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TheHeretic -> RE: Welfare benefit scroungers - the evidence just doesn't add up. (12/7/2012 10:35:25 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: absolutchocolat
definitely disagree with you there. what year were you on welfare? i'm curious.
times are different -- food prices are higher, wage rates in most industries are stagnant or declining and food stamps, while helpful, are not enough on their own to feed a person or family adequately. period.
and the fact that someone with an advanced degree is struggling speaks volumes. i wouldn't assume that the "whiners" don't know how to manage money -- a few dollars a month can only stretch so far. that's reality.
i've been on food stamps, and i budget very well, but $200 a month didn't go far. i couldn't buy a ton of fresh vegetables or quality meats and organic grains with that. if i did, my food stamps would run out halfway through the month. i seriously cut back on meals, and ate lots of ramen noodles. it sucked.
that's why i thought the article was interesting...cory booker is opening up the debate on public assistance, and that's always a good thing.
I had a food stamps only case in '93, and it only lasted for a few months, since the rules were changing. If I had been willing to exploit my ancestry, I could have checked the minority box, and kept them rolling in, but I wasn't willing to do that back then (in a recent development, I'm now a Native-American, anytime it comes up). I was quite surprised to get them, when a roomate told me I needed to go apply, and I didn't use cash for groceries at all in that time. Mom had a full case, for at least two brief stretches, when I was a kid.
Meat came from a butcher shop, that sold assortment packs in various prices. I'm a meat and pototatos kind of guy, but the fresh fruit and few veggies I bought came from a produce stand. I also bought the 7/11 or AM/PM burritos and such, whenever that was the easiest way to get a meal. I just had to remember to pay first, and then put it in the microwave. The only time I would buy chips or soda would be at the end of the month, with whatever was left over. Ice cream just wasn't on the menu.
The fact that someone with an advanced degree was struggling only illustrates that holding an advanced degree has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence (we have a couple around here who prove that with every post as well).
These days, I do virtually all the grocery shopping for my house, and the monthly cost works out to about $100 more than the grant for a similar sized household below the poverty line would be. That includes a few nights a month when we feed company, as well. Over a given stocking of the refrigerator, freezer and pantry, I hit 3 or 4 different stores, and focus on sale items. When fresh whole chickens are at 59 or 69 cents a pound, I'll buy 6 - 8, and freeze them. When we are out, and those same chickens are $1.69 a pound, I don't go near them. We'll do a very nice roast chicken, or beer can one on the grill. The carcass gets boiled for a big batch of chicken and rice/dumplings, with lots of leftovers. Same with ground beef, pork chops, salmon, and my preferred cuts for the grill. On my last trip to the store, I put 4 nice, on sale, tri-tips in the freezer, that hadn't been on my list. That price was good enough that I stopped back at the store on the last day of the sale, when they had run out, and got a rain check to load up the freezer at that price again, after the holidays. I buy the rice on sale, too, but I'm also buying soda, Doritos, Oreos, good lunchmeat from the deli, and the sourdough rolls to put it on. those nifty little flavor drops for the bottled water, and a couple six-packs a month of mid-price adult beverages, all of which come off a restricted budget very easily.
And that's the thing. I live in an area where a goodly percentage of the population receives some kind of government aid. I've lived and shopped here for ten years, and while I have seen a great many EBT cards swiped (yes, I know what they look like), what I have never seen is a copy of the in-store ads in the cart. I've never seen anyone flipping through an envelope full of coupons before swiping the card, either. I have seen 2 cans of Starkist tuna in the cart ahead of me, when I was buying a Chicken of the Sea 4-pack for less than half that price. I've seen three boxes of full price Hamburger Helper, when a 15-pack of Mac n Cheese was on sale for a dollar more then they were spending. I've seen full carts at the pricy chains that I only go into for a particular item on sale. Yes, it's the same starchy crap, but the same money goes a lot farther if you aren't downright stupid when you spend it.
Yes. Arugala is expensive. So is wild caught salmon, and Black Angus beef, and I will never get used to the idea that 1/2 pint of blackberries or raspberries costs $5.99 in Southern California, when I grew up picking and eating them right off the wild vines all summer long, when I was a kid in Oregon. Oranges, on the other hand, are cheap here, so I guess it works out.
Food in general is more expensive, and that rain falls on everybody, working, welfare, or middle of the middle class alike. A jar of Prego spagetti sauce isn't the cheapest on the shelf, but it's still cheaper than going into the produce dept with a list. A can of coffee has not only dropped a few ounces in the nifty new plastic container, but nearly doubled in price over the last 10 years, as well. I make my coffee strong enough to kick-start a Caterpillar, so that's one I notice.
Does it suck to eat on a restricted budget? Oh you betcha. When we came back from vacation last year, the credit card balances were higher than we like, so we chopped out of the food budget, and tried a $60 buck a week food budget. Epic fail. We met the spending target, but after a week, we looked in the fridge, said, "fuck that," and went out for steak and sushi.
Nobody says being poor doesn't suck. It's supposed to. That's what encourages people to stop.
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