I am now especially glad to have a full time job and be off food stamps.
Way back I posted whether grocery stores should be banned from selling soda; in hindsight it seems rather quixotic. Should soda be banned from stores?
Same. Not that couldn’t live without either (hardly buy either, to be honest) but we have plenty of threads on this forum explaining why do something like that would not improve the program.
The purpose of Foodstamps/EBT etc isn’t to feed the poor and needy; it’s a subsidy to food producers and grocers that has the convenient side effect of feeding the poor and needy.
I could technically live without chocolate. I don’t think that it would be worth it.
I have more to say about the proposed restrictions and what will happen to SNAP. WIC and other programs in the future. But, this is IMHO not GD, P&E or The Pit. So I will avoid saying it.
More or less what I said in post #154
Oops. I was thinking this was in the pit. Everybody pretend I didn’t call anyone busybodies.
The definition of “junk food” varies widely from person to person. Oh, sure, there are lots of things we can all agree it is, but what if, for instance, someone is on chemo or newly pregnant and has a very limited diet, and that’s what they’re eating because it’s all that tastes good to them?
The one universal restriction I know of is that people cannot use food stamps to purchase ready-to-eat hot food.
Yes, as I have said an elaborate desert smoothie or nearly anything else in Wawa was covered by foodstamps. Any hot foods from the deli, hashbowns, hot dogs, soft pretzels and other items from the heated rack were not covered. Hoagies were covered unless you had them toasted.
Looks like I didn’t answer my own question, but word got out that much of the food was being traded for drugs, most likely meth in this community.
I like my smoothies moist.
I do get food stamps and do think soda is garbage…but its not my business to tell people what they can eat.
I, for one, am looking forward to ‘Vitamin Fortified Coke’.
That exact product was briefly sold in England.
I have read about proposals to fortify alcoholic beverages with thiamine, to reduce the incidence of Korsakoff’s psychosis, an encephalopathy resulting from thiamine deficiency, but they’ve been shot down because the thiamine would have to be listed on the label, and alcoholic-beverage labels cannot have anything on them stating that drinking it is “healthy.”
As a cashier I will note an EBT card being used because of the following:
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- My store now offers a 10% discount on all fresh fruits and vegetables purchased with an EBT card, and 40% off either fat-free or 1% milk purchased by such a card and I want those people to be aware of that benefit offered by the company I work for.
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- If there’s a problem with the transaction handling it with an EBT card is slightly different than with a bank card, but that doesn’t come up very often. Ditto for WIC.
Other than that, I don’t really care.
Yes, I’m re-reading this thread for some bizarre reason and came across this.
While it is true benefits eventually expire you don’t have to use all of the month’s allotment by the end of the month. “Excess” will roll-over to the next month - I speak from experience. So you could “bank” for a limited amount of time. Except most people don’t, they tend to spend all of the benefit before the end of the month. Exact rules vary from state to state, but the Feds give you nine months before they cancel your account.
When my benefits ended (due to getting a better paying job) I contacted the family assistance agency and asked if I had to return the balance. Nope, they said, that money was mine, congratulations on doing well enough to no longer qualify, and I could still use the balance.
I mostly stocked up on canned goods and things like crackers and cereal because, as my late spouse used to say, I can be ruthlessly practical. I did get us the fixings for a really nice meal (beef and broccoli if I recall) and a couple pieces of exotic fruit for me. I know, lavish luxuries. I would be ashamed except I’m not.
Most of those working-people could have the little luxuries they see food-stamp people buying if they chose to make it a priority. Want lobster tail and caviar? Well, take the money you’re spending on cigarettes, beer, and lottery tickets and use that. Or don’t completely replace your wardrobe every three months and use that money. Or get one less manicure/hair dye job and use that. Dine out at restaurants less often or don’t go clubbing one week. All of us make choices. Some make choices out of habit or because some want to “keep up appearances”. Some make choices carefully and thoughtfully to accomplish particular goals. And some people have no money for anything else, but this little plastic card and a deep-discount sale allows them to have a food treat.
If these folks think being on the public dole is so great why don’t they quit their jobs and try being poor for awhile so they can enjoy the goodies, too? No takers? Yeah, I thought not.
On paper that is the case but in the actual real world, particularly in the case of sudden illness or injury, the tendency is to hand the card to someone and say “this is the PIN to use it”. As long as nothing goes wrong nobody cares.
When that happens it is almost always WIC and not SNAP. The WIC rules are hyper-specific, arcane, and can change without warning. Even those of us who deal with it frequently can be flummoxed.
Calls to change the SNAP program to avoid junk for to “combat” obesity, diabetes, and other forms of ill health do not address the other contributes to those problems, such as neighborhoods that aren’t safe to exercise in, especially if one is not physically fit (in other words, looks like an easy target for Bad Guys), people who have to work two jobs to make ends meet and have no time to exercise, or to spend time on from-scratch cooking, and the fact that sometimes the ill health/illness proceeds poverty and is the reason they’re poor rather than the other way around.
Another health-related aspect that I don’t think anybody’s explicitly articulated so far is that using food benefits to purchase healthy “expensive” “luxury” foods, as part of an interest in “gourmet” or “slow food” eating in general, may ultimately contribute to savings in other forms of benefits, such as medical costs.
If the OP’s friend, as the OP documented in post #104, is habitually building his meals around stuff like kimchi and steamed rice and ahi tuna sashimi and other “genuinely nutritious actual food”, and if it helps him avoid some kind of expensive chronic medical condition in later life, then he may end up costing the taxpayers less over his entire lifetime of benefits use than a lot of other people who never got EBT benefits. (Including, perhaps, the OP himself.)
Even looking at the matter solely from the selfish-taxpayer perspective, I’d rather see an EBT user buying fresh vegetables and fruits and whole grains with occasional steak and caviar than stocking up on the cheapest ultra-processed fish sticks, hot dogs, wonder bread, etc. Steak and caviar may look expensive at first glance, but they’re a hell of a lot cheaper than the hundreds of dollars monthly that prescription medications for diabetes, heart disease, etc. are going to cost.
I recently found out that a large food pantry near my house has a cookbook rack. I’m going to donate extra books that get donated at my library; we get more than we could ever possibly sell.