Poor are not happy about limits on EBT and SNAP

[Jumpstart]

Here is an article in the Washington Post written by a woman who isn't happy about various limits place on those who get EBT, SNAP or any other food stamp program. Is she justified? You decide.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/01/the-poor-are-treated-like-criminals-everywhere-even-at-the-grocery-store/?hpid=z8

[dteresa]

I can't imagine why someone can't buy canned tuna. I could stretch it with noodles or rice, some vegetables and make a perfectly good, reasonably priced healthful meal for a family. But cookies, chips, energy drinks and steak and most sea foods are luxury items which I, who pay for my own food, do not buy. Nor did I purchase those things very often when I was raising my six kids.

Judging someone else is always questionable. We do not ever truly know their circumstances. Maybe the help is for a family where dad or mom was laid off. Maybe it is for someone who cannot work because of an accident or debilitating illness. I am absolutely certain that there are many whom the taxpayer would not mind helping to support. At the top of my list are wounded veterans. But in an ever worsening economy with high paying jobs in industry disappearing overseas and people often making less money than formerly yet working even harder with maybe more than one job, it is hard not to feel resentful when you know that money that the EBT person is buying cookies and chips with is money you were forced to give via taxes and which you do not have to spend on your own family. Everyone should make wise purchases.

Unfortunately I suspect it is also true that many know how to play the system and others who could really use some help do not get it.

Let's not even talk about the free cell phones with 250 free minutes per month.

didi
PS social security was never meant to totally support the elderly, but to give a hand. In the old days, people did everything they could to save for retirement. The original Aid To Families With Dependent Children was meant to help widows with small children so mom could stay home to raise them. It was for widows who already had children. Not for single moms who have three, four or five or more children and who expect society to support them.

[wade4veg]

Of course we could look at the person getting $100 or as much as $190 for his/her food stamps.

But then, on the other side of town we have a similar person with a $500,000 mortgage at 4%.... meaning they pay $20,000 per year in interest, which they can deduct, thus saving themselves over $6,000 per year in taxes, or about $500 per month.

So you compare, the food stamp guy gets less than $200 a month food subsidy with derision and scorn, while his 'upstanding' fellow resident gets his $500 per month housing subsidy...and everyone thinks he is great.

[dteresa]

If the guy with the 500,000 dollar mortgage is getting a five hundred dollars per month tax break then he is also paying much much more than five hundred per month via the taxes that are confiscated from him. We have a graduated income tax, remember?

The tax break on mortgages was not written into the tax law to help the guy who buys the house, but to help the building industry which apparently is crucial to a healthy economy. It encourages people to buy homes and thus protects the industry.

I do not know how much one person can receive in food stamps but I do know that the more children you have the more money you are entitled to. So I suspect it is more than 200 dollars.

The point of the original article was that those who receive food stamps should be able to buy, with tax payer money, non essential "food" items. I disagree with that. Why in heaven's name should I pay for someone's cookies and potato chips? Why should a taxpayer with a family, and who stretches ground beef with hamburger helper, pay for someone else's steak?

didi

[eXtremE]

People love to bash the poor but think nothing about all the cooperate welfare. I sure am glad I am out of the military industrial complex and did not get killed or injured when I was in. As Norman Goldman likes to say, rich old white men sending poor people's children of all races off to die and then don't wanna take care of them when they come back to this Country after being horribly injured.

[ETeSelle]

PS social security was never meant to totally support the elderly, but to give a hand. In the old days, people did everything they could to save for retirement.

Most people could not and did not save for retirement-or at least not much. But people were not living anywhere NEAR as long. Before SS, people lived maybe 10 years post-retirement on average. Now it's not unusual to live for 30. Of course "living" is a relative term, as we have discussed here, but if you're alive in any way, shape or form you will need $$ (and increasing amounts of it as you get sicker).

[openmind]

The point of the original article was that those who receive food stamps should be able to buy, with tax payer money, non essential "food" items. I disagree with that. Why in heaven's name should I pay for someone's cookies and potato chips? Why should a taxpayer with a family, and who stretches ground beef with hamburger helper, pay for someone else's steak?

didi

I agree with your position didi. I think people with food stamps should only be able to use the same to buy rice, beans, potatoes, fruits and veggies and a maybe a few other items. We should let no one starve but we certainly shouldn't subsidize them in buying foods that are actually bad for them.

[eXtremE]

Yes, but you can not force people to eat what you think is healthy. Try to convince, yes, but compel....no!

[eXtremE]

PS social security was never meant to totally support the elderly, but to give a hand. In the old days, people did everything they could to save for retirement.

Most people could not and did not save for retirement-or at least not much. But people were not living anywhere NEAR as long. Before SS, people lived maybe 10 years post-retirement on average. Now it's not unusual to live for 30. Of course "living" is a relative term, as we have discussed here, but if you're alive in any way, shape or form you will need $$ (and increasing amounts of it as you get sicker).

So true! Thank you FDR for these social safety net programs. My mother would be screwed if not for SSR after a lifetime of hard work. The average SS disability or retirement check is only a little over $1100/month.

There is no such thing as pensions and good paying decent jobs after high school if you don't wanna go to college anymore. American cooperations are increasingly shipping jobs overseas for the cheap labor (yes, slavery is still with us, just not in this Country anymore) and then they bring their products back to this Country to sell to Americans to make exorbitant profits. Are you kidding me? How in the hell can Americans afford to even buy the products if you can't find a decent paying job in America. Back breaking hard work will get you no where in America anymore except break your back (literally). Instead, go to college, get a business degree, get a job on wall street, create nothing tangible that you can sell to others, just learn how to manipulate money and become a millionaire / billionaire.

[AlwaysAgnes]

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... ed/381802/

"when the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, the official retirement age was 65. Life expectancy for American men was around 58 at the time"


http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/c ... text=legal

http://munchies.vice.com/articles/wtf-h ... ent-cheese

[MarionP]

I read the article and I agree with her about the way we treat the poor in our North-American societies. We can and we should do better.

However, I find it a bit sad that where she appears to have drawn the line is the right of the poor to poison themselves and their children.

That we could have reached the point where it is considered an indignity to not be allowed to treat our bodies as trash cans using public funds is disconcerting.

[petero]

The average SS disability or retirement check is only a little over $1100/month.

And the problem with SS is not insolvency because of increased longevity, its corporate tax avoidance and the shifting of the tax burden onto the middle classes.

How in the hell can Americans afford to even buy the products if you can't find a decent paying job in America.

Not to worry. Wages are rising in China, they'll buy it.

Instead, go to college, get a business degree, get a job on wall street, create nothing tangible that you can sell to others, just learn how to manipulate money and become a millionaire / billionaire.

That's the downward spiral that we're in, and its only going to get worse. Nobody wants to invest in the real economy here except in service industries that can't be outsourced and that pay crappy wages. That causes bubbles in areas like real estate and stocks because capital has to go somewhere. The only way to increase investment in the real economy here is to increase the rate of profit. To do that enough capital has to be destroyed, disappear, or be depreciated away. Not enough of this was allowed to happen after 2008, so we are stuck in a slow-motion implosion instead of a big bang. An alternative energy bubble would be nice, but that wouldn't last forever either. Those solar panels aren't going to made here, either, anyway.

If anyone is interested, here's Andrew Kliman talking about his book, The Failure of Capitalist Production, which is about the causes of the Great Recession and context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0yU5mTYxas

[petero]

That we could have reached the point where it is considered an indignity to not be allowed to treat our bodies as trash cans using public funds is disconcerting.

Remember, that's what they'll tell the McDougalling poor when they cut off SNAP assistance for rice and potatoes.

[VegMommy]

My daughter has a mental illness, and received food stamps (EBT) for a couple of years. I just asked her about this, and she said she received $65 per month, and could buy food but not Tupperware, deodorant, etc. And she said she never was subjected to any kind of judgment at all.

[ETeSelle]

I was on food stamps for a while after grad school. There was no stigma that *I* felt, but then I was only buying reasonably good for you food. I wasn't McDougalling but I was already vegan by then.