Food Stamp outrage

[Peejay]

Unfortunately for you, nobody killed or caged up the people who died during the depression, so there's no way to really verify the numbers that were killed by starvation, or why they died that way.

Unlike the Holocaust. We know who they were, where they were, what killed them and whom.

Of course, but as stated by previous poster, you don't expect them to believe that just because there is someone who agrees with that on the internet ? There is more stuff out there about Holocaust deaths not happening than depression deaths not happening. We don't know the exact numbers, all we know is that somewhere around 7 - 10 million people disappeared. Denying that people died as a result of the depression is at least a little like holocaust denial.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I know when the Food Stamp program began.

Really? Then why were you talking to me about a different program that existed thirty years earlier?

I did not speak to you about the food stamp program. You jumped in to the conversation about people starving in the streets.

Sorry, Sparky. YOUR short-term memory might be that faulty, but mine isn't. You've been back and forth on this, talking food stamps, then the Great Depression, and you responded to a SPECIFIC question about the Food Stamp program with the 1930s. It is irrelevant to talk about "public assistance because of starving people in the 30s" when speaking specifically about a program that wasn't started until 30 years later. Clearly, what happened in the Great Depression was NOT part of the reason for creating the Food Stamp Program.

And that's even assuming I accept your silly premise of millions "starving to death in the streets" during the 30s. The population of the US was only about 130 million at the end of that decade, and the death rate wasn't even remotely high enough to allow for that many deaths due solely to starvation.

 

[Cecilie1200]

No. Welfare is not intended to be an investment system, where you pay in and then get something back when you want it because you're somehow "entitled" to pay back. It's intended to offer assistance to people who cannot provide for themselves financially. And since welfare was reformed, recipients are limited in the amount of time they can receive assistance and required to show some effort at providing for themselves, or proof that they can't such as a disability. If he has the money to provide for himself, then he should do so, not expect others to do it for him.

It was designed to be an investment system the same way insurance was designed to be an investment you pay into it so that when something happens you are covered.

First of all, that's not an investment. Second of all, observe the phrase "when something happens". That means it exists only for people who fall into bad circumstances, not everyone who pays into it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

10 Million Americans Disappeared during the Great Depression Time | Cherada.com



Welfare increases poverty

You're clearly a little shaky on the concept of proof. Finding someone on the Internet who agrees with you does not constitute proof. I can find you half a dozen people on the Internet right now who insist that space aliens kidnapped and anally probed them, but that doesn't necessarily mean I believe them.

Believe what you will.

By the way, do you believe in the Holocaust ?

More empty hyperbole. "Proof? You want proof? Obviously, you're just a crazy Holocaust denier! How DARE you demand proof instead of taking my word for it?!"

I'm going to take this to mean that you not only have no proof, but are incapable of understanding how to even find any, or even to debate as a rational, logical adult. I'm done trying to treat you as a serious person. You're dismissed. Enjoy your juvenile hysterics on ignore.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Unfortunately for you, nobody killed or caged up the people who died during the depression, so there's no way to really verify the numbers that were killed by starvation, or why they died that way.

Unlike the Holocaust. We know who they were, where they were, what killed them and whom.

He also hasn't proven a damned thing concerning death rates in the 30s, let alone in the 60s when the program he claims was sparked by starvation actually started. He just made the assertion, totally unsubstantiated.

 

[AllieBaba]

A new wave of food stamp applicants washes across Oregon
by David Sarasohn, The Oregonian
Sunday March 15, 2009

Kathryn Phillips has never asked for assistance before.

But a few months ago, her husband's job went away; he was a systems installer for a company that did a lot of work for the now-departed Circuit City.

So with her maternity leave still having a couple of months to go, and after cashing out all her vacation time, she brought her 2-month-old son down to the state office here to try to get her family of five some help.

"It's a matter of time," she explains matter-of-factly, her eyes switching between the official activity on the other side of the counter and the sleeping bundle at her feet, "and we've kind of run out of time."

She's part of a massive wave of new recession-era applicants sweeping into Department of Human Services offices around the state --many of whom have never seen the inside of those buildings before. In February, food stamp demand around the state increased 21 percent over February 2008, and in some areas the numbers teeter even higher.

Demand in the Bend area, which has led the state in increases for each of the past 14 months, rose 34.2 percent over the past year, and in the suburban counties of Washington and Clackamas, the increase topped 25 percent. Jefferson County (Madras) has just become the first Oregon county ever where almost a quarter of the population is receiving food stamps.

Food stamps have been a constantly criticized --and by certain political groups, targeted --program. But they have been a first line of defense against American hunger, and in a time when need is soaring almost beyond recognition, they're a bulwark that will need strengthening.

The federal government pays for food stamps, including a huge chunk in last month's stimulus bill, reflecting the program's particular power to pump money into the economy almost immediately. But the state's resources to administer the program are quivering in the new economic storm.

"We have declared an emergency," says Bruce Goldberg, the state's Human Services director, redirecting staff from other duties to process food stamp applications, sending workers from around the state to shore up the Bend office, and moving to quicken the procedures. When the lobby here fills up, staff members drop other duties to run what they call an intake blitz.

"My question is, how long does that strategy hold up in the face of that growth?" warns Goldberg. "If it gets to 30, 40, 50 percent, the process won't hold."

It's the identity of the new applicants, as much as their exploding numbers, that redraws the world of hunger as we've known it.

"Just within the last six months, I've seen some clients come in who used to be in the six-figure range," says Candy Mills, a line manager at the North Clackamas office. "You tell them they qualify for nothing, or maybe $24 a month, and they say, 'What's the point?' "

People who have always heard about, and maybe believed, the excesses of the food stamp life can be startled to come face-to-face with the numbers.

A couple who are both collecting unemployment generally have too much income to qualify. As Mills points out, the details of a suddenly downsized existence --mortgage payments, Visa debts and car insurance bills --don't affect the formula.

As one applicant complained last week, finding that with her unemployment and child support she qualified for $14 in food stamps in a month, "When you're trying to pay your PGE bill on unemployment, it's ridiculous."

...

Staff members are generally confident in the truth of the information applicants provide; in fact, says Hunter, "They do tell us sometimes things we don't want to know."

It's a world of rules you might not imagine until you find yourself in the middle of them. If your parents pay your rent, that doesn't count as income; if they give you the money to pay your rent, it does, and will affect any benefits.

Kathryn Phillips wasn't at the six-figure level and hasn't sold blood plasma. But she's done everything the financial advisers say to do, including getting stock in her company --which has now reached a level, she says wryly, where if she sold it she might have to give the company money.

Now, the for-rent signs are speckling her neighborhood, and her family is out of income. She tried cutting her Internet connection to save money, but found that her 10-year-old needed it to do his homework, and it's another two months until she returns to her job.

"Once I'm working again, I won't need this assistance," she says. "I'm not here to get anything I don't need."

...
Phillips qualifies, and in the new expedited system that now extends to about half the DHS offices, gets her card immediately. "It's cool that I get to walk out of here and go to the grocery store," she says, "because my bank account is zero."

It's cool in another sense that Phillips gets her card at 3:30 p.m. and is in the supermarket at 5:30. Hardly any federal program gets its money into the economy so quickly.

A study last year from Moody's Economy.com found that each dollar in food stamps generated $1.73 in economic activity, the highest payoff of any federal spending --which helped the program to a $20 billion place in last month's stimulus package.
There's another advantage, a calculation that's getting steadily more prominent in the design of all nutrition programs.

"It's hard when your income is so low to feed (your kids) healthy," Phillips says. "Peanut butter and jelly is a staple. We do a lot of spaghetti and hamburgers."

Or as DHS director Goldberg puts it, "A dollar buys you three days' worth of pasta, or one meal's worth of vegetables."

....
The Women, Infants and Children's Nutrition program has already set a direction, with vouchers to be used at farmers markets and now specific coupons for fruits and vegetables.

He's also concerned about the program's limitations on assets, a particular stumbling block for some of its new clients.

"That's the problem with a lot of social service programs," Schrader says. "You basically have to spend yourself into poverty, meaning you might have trouble getting out of poverty. In times like these, especially in a program like food stamps, I don't want people to jump through too many hoops."

Over the last three decades, food stamps have been denounced on principle and cut back as part of welfare reform, and conservatives have repeatedly tried to roll them into block grants to the states, whose creativity would presumably let them do ever more with ever less.

Oregon's creativity consisted of outreach that signed more and more qualified Oregonians up for the federal program, giving it one of the highest participation rates of any state and making serious progress against hunger for the first half of this decade.

Now, says Mark Edwards, an Oregon State University sociology professor studying hunger, "We seem to have pulled that lever as far as we can pull it."

But the demand still rises, as the first wall against hunger tries to hold throughout the state. To see us through the next years, the food stamp program will need more support and creativity, new strategies and even new targets.

The new applicants to the program, finding something considerably different from urban legend, are getting what Edwards calls "a crash course in policy."

A new wave of food stamp applicants washes across Oregon – OregonLive.com

 

[Ravi]

Damn, Allie...you're turning into a commie!



A study last year from Moody's Economy.com found that each dollar in food stamps generated $1.73 in economic activity, the highest payoff of any federal spending --which helped the program to a $20 billion place in last month's stimulus package.

 

[AllieBaba]

No way. I just want to keep my friggin job.

Besides, I've always supported the fs program. It's a pretty good program. And I also support welfare medical programs...such as they are.

I just don't want the government RUNNING OUR HOSPITALS AND PHARMACIES. That's where I part ways with the national health care crowd.

 

[Luissa]

Unfortunately for you, nobody killed or caged up the people who died during the depression, so there's no way to really verify the numbers that were killed by starvation, or why they died that way.

Unlike the Holocaust. We know who they were, where they were, what killed them and whom.

He also hasn't proven a damned thing concerning death rates in the 30s, let alone in the 60s when the program he claims was sparked by starvation actually started. He just made the assertion, totally unsubstantiated.

giving the fact during the late 50's many mentally ill people were kicked out on the street due to them not allowing most to stay in long term care I am pretty sure there were many people homeless and dying on the streets. Maybe not millions of people were dying but I am sure there was thousands.

 

[Peejay]

Unfortunately for you, nobody killed or caged up the people who died during the depression, so there's no way to really verify the numbers that were killed by starvation, or why they died that way.

Unlike the Holocaust. We know who they were, where they were, what killed them and whom.

He also hasn't proven a damned thing concerning death rates in the 30s, let alone in the 60s when the program he claims was sparked by starvation actually started. He just made the assertion, totally unsubstantiated.

giving the fact during the late 50's many mentally ill people were kicked out on the street due to them not allowing most to stay in long term care I am pretty sure there were many people homeless and dying on the streets. Maybe not millions of people were dying but I am sure there was thousands.

The numbers are huge during the years where we did not take care to prevent these things from happening, like you mention here. I provided a couple of links to studies of the history of poverty and public assistance, a study on the disappearance of 7 million Americans during the depression. Hell, there are tons and tons of photgraphs of men, women and children, living in tents, boxes and shanty towns. I guess no one actually died out there living in a cardboard shelter, cold, hungry and sick.

Ignorant folks about.

 

[KittenKoder]

You guys can say the story is bullshit all you want. It is true. Look it up. If the family is categorical eligibility assests are waived.

Categorical Eligibility - SNAP (Food Stamps)

"If a household is categorically eligible, the Gross Income, Net Income, and Asset Tests are waived. In addition, some non-financial requirements, such as providing a Social Security Number, do not have to be verified. "

From what I read only 15 states do this.

Didn't know about that, thanks. So the story isn't bullshit, but the state is. Luckily only a few are like that now, let's hope they correct this huge error soon.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Unfortunately for you, nobody killed or caged up the people who died during the depression, so there's no way to really verify the numbers that were killed by starvation, or why they died that way.

Unlike the Holocaust. We know who they were, where they were, what killed them and whom.

He also hasn't proven a damned thing concerning death rates in the 30s, let alone in the 60s when the program he claims was sparked by starvation actually started. He just made the assertion, totally unsubstantiated.

giving the fact during the late 50's many mentally ill people were kicked out on the street due to them not allowing most to stay in long term care I am pretty sure there were many people homeless and dying on the streets. Maybe not millions of people were dying but I am sure there was thousands.

It's amazing how you continue to think that I am interested in, let alone inclined to believe, blanket, unsubstantiated statements about how you're "sure" things are this way or that way.

Do you really even need me to say, "Show me some proof of 'many' mentally ill people kicked out and homeless and starving. And while you're at it, show me how this is related to the creation of the Food Stamp program"?

Stop wasting my time.

 

[Peejay]

Aside from the reality that people without food starve, I always love these grocery store anecdotes. "He bought a piece of meat with FOOD STAMPS ! The he bought fruit juice !! The nerve of that guy. Then he paid $3.10 CASH for a six pack of Miller and drove off in a brand new 1987 pick up truck."

I mean, what do you want ? You want folks to crawl in the grocery store, near death, wearing rags, un bathed at the end of a 25 mile hike ? Would you all feel better then ?

I got a story.....I was in the jet boat store the other day and I was behind this guy that was the CEO of a failed bank that just recieved a few billion in corporate welfare. He bought his and hers matching Jet boats and drove away in TWO YEAR OLD TRUCK. poor guy.

 

[Luissa]

He also hasn't proven a damned thing concerning death rates in the 30s, let alone in the 60s when the program he claims was sparked by starvation actually started. He just made the assertion, totally unsubstantiated.

giving the fact during the late 50's many mentally ill people were kicked out on the street due to them not allowing most to stay in long term care I am pretty sure there were many people homeless and dying on the streets. Maybe not millions of people were dying but I am sure there was thousands.

It's amazing how you continue to think that I am interested in, let alone inclined to believe, blanket, unsubstantiated statements about how you're "sure" things are this way or that way.

Do you really even need me to say, "Show me some proof of 'many' mentally ill people kicked out and homeless and starving. And while you're at it, show me how this is related to the creation of the Food Stamp program"?

Stop wasting my time.

I never said that it was the reason for the food stamp program did I. And if you don't think thousands or maybe millions died on the streets back then, I would love to live in your bubble also.


In the United States, during the late 1970s, the deinstitutionalisation of patients from state psychiatric hospitals was a precipitating factor which seeded the homeless population, especially in urban areas such as New York City.[19]

The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 was a pre-disposing factor in setting the stage for homelessness in the United States.[20] Long term psychiatric patients were released from state hospitals into Single Room Occupancies and sent to community health centers for treatment and follow-up. It never quite worked out properly and this population largely was found living in the streets soon thereafter with no sustainable support system.[21][22]
Homelessness in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Cuts in federal assistance for housing programs and social services have coincided with the rise in homelessness in the U.S. During the 1950s and 1960s

National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness

And since the death rate is higher for homeless people due to diabetes, TB, and other diseases along with starvation I would say there were more people dying in the streets in the late 50's and early 60's than before deinstitutionization.

 

[Peejay]

The numbers for the homeless are astounding. Until a few years ago, it was 60% + Vietnam Vets. The Vietnam guys are dying off now (guess where they die ?) The majority of the rest, mentally ill ( a significant number of the vets mentally ill also). Also the population was near 90% male. The majority of aid, public and private, was steered towards the females, seen as being more at risk on the streets.

 

[Burp]

From the Hamilton County Job and Family Services Page:

Who is eligible

Families and individuals can receive this benefit. Eligibility is complex--based on family size, income, assets (checking and savings accounts, stock and bonds) resources and expenses. Healthy people under the age of 60 may have to participate in a work activity to receive benefits.

If she is receiving food stamps, someone in the county didn't do their job.

Either way, I say bullshit.

Hamilton County Job & Family Services Food Stamps

 

[raceright]

Aside from the reality that people without food starve, I always love these grocery store anecdotes. "He bought a piece of meat with FOOD STAMPS ! The he bought fruit juice !! The nerve of that guy. Then he paid $3.10 CASH for a six pack of Miller and drove off in a brand new 1987 pick up truck."

I mean, what do you want ? You want folks to crawl in the grocery store, near death, wearing rags, un bathed at the end of a 25 mile hike ? Would you all feel better then ?

I got a story.....I was in the jet boat store the other day and I was behind this guy that was the CEO of a failed bank that just received a few billion in corporate welfare. He bought his and hers matching Jet boats and drove away in TWO YEAR OLD TRUCK. poor guy.

You were in a jet boat store I find that interesting..
Not just the rich are upset with hand outs so is the guy or gal who works hard for there money and can not afford a jet boat like you (yea right)
First it should be embarrassing to use food stamps but for too many it is not. Don't tell me about the fact that I'm insulting the needy as Culture took a change for the worst and they don't get insulted that easy only angry. Know what they say about anger all to often it indicates guilt. And they do not have computers anyway do they.

 

[Burp]

Aside from the reality that people without food starve, I always love these grocery store anecdotes. "He bought a piece of meat with FOOD STAMPS ! The he bought fruit juice !! The nerve of that guy. Then he paid $3.10 CASH for a six pack of Miller and drove off in a brand new 1987 pick up truck."

I mean, what do you want ? You want folks to crawl in the grocery store, near death, wearing rags, un bathed at the end of a 25 mile hike ? Would you all feel better then ?

I got a story.....I was in the jet boat store the other day and I was behind this guy that was the CEO of a failed bank that just received a few billion in corporate welfare. He bought his and hers matching Jet boats and drove away in TWO YEAR OLD TRUCK. poor guy.

You were in a jet boat store I find that interesting..
Not just the rich are upset with hand outs so is the guy or gal who works hard for there money and can not afford a jet boat like you (yea right)
First it should be embarrassing to use food stamps but for too many it is not. Don't tell me about the fact that I'm insulting the needy as Culture took a change for the worst and they don't get insulted that easy only angry. Know what they say about anger all to often it indicates guilt. And they do not have computers anyway do they.

It used to be embarrassing to use food stamps. When they were "paper."

Now, so many places are putting the funds on a plastic card it makes it look like just another credit card.

Plus I think times have changed. There is such a "give-me, you-owe-me" attitude; one of entitlement to the point that it isn't embarrassing any more.

 

[Peejay]

Aside from the reality that people without food starve, I always love these grocery store anecdotes. "He bought a piece of meat with FOOD STAMPS ! The he bought fruit juice !! The nerve of that guy. Then he paid $3.10 CASH for a six pack of Miller and drove off in a brand new 1987 pick up truck."

I mean, what do you want ? You want folks to crawl in the grocery store, near death, wearing rags, un bathed at the end of a 25 mile hike ? Would you all feel better then ?

I got a story.....I was in the jet boat store the other day and I was behind this guy that was the CEO of a failed bank that just received a few billion in corporate welfare. He bought his and hers matching Jet boats and drove away in TWO YEAR OLD TRUCK. poor guy.

You were in a jet boat store I find that interesting..
Not just the rich are upset with hand outs so is the guy or gal who works hard for there money and can not afford a jet boat like you (yea right)
First it should be embarrassing to use food stamps but for too many it is not. Don't tell me about the fact that I'm insulting the needy as Culture took a change for the worst and they don't get insulted that easy only angry. Know what they say about anger all to often it indicates guilt. And they do not have computers anyway do they.

I wasn't buying a jet boat. Lord knows I can't afford one of those. I was just following the corporate welfare recipient, much like the lady in this thread who follows food stamp recipients. She got to see maybe a hundred bucks of your tax money spent on groceries to feed someone. I got to see 100 grand of your tax money spent on jet boats.

Somehow, I feel better about providing food than jet boats.

 

[Peejay]

Aside from the reality that people without food starve, I always love these grocery store anecdotes. "He bought a piece of meat with FOOD STAMPS ! The he bought fruit juice !! The nerve of that guy. Then he paid $3.10 CASH for a six pack of Miller and drove off in a brand new 1987 pick up truck."

I mean, what do you want ? You want folks to crawl in the grocery store, near death, wearing rags, un bathed at the end of a 25 mile hike ? Would you all feel better then ?

I got a story.....I was in the jet boat store the other day and I was behind this guy that was the CEO of a failed bank that just received a few billion in corporate welfare. He bought his and hers matching Jet boats and drove away in TWO YEAR OLD TRUCK. poor guy.

You were in a jet boat store I find that interesting..
Not just the rich are upset with hand outs so is the guy or gal who works hard for there money and can not afford a jet boat like you (yea right)
First it should be embarrassing to use food stamps but for too many it is not. Don't tell me about the fact that I'm insulting the needy as Culture took a change for the worst and they don't get insulted that easy only angry. Know what they say about anger all to often it indicates guilt. And they do not have computers anyway do they.

It used to be embarrassing to use food stamps. When they were "paper."

Now, so many places are putting the funds on a plastic card it makes it look like just another credit card.

Plus I think times have changed. There is such a "give-me, you-owe-me" attitude; one of entitlement to the point that it isn't embarrassing any more.

I would have to agree, in all seriousness, that the flippant attitudes about public assistance are enough to make you want to kick someone in the pants. It's a problem but we don't kill the whole thing in light of that. We don't scrub banking all together because there is now MASSIVE fraud in the system. We do the best we can to fix it. The Welfare Reform Act did alot to curb the abuse in the system. As cited here already, if you find yourself in a position to need assistance, a lot of these urban myths will become just that.