Once stigmatized, food stamps find acceptance

[California Girl]

I said this before. What irritiates, well nauseates me, is all the people I have run into, that were crying how they were laid off, and can't find jobs.

I offer them a job doing door to door sales, exactly what I am doing, and they refuse to even try it.

Personally, I think anyone who turns down a job should forfeit any support from government.

 

[CMike]

I said this before. What irritiates, well nauseates me, is all the people I have run into, that were crying how they were laid off, and can't find jobs.

I offer them a job doing door to door sales, exactly what I am doing, and they refuse to even try it.

Personally, I think anyone who turns down a job should forfeit any support from government.

I agree.

So many people would rather just stay at home living off the taxpayers, than take a job that doesn't meet their criteria.

I took a job doing door to door sales, stricly on commission, and I did so to support my wife and myself, and I have a MBA. It makes me mad that so many people have turned it down who had no job for years.

 

[AllieBaba]

I said this before. What irritiates, well nauseates me, is all the people I have run into, that were crying how they were laid off, and can't find jobs.

I offer them a job doing door to door sales, exactly what I am doing, and they refuse to even try it.

Personally, I think anyone who turns down a job should forfeit any support from government.

Adults who refuse to participate in the job-search program are denied fs benefits for themselves. They still receive them for their children.

Adults who have applied for unemployment and been denied are denied cash benefits for themselves. Not for their children.

In medical programs, two-parent households where the primary wage earner has been denied (or will be) unemployment compensation are denied cash & medical for the adults.

Single parent households, we want the parent covered medically for the sake of preventative care. We really don't want to completely fund the children, if their parent gets sick and they have to be placed.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

They are not stigmatized today in fact they are a very direct and effective form of stimulus.

And where is your evidence of that?

 

[Care4all]

I don't know if they are stigmatized or not, but as far as a stimulus, it is money that goes directly in to our food sector, and other sectors as well, because this money allows some people who were strapped to the hilt, pay other bills with money that would have otherwise gone towards food. These people on food stamps are certainly not stashing this money away...it is being spent in the economy.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Yep and many even raised gardens if only very small ones.
Another nearly lost art, even in rural KY where I live.

so much of our economy over the last few decades has been built on laziness and waste.
Production got more efficient and consumers got more inefficient.

yea... people sure don't have GARDENS anymore.




seriously. this thread is reminding me of every dark spot that stains liberal politics despite my own identity with it.

Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet!

you don't need a big garden either

and for the home made bread people

Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread

When I was a kid, my mom taught me to make drop biscuits, because she was always too busy to mess around with yeast and rolling out and cutting. Basic, nutritious home cooking is just not that hard.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Most of the current generation of poor were never taught how to make biscuits from scratch.

I wasn't taught how to build computers either until I needed to learn to HAVE my first computer. I don't buy the idea that our modern poor can't make buscuts from scratch because Aunt Jemima never taught them at the age of 4. This is the age of the internet for Christs sake. If you want to learn our to make anything it's only a mouseclick away.

I learned to cook mostly on my own or from friends so I know what you are saying. But a mouse click is not so close for everyone, nor is a public library.
Biscuits aren't that nutritional either. Better compliment them with some lentil sprouts.

I'm sorry, but did you just try to tell us that you believe there are people who can get to a supermarket to buy prepared foods with their EBT card, but can't manage to access a public library to check out a cookbook?

 

[Cecilie1200]

Shame on those children for wanting to be born into poverty.
They could have chosen to be born rich.

They could work to become rich.

Don't you mean they could come and work for the rich?

It works out a lot better than working for poor people. For some reason, their checks always seem to bounce.

 

[Cecilie1200]

They could work to become rich.

Yes possibly. You really do not have a clue how hard it is to climb out of poverty when your parents are deadbeat slugs do you?

and typically once you do begin to climb out your relatives try and bleed you dry.

Okay, I am confused.

You are saying it's bad to be in proverty and out of proverty?

You will learn that there are some people in the world who are conditioned to have a complaint about everything, and an excuse why their lives have to be shitty enough to endlessly complain about, no matter what happens. If they won the Powerball lottery, they would bitch about having to pay taxes on it, and explain in excruciating detail why they still could not make their lives any better.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Care I see what the people using "food Stamps" buy. Little of it is food that requires preparation.
Now there is a difference in the elderly on food stamps and the younger ones. The elderly buy basics to prepare. The younger ones do not.

My generation prepared food, the succeding ones not so much.

if it is food that requires little preperation it's only because of it's convenient availability. No shit someone is going to buy fries instead of pealable potatoes while on food stamps. But, do you REALLY think that someone who wants fries and are given potatoes won't figure out how to cut them and deep fry them? come on.

Who the hell PEELS potatoes? You scrub them good and cook them with the skins on! I peel boiled squash, onions, and beets, the beets after they are cooked, and turnips. I peel sweet potatoes and yams after they are boiled a bit. Then the skins slide off! Scrub the carrots a bit and into the pot!

Peelers are vitamin and fiber wasters!

Who peels potatoes? People who are making something other than baked potatoes. When I want to make mashed potatoes, I cut the potatoes up before boiling them, so that they cook faster. Trying to boil them and THEN remove the skins either requires fiddling with the skins on a bunch of small pieces, or waiting longer for the potatoes to cook because they're whole. I may be willing to cook from scratch, but damned if it's going to take longer or be more work than it absolutely has to be.

And if I want vitamins and fiber, I eat something other than potatoes.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Can they afford to suport themselves without your help? Do their jobs pay enough for rent, transportation, insurance, food, clothing, utilities and their education?

Without you....would they need food stamps to survive?

Ahhh... but even if he helped them, that would by their family helping them not living off the taxpayers.

So those who do not have a wealthy family to support them should starve? Can an 18 year old today get a job that will support him without any assistance?

Yes.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Ahhh... but even if he helped them, that would by their family helping them not living off the taxpayers.

So those who do not have a wealthy family to support them should starve? Can an 18 year old today get a job that will support him without any assistance?

Yes.

There is also the possibility of roomates.

How about two jobs?

How about renting a room from a family that has extra space in their house, thereby not only reducing your own expenses, but helping them to make ends meet better? Since we live close to one of the community college campuses, we often rent out our extra bedroom to someone who wants to be close enough to bicycle to classes. Lots of people in this area do that, and whole scads of people near the U of A and the larger two CC campuses do it.

 

[Cecilie1200]

I agree...The poor used to be known for their ability to take basic foodstuffs and turn them into a lowcost meal. Inexpensive cuts of meat, cornmeal, flour, rice could all be cooked into a meal for the family at low cost. Many of the poor today are incapable of cooking a meal that isn't pre-prepared.

But before we put all the blame on the poor.....most middle class and wealthy can no longer cook a basic meal without takeout.

Cooking is a lost art

Much as it galls me to say it, I agree with you on this. It always floors me when I go to parties and socials where the attendees bring "share food", and most of the people bring something packaged, like a deli platter or bakery cake, and they ooh and aah over something I cooked like it's a gourmet banquet. The domestic arts - not just cooking - are dying out.

When I was working at a supermarket, you could always tell the recent immigrants from the born Americans if they were using food stamps. The Americans would be buying frozen food and prepared mixes (lots of hamburger), and the immigrants would be buying bags of produce and cuts of meat that I never even heard of or realized that we sold. The most prepared item of food they bought would be something like ice cream. I got in the habit of asking them how they prepared that stuff and what they made with it, because it just made me so curious.

Its not picking on the poor either. The wealthy will buy a $5000 professional stove to put into their $75,000 designer kitchen. None of which will ever be used.
It amazes me that simple things like baking a cake or cooking your own Thanksgiving turkey are now beyond the capabilities of a large number of Americans.

When I was a senior in high school, my father had a severe stroke and became unable to work (for the longest time, he was unable to even cross the street without nearly collapsing). My mother's job, which she had always done just for extra spending money, wasn't nearly enough to support us. My whole family picked up and moved to Tucson because we had relatives here that we could count on to help us out if we needed it. We found a seriously rundown apartment complex whose owner agreed to discount our rent in exchange for doing repairs around the place and cleaning his house for him. I can still remember my mom on the roof of the complex, applying a new coat of tar to seal leaks.

We could barely afford the electricity on what she made waitressing and I made part-time cleaning kennels at a veterinary hospital when I wasn't in school. The heater, water heater, and stove were all gas, which we couldn't afford to have on, so we took cold showers and did all our cooking on a one-burner hot plate. We still managed to eat homemade meals rather than prepared, frozen junk. It just took a hell of a lot more planning.

 

[Cecilie1200]

Another thing that annoys me about most of the people on food stamps is they are not working. They have time to cook. They could bake their own bread, make soup from scratch, pancakes, oatmeal, stews ....all of which would cost less and taste better than prepared meals.
Flour, rice, potatoes, cornmeal, pasta are all inexpensive
Chicken, turkey and pork cuts can be bought cheaply
You can cook low cost, tasty and healthy meals for one quarter of what you pay for a frozen dinner

Plus you can stock up on and store most of that stuff if you do it carefully. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, everything you can possibly imagine for baking and cooking large dinners is on sale for insanely low prices. Other events in the year bring huge sales on various meats and dry goods. I always buy bunches of it when that happens, package it up, and freeze it or store it somewhere safe to draw on as time passes. Right now, my freezer is full of beef and pork roasts from way back when they were selling them BOGO for Christmas tamales, and chicken and ground meat from the recent sales for Superbowl cookouts.

I buy rice in huge bulk bags from the Asian store. It's cheaper, and you can stretch out a lot of recipes by adding rice to them. Flour and sugar and such will keep for ages if you go to the trouble of buying sealed containers to keep them in, which are available from Big/Lots and similar stores, or even from thrift stores many times.

 

[CMike]

They could work to become rich.

Don't you mean they could come and work for the rich?

It works out a lot better than working for poor people. For some reason, their checks always seem to bounce.