steak (I could take it or leave it) or lobster (lobster? really? in Missouri? how good is it going to be (he asks rhetorically)) for the reasons mentioned, plus I didn’t want to blow a large portion of my budget on such a luxury. The only really “luxurious” thing I bought with food stamps was a fully-cooked, smoked turkey one Christmas. It was the single most-expensive thing that I bought (I think it cost me like $25-35). That bird fed me and Mrs. H for days until we were both up to here with turkey and gave some of it to the cats, threw the rest into the backyard for the critters to eat up.
Mostly I bought staples with my SNAP benefits – rice, bread, pasta, ground beef, chicken thighs, milk, butter, coffee, sweetener, sugar, etc.
Dec 11 Arkansas Governor Sanders sent a letter to Washington on Wednesday concerning new changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
I didn’t know that chips and cookies were allowed. Has that changed?
I can remember being in line, and seeing the cashier remove ineligible items for customers using food stamps.
I felt embarrassed for the person, but they should already know what is eligible to buy.
Link Governor Sanders urges federal action to ban junk food purchases under SNAP program
They should have thrown in some lupins.
I’ve heard it suggested that no one on assistance should be paying for cable tv. If it weren’t for the unworkable difficulty and privacy issues of cross-referencing the two, it would probably be law.
You know, it wasn’t all that long ago that FOX reported that 99% of all poor people owned a refrigerator. The audacity!
I know that there is a underground market for food. I’ve been offered steaks and other items. I firmly declined. A roast carried out in someone’s underware doesn’t appeal to me.
Some people will buy with SNAP or shoplift desirable items like hamburger, pork chops etc. and then sell it heavily discounted.
It’s pretty screwed up that some folks will take food from their kid’s mouths for illicit money.
I’ve heard that about cellphones (smart or dumb), air conditioning, new clothing, and on and on. And of course there’s the Fox refrigerator thing that Railer posted above.
Specifically for drugs. People will literally starve themselves (let alone their kids) for drug money.
I think the point of the Fox article was the difference between relative and absolute poverty– that “poor” in the USA is a lot better off than half of the eight billion people on the planet. But yeah, claiming that a refrigerator is a luxury is [trigger word]. Other things on their list, maybe slightly more rational.
That was some of the point - but it’s also true that the items mentioned in that article are relatively inexpensive. I mean, if I have an air conditioner ( and having one doesn’t tell you how often it is used) and a coffeemaker and a microwave does that negate the fact that I live in an apartment where I can’t count on heat and hot water because I can’t afford to move?
I have to agree with you.
This is the second time today I have made an error when posting in a hurry. Sigh
Just because six months ago you had a middle class job and the lifestyle it paid for and within one fucking year you and your family will no longer need SNAP is no reason that we shouldn’t treat the poors to a nice Walk of Shame and force them to sell off all of their worldly possessions.
It’s just another example of how assistance is directly tied to impoverishment in too many minds.
No scraps for you! You’re not nearly (economically) dead yet!
Thus spake Scrooge McScroogyface from the reality-challenged righteous indignation brigade
Never mind; inadvertent dupe post.
I have some shitty acquaintances who have complained that “you should see the TVs in these people’s houses! And they want free health care!” Like one 65" TV someone bought for $800 for their family of 6 is even remotely the same as the tens of thousands of dollars per year it costs just to have health insurance. A family could save up for a year and buy a decent TV but they would never, ever be able to afford the ongoing costs of good insurance.
The disconnect and disdain is insane.
I’ve been in a situation, one time, where things got really tight, after they had previously been good, and I had to try to sell some things (including the TV) to try to make ends meet. It was incredibly demoralising getting back like 10% of the price I had originally paid for items, and it wasn’t even enough money to bridge the gap.
If, from a position of privilege, you (not you, the generic ‘you’) shame someone less privileged for owning a thing that you also own, you are just a shitty person. If you own a TV, and you think it’s OK for you to own a TV, you have zero reasonable grounds for saying other people shouldn’t ought to have one.
Back in the '80s when I was struggling to support a young family, one convenience store clerk gave me attitude because I was using food stamps to buy a gallon of milk. The problem is not what you buy, the problem is that you buy while poor.