Things that make you shake your head!

[C.Ann]

I"m not sure why you quoted me. The below is just what I was saying, or what I meant to say, if I wasn't clear.

I certainly understand the amount is based on income, family size property owned.

Here is the info for NYS if anyone is interested:

http://www.otda.state.ny.us/main/programs/food-stamps/

I do agree with you, that there are a lot of misconceptions. People don't have to have nothing to get them. Some (in NYS anyway) can still keep their retirement income, college funds.

Here is some info on what can and can't be bought and some info about why certain foods can be bought with food stamps:

http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/retailers/eligible.htm

The people here who are so outraged by this "rampant" food stamp abuse likely won't even bother to read the two links that you provided because they are fact based.. Much, much easier to just paint everyone with the same broad brush based on what they "saw" or "heard" the other day..

In this area, Doris - you and I are definitely on the same page!

 

[Fierce Fairy]

Oh and Colleen, at our elementary school ALL the kindergarten students get free breakfast and a couple of the moms are surprised I don't let my kids eat it, but it's always junk like french toast sticks. Those things are fine sometimes, but I prefer to send my kids to school after having some fruit and a yogurt or eggs or something that's a bit healthier. And don't get me started on the lunch menu *shudder*

Yes the school lunches are slop. My daughter came home today said she was starving because the lunch was not eatable. She refuses to eat the mess. And we pay about $10.50 a week for lunch. Now that I am pissed about.

 

[Juliet25]

Every time I see someone buying something they probably shouldn't with food stamps. . . . OH WAIT! I have never seen that. I don't pay attention to what other people buy and I certainly don't pay attention to how they pay!

So, when I READ about what other people buy with food stamps, I just say "Thank you, Lord. You have blessed me with an income that does not allow me to qualify for food stamps". You know, "there but for the grace of God go I".

Does me a lot more good than getting all bent out of shape over something I can do nothing about anyway.

I thank God that my family doesn't qualify for food stamps. It means my DH has a job, our bills get paid, and we get to (hopefully) afford to go to WDW soon. My brother gets food stamps for his family; he's been out of work for over a year. He sure would prefer NOT to be receiving them.

 

[luvthemouse71]

If people are living off of what taxpayers contribute, then they have no right to whine about people being judgmental and they should be grateful for any and all help they get. Most(not all) pride themselves on how much they can get from the system. I have a relative on welfare and she brags all the time about this stuff.. She also keeps popping out kids. IMO , they should not give her another check until she gets her tubes tied. Yes, that will be expensive too(she's also on Medicaid) but in the long run it would less of a drain on society.

Obviously, there are some that need help..but, the abuse of the system is rampant. A PP is right, I will not read an article attempting tp excuse the abuse of food stamps. You can call me callous, go ahead. I am callous. I'm that way because I see people who are able bodied and intelligent enough to work brag that all they have to do is have another kid, and the gravy train will keep rolling in. I'm tired and I think many other people are too.

We used to have this thing called "shame" -shame is not always a bad thing. It can motivate a person to get up and do something.

 

[DMRick]

If people are living off what taxpayers contribute, then they have no right to whine about people being judgmental and they should be grateful for any and all help they get. Most(not all) pride themselves on how much they can get from the system. .

Wow, you feel MOST pride themselves on how much they can get? I find this sad that anyone would think this. MOST..really? What if they are living off of what they paid into it..what if they were taxpayers at one time. My parents paid into it for over 100 years, others on this board have admitted being on foodstamps now or in the past. You better believe I'll whine about people being judgemental, after I saw it first hand.

I'm not even talking about welfare, passed down from family member to family member. This is about foodstamps, and there are people on foodstamps who, according to the government are allowed to keep their retirement and college funds. People on foodstamps may just be down on their luck. Sometimes it's mom's who have lost husbands in the war (or they are fighting one right now), sometimes it's because of a death, sometimes it's because the job market had gone south. Is everyone painted with the same brush?

 

[DMRick]

A PP is right, I will not read an article attempting tp excuse the abuse of food stamps. You can call me callous, go ahead. I am callous..

The url I posted wasn't an article on attempting to excuse the abuse of food stamps. It was the NYS foodstamp site that tells what is allowed and why. It contains facts on how foodstamps are given out. It contains facts on why certain foods are allowed. There are no excuses on the site..it's a factual site. Hopefully someday you won't need the site, because of an accident that means you or your husband can't work, a death in the family, if your spouse was to leave you, or a closedown of your workplace. I'd bet you wouldn't like to be judged on each item you pick up and put in your cart either.

 

[luvthemouse71]

I've got a story! And it's Disney related! I used to work in a low SES school where we "adopt" families and buy them gifts for Christmas. One family with 6 children asked for assistance in buying holiday gifts. No problem! Clothes, toys, you name it!

So come President's Day Weekend (February), this family of 6 (8 including Mom and Dad) take off for Disneyworld and stay for a week at the Wilderness Lodge. Now, I've stayed at the WL and know how much it costs.

No, it wasn't a "wish" trip and maybe someone else footed the bill, who knows?

I know there are a lot of people who say "don't judge, lest not ye be judged" But I think sometimes people should think about how their actions are viewed in the eyes of others. It tends to lend perspective and can cause someone to re-evaluate their behavior.

I'm really careful about how I choose my charities now..I don't give to those "adopt a family" programs . I would if it just covered the children..but the adults ask for stuff too, and even the kids ask for stuff that's way overboard(Nintendo DSi's, Ipods, etc). I tend to give to the programs for the elderly, sick children or orphans.

 

[luvthemouse71]

The url I posted wasn't an article on attempting to excuse the abuse of food stamps. It was the NYS foodstamp site that tells what is allowed and why. It contains facts on how foodstamps are given out. It contains facts on why certain foods are allowed. There are no excuses on the site..it's a factual site. Hopefully someday you won't need the site, because of an accident that means you or your husband can't work, a death in the family, if your spouse was to leave you, or a closedown of your workplace. I'd bet you wouldn't like to be judged on each item you pick up and put in your cart either.

Trust me, I won't need it, because I made choices in my life that allow me to have some money put aside..I support myself, I work in healthcare too, so my job market is very stable. I also have life insurance/short term disability insurance, money put aside for retirement and a hefty "rainy day" fund. I also probably wouldn't qualify because I have no children, a "disability" or a drug problem. That sounds bitter but RI has a very lax disability/welfare program.

I wasn't raised rich-my dad worked two jobs as I was growing up, my maternal grandparents were immigrants-there was no welfare for them when they came over. My grandma actually turned down the welcome basket from the church, because she didn't want to take charity.They both worked, my grandpa had the day shift, my grandma worked nights. I worked my way through nursing school. So, I'm not real receptive to the "someday that could be you" spiel, because unlike many, I have some pride and I'm aware that your choices come back to bite you in the butt if they're not good ones.

 

[C.Ann]

A PP is right, I will not read an article attempting tp excuse the abuse of food stamps. You can call me callous, go ahead. I am callous..

No - I won't call you callous.. Just a person who refuses to read what the actual income guidelines are for New York state (along with the ability to work and still qualify) and what is and isn't allowed in terms of food items.. It's not an "article"..

Your preference is to remain uninformed and base your opinions on what you "perceive" or "assume" - rather than the actual facts.. Don't you think that having the actual facts would aid in your knowledge of this subject?

 

[luvthemouse71]

Wow, you feel MOST pride themselves on how much they can get? I find this sad that anyone would think this. MOST..really? What if they are living off of what they paid into it..what if they were taxpayers at one time. My parents paid into it for over 100 years, others on this board have admitted being on foodstamps now or in the past. You better believe I'll whine about people being judgemental, after I saw it first hand.

I'm not even talking about welfare, passed down from family member to family member. This is about foodstamps, and there are people on foodstamps who, according to the government are allowed to keep their retirement and college funds. People on foodstamps may just be down on their luck. Sometimes it's mom's who have lost husbands in the war (or they are fighting one right now), sometimes it's because of a death, sometimes it's because the job market had gone south. Is everyone painted with the same brush?

Yes, sadly I find most of them are just lazy or not raised right. Come to my state and you'll see what I mean. My hospital is in a urban, kind of tough part of town. I counted one day the number of satillite dishes on the houses nearby..almost every house had a least a couple(3 familiy houses).

I was a pharmacy tech while I was in school, and most of the medicaid patients I saw were able bodied enough to work. Many would complain about getting generic instead of name brand prescriptions. Again, if you are dependent on the state, then you don't get an opinion on these things.

Foodstamps are public assistance..I'm aware that some people work while on them. But, the government should put stricter rules into place about what you can buy with them. And again, shame is not always bad. Maybe the "judgemental" behavior of others will wake some of these people up.

 

[luvthemouse71]

No - I won't call you callous.. Just a person who refuses to read what the actual income guidelines are for New York state (along with the ability to work and still qualify) and what is and isn't allowed in terms of food items.. It's not an "article"..

Your preference is to remain uninformed and base your opinions on what you "perceive" or "assume" - rather than the actual facts.. Don't you think that having the actual facts would aid in your knowledge of this subject?

I think it comes down to this...I don't care. Why should I? I go to work everyday, take care of me and mine and voluntarily give to the derserving.

Not every state has the same rules either. Like I said previously, I live in a state that has very lax requirements for welfare/public assistance. So, I am basing my "assumptions" on facts and what I've observed both at work and off duty. What New York does doesn't affect me.

 

[brunette8706]

The url I posted wasn't an article on attempting to excuse the abuse of food stamps. It was the NYS foodstamp site that tells what is allowed and why. It contains facts on how foodstamps are given out. It contains facts on why certain foods are allowed. There are no excuses on the site..it's a factual site. Hopefully someday you won't need the site, because of an accident that means you or your husband can't work, a death in the family, if your spouse was to leave you, or a closedown of your workplace. I'd bet you wouldn't like to be judged on each item you pick up and put in your cart either.

*
Oh for crying out loud! Cry me a river. We're not talking about people that just lost their job, just lost their spouse, elderly people that truly can not work, disabled people who truly can not work, we're talking about people that abuse the system. We're talking about people who use welfare/foodstamps generation after generation after generation.

Heck you read on this very board about "budget". How hard working families who cut coupons, save their hard earned money, send their kids to school, save every penny they can to go to Disney, even if it takes them 5 years. The average American "Joe". People that try to do their absolute best. Then you hear about the OP story and millions of other stories just like hers, where the food stamp fraud is abudant. Now, am all for giving food stamps to people that actually need it. I'm all for helping out the homeless, but I have a big problem with someone who spends $175.00 on candy not for their children but for a party for themself. My hard earned dollars at work. Yes, I cringe when I hear stories like this.

 

[C.Ann]

Trust me, I won't need it, because I made choices in my life that allow me to have some money put aside..I support myself, I work in healthcare too, so my job market is very stable. I also have life insurance/short term disability insurance, money put aside for retirement and a hefty "rainy day" fund. .

Famous last words.. I hope your life does work out that way, but I wouldn't bank on it.. Even the best laid plans can explode in the blink of an eye..

--------------------

I think I'll bow out of this thread now.. It's too sad to think that so many people here are convinced that they will never find themselves or their loved ones in a situation where everyone else will feel entitled to look down on them as "second class citizens"..

 

[DMRick]

*
I'm all for helping out the homeless, but I have a big problem with someone who spends $175.00 on candy not for their children but for a party for themself. My hard earned dollars at work. Yes, I cringe when I hear stories like this.

Reread what the OP wrote. She said they may have had other food in the basket but she didn't look. So she really doesn't know what this person spent on candy. She assumed. I'll assume she also had groceries, that may have accounted for a lot of that money. Oh, but what fun is there in that LOL? Also, she did not say in the OP that the party was for adults..she mentioned that way later when some of us made suggestions of why she might have a lot of candy. Again..did she assume or just forget to tell us that from the begining?

We're not talking about people that just lost their job, just lost their spouse, elderly people that truly can not work, disabled people who truly can not work, we're talking about people that abuse the system. We're talking about people who use welfare/foodstamps generation after generation after generation.

Actually, we don't know what kind of people we were talking about, since all the judging from the OP and others took place because of a few minutes of a conversation. I thought we were talking about the person the OP talked about and I don't know that person's circumstances. Sure, there is welfare and foodstamp fraud going on..but when we start judging from a persons grocery cart without knowing the circumstances that's plain, well, judging.
You can never say never, until your life is over. I surely never thought my parents would go through all of their savings paying for medical until they finally were able to get medicaid (and then lose their longtime doctor because he didn't take medicaid). I never thought my parents would qualify for foodstamps. I never thought both of my parents would die from cancer. We just never know the future.

 

[badblackpug]

$170 worth of Halloween candy is ridiculous no matter how you are paying for it..... however...

I had a good friend in college who was on welfare/food stamps. She was married and had 2 children not a year apart. When she married she and her husband decided that she would be a stay at home mom and he would work. When her younger child was 2 months old and her older just walking he decided it "wasn't for him" drained their joint bank account, took their only car, and left. She tracked him down 3 times for child support (and she had to track him down, then report it to the state) each time he quit his job and moved again. Because she had no job or job skills she had to go on welfare, get food stamps, and move into subsidized housing. Her father lived in the area, but was remarried and had small children of his own to support, her mother lived on the opposite coast. She was humiliated to be on assistance, and would drive several towns away to grocery shop for fear that someone she knows would see her with food stamps. Still, people couldn't manage to mind their own business about what was in her cart. Halfway through college she was qualified to get a job as a nurses aide. Welfare told her based on what she would make at that job, they would take away X amount in food stamps and no longer pay for child care. In the end she would have lost money by working. So, for all of you that are so soundly superior remember....There, but for the grace of god....

As for only buying "healthy" food.... there is no way to determine what is "healthy" and what is not. Food with less nutritional value is often way cheaper than "healthy" food. You can buy a gallon of orange "drink" for 99 cents. A gallon of orange juice is $5.99. Fresh fruits and vegetables are very expensive, especially here in the north east in the winter. You can buy a box of instant mac $ cheese for 99 cents, the ingredients to make the real thing are much more expensive. So, truly, if you want the most for your dollar, it is often cheaper to go with pre-packaged convenience foods, which are, incidentally, the foods that most often have coupons associated with them. Like a PP said you are d*amned if you do, and d*mned if you don't. If you buy "healthy" things like fish, chicken breasts, and lean beef, you are horrible for spending tax dollars on "luxuries." If you buy cheap processed things you are horrible for spending tax dollars on "junk." It would really be better if people would just count their blessings and mind their own business.

 

[cglaura]

Trust me, I won't need it, because I made choices in my life that allow me to have some money put aside..I support myself, I work in healthcare too, so my job market is very stable. I also have life insurance/short term disability insurance, money put aside for retirement and a hefty "rainy day" fund. I also probably wouldn't qualify because I have no children, a "disability" or a drug problem. That sounds bitter but RI has a very lax disability/welfare program.

I wasn't raised rich-my dad worked two jobs as I was growing up, my maternal grandparents were immigrants-there was no welfare for them when they came over. My grandma actually turned down the welcome basket from the church, because she didn't want to take charity.They both worked, my grandpa had the day shift, my grandma worked nights. I worked my way through nursing school. So, I'm not real receptive to the "someday that could be you" spiel, because unlike many, I have some pride and I'm aware that your choices come back to bite you in the butt if they're not good ones.

Wow, you sure are smug. What happens if those choices get taken away. What if someone steals your identity, drains your dd's college fund, your retirement and runs up tons on cc's all in a matter of a week. Yes, this happened to me. My ex husband's now 2nd ex wife. I went from having almost $90,000 to having less than what I did in high school.

She found every thing and wiped out everything. And what did she get? Two years and I will never get that paid back. Granted, to some maybe $90,000 is diddly in the grand scheme of what you need to be safe and retire, but at the time I was a 31 year old single mom. I worked my bleep bleep off to get to that point in my life.

It took me years to recover from this, and raise a kid by myself while doing so as this put my ex in a tailspin and he went from weekend dad to every four or five years dad.

What if you get sick. Your insurance drops you. Disabled. Mentally ill.
Must be nice to look in the mirror and see perfection and have no sympathy for those who have truly fell on hard times. Must be sad actually. I feel sad for you.

 

[LBIJim]

What really bothers me is going to the check out line and having a family with 1 cart FULL of food, mostly junk like chips, soda, candy, kool aid, frozen dinners, etc. Then they have the next transaction that is huge bags of dog food, cigarettes, beer, etc.

.

Years ago I worked in a combination deli/liquor store. There were people who would come in every day, spend $30 on lottery tickets, buy cigarettes and a cheap bottle of vodka, then go to the other register and pay for their chips, slim jims and beer nuts with food stamps. Every day. And if they didn't have enough cash, they'd offer to sell you a $20 food stamp for $5 in cash.

But it didn't bother me at all. I found it amusing.

The lady spending $170 on food stamps for Halloween candy doesn't bother me either. If she and her kids starve before October 31, so be it.

Jim

 

[hambirg]

All judging or not judging (as the case may be) set aside,
there are some real misconceptions about SNAP.

Families either qualify of they don't.
Qualification is based on income, family size, and property owned.
A person who only gets $16 gets only $16 because of their age and family size, it has nothing to do with how much money he makes.
That's usually a senior citizen who lives alone.

With food stamps you are either above the qualification line or below it.
How much you get is determined by how many people are in the family, the ages of the children.

You don't get more because you spend more, and you can't qualify for more food stamps if you have less money coming in than someone else who has a family of the same size.

This isn't true, at least in my state. How much you get is based on your income and family size. . .nothing to do with age. When I was going thru my divorce me and my 3 children got them. It was $472, that is a ton for someone like me who coupons and had always kept a strict grocery budget. I'm thankful I got it and used the extra to stock the freezer with basics. When I did get a job, I reported the change in income and began getting $167 a month. I was kind of surprised that I still got any, but was very thankful because I was supporting the 4 of us on less than $2000/month (it was a crappy job, but I took what I could get). But the point is the only thing that changed was income. . .family size and ages were the same.

 

[tavettava]

Here in Michigan the Bridge Card (EBT) will pay for the deposit on your pop. I do think that is wrong.

 

[SoonerSarah]

I was a pharmacy tech while I was in school, and most of the medicaid patients I saw were able bodied enough to work. Many would complain about getting generic instead of name brand prescriptions. Again, if you are dependent on the state, then you don't get an opinion on these things.

Now, I have no problems with anger towards those that complain about a generics, which is honestly just ridiculous.

But do you not realize that there are a lot of people that do work, and have jobs that pay well, but provide no insurance? Or will not cover pre-exsisting conditions? And they have looked into getting insurance elsewhere but can't get approved?