Woman An Authority On What Shouldn't Be In Poor People’s Grocery Carts-The Onion

[hybrid]

Otherwise, my previously unemployed 18 year old kid would have been eligible for food stamps if I am understanding your logic, and I would be quite surprised to see you getting on board with that (preposterous) notion.

Prepare your gasp.

I await your ethical gymnastics with baited breath! I'm off to make popcorn....  ;-) 

[warfreak2]

Your previously-4-to-16-year-old kid was also eligible for, you know, school, and that wasn't paid out for by his own tax dollars either.

[hybrid]

Your previously-4-to-16-year-old kid was also eligible for, you know, school, and that wasn't paid out for by his own tax dollars either.

It's not the source of the tax dollars, it's the purpose behind those tax dollars. Every child needs an education and society provides. An 18 year old living at home in suburbia does not need food stamps. An 18 year old not living at home, unemployed, may very well need food stamps to get by. An 18 year old not living at home struggling to feed oneself (and perhaps their offspring) most certainly does not need cable TV. What they in fact need is to cut the cable. Thus my argument for strict condition-based eligibility requirements. 

Direct benefit social programs (food stamps and welfare, not schools and libraries) are supposed to serve a defined purpose - help those in genuine need (on a temporary basis if able-bodied). They should not be programs that can be merely gamed by the clever. I think what is tripping people up is the mixing together of various tax laws (which we all jump hoops through to minimize our tax burden) and social welfare programs. They may end up at the same end result but they are hardly the same thing. 

[warfreak2]

Your previously-4-to-16-year-old kid was also eligible for, you know, school, and that wasn't paid out for by his own tax dollars either.

It's not the source of the tax dollars, it's the purpose behind those tax dollars. Every child needs an education and society provides. An 18 year old living at home in suburbia does not need food stamps. An 18 year old not living at home, unemployed, may very well need food stamps to get by. An 18 year old not living at home struggling to feed oneself (and perhaps their offspring) most certainly does not need cable TV. What they in fact need is to cut the cable. Thus my argument for strict condition-based eligibility requirements. 

OK, but I didn't see any information about your 18-year-old kid other than that he is previously-unemployed. It's impossible to guess whether or not he needs food stamps, but the fact that he is previously-unemployed surely is irrelevant. Given that was all I had to go on, it seemed like you were suggesting that being previously-unemployed (and/or being 18) was why he shouldn't be eligible for food stamps. I'll take your word for it that that isn't what you meant; ARS may have gotten the same impression. (I did have a look back at your post to see if you mentioned e.g. he lives at home/has cable TV, but didn't find anything; I could be missing something.)

I don't think it needs ethical gymnastics to be in favour food stamps for people who can afford cable TV, though. I'd be in favour of food stamps for everyone, for example.

[hybrid]

OK, but I didn't see any information about your 18-year-old kid other than that he is previously-unemployed. It's impossible to guess whether or not he needs food stamps, but the fact that he is previously-unemployed surely is irrelevant. Given that was all I had to go on, it seemed like you were suggesting that being previously-unemployed (and/or being 18) was why he shouldn't be eligible for food stamps. I'll take your word for it that that isn't what you meant

 It's all there, black and white, clear as crystal! You stole fizzy lifting drinks! You bumped into the ceiling which now has to be washed and sterilized, so you get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!

;-)

I actually did mention his circumstances quite specifically. And perhaps ARebelSpy missed that distinction as well? I guess we'll know soon enough.

[CheapskateWife]

If you're using any form of govt welfare to buy food, you should not be buying shit food. Salty sugary crap.

Is that right or wrong?

Or to reverse it, the government should not allow people on benefits to buy shitty food.

I wonder why no one has thought of that before?

Oh, wait: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligible-food-items

From the website "■Soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream are food items and are therefore eligible items"

Head explodes....

Having worked for HUD and in Public Housing, I know that these programs are desperately needed.  However, for the benifit of the health of childbearing women, infants and children, WIC can determine specificially that these items are not eligible, then SNAP should be able to as well.  I strongly feel that taxpayers should only be subsidizing nutritiously beneficial foods, not sodas, cookies, and snacks.

If you only quote that bit and not the part about what a bureaucratic nightmare distinguishing the hundreds of thousands of food items are, then I agree with you. SNAP has basically said the least worst position is to not distinguish amongst food items, the worst position is to stand up yet one more giant ball of red tape. I don't know how valid a position this is, but I get the logic behind it (milk, check, chocolate milk, uncheck, frosted flakes??? etc. etc). Head still firmly in place (if a bit too large at times).

I did read that part.  It is an excellent point, and does acknowlege the challenge for small owners of grocery stores in low income areas who want to accept SNAP.  What I saw in the urban public housing areas was that the only food within walking distance of public housing was corner store type arrangements where the owners would go to Sams or Walmart and buy low cost, calorically dense but nutritionally negligible food in bulk, mark it WAY up, and then advertise that they accepted SNAP.

Naturally, business was booming.  The local mayor decided that the way to fix this was to offer a free bus ride, once every 3 weeks, to the closest Walmart (10 miles away) so that the middle man could theoretically be cut out of that equation.  Talk about face punch time.  He had the power and influence to offer tax incentives to bring in real food stores, but no, he simply bussed the residents away from their neighborhoods.

[hybrid]

I did read that part.  It is an excellent point, and does acknowlege the challenge for small owners of grocery stores in low income areas who want to accept SNAP.  What I saw in the urban public housing areas was that the only food within walking distance of public housing was corner store type arrangements where the owners would go to Sams or Walmart and buy low cost, calorically dense but nutritionally negligible food in bulk, mark it WAY up, and then advertise that they accepted SNAP.

Naturally, business was booming.  The local mayor decided that the way to fix this was to offer a free bus ride, once every 3 weeks, to the closest Walmart (10 miles away) so that the middle man could theoretically be cut out of that equation.  Talk about face punch time.  He had the power and influence to offer tax incentives to bring in real food stores, but no, he simply bussed the residents away from their neighborhoods.

Do you think tax incentives would have made that much of a difference? I don't blame businesses for not opening shop in areas that they don't see as profitable, which is why you just plain don't see much retail of any nature in poorer areas. A grocery store isn't a charity, sounds like that would have to be an awfully sweet deal to bring one in. We have the same issue in Richmond, there are large areas that do not have good food options because of lousy demographics and crime.

I was speaking with an attorney recently about a Walmart in the suburbs that deals with a million dollars a year annually in shoplifting losses. In the suburbs. Move that store closer to poverty? I would think that has much to do with why grocery stores - which operate on thin margins - shy away from poor demographics. Between the poverty and the crime where is the profit to be made? A few decades ago a local grocery store owner tried to do this in Richmond, and his stores failed after a few years. A bus to Walmart doesn't sound like such a bad option from my chair. 

[CheapskateWife]

I did read that part.  It is an excellent point, and does acknowlege the challenge for small owners of grocery stores in low income areas who want to accept SNAP.  What I saw in the urban public housing areas was that the only food within walking distance of public housing was corner store type arrangements where the owners would go to Sams or Walmart and buy low cost, calorically dense but nutritionally negligible food in bulk, mark it WAY up, and then advertise that they accepted SNAP.

Naturally, business was booming.  The local mayor decided that the way to fix this was to offer a free bus ride, once every 3 weeks, to the closest Walmart (10 miles away) so that the middle man could theoretically be cut out of that equation.  Talk about face punch time.  He had the power and influence to offer tax incentives to bring in real food stores, but no, he simply bussed the residents away from their neighborhoods.

Do you think tax incentives would have made that much of a difference? I don't blame businesses for not opening shop in areas that they don't see as profitable, which is why you just plain don't see much retail of any nature in poorer areas. A grocery store isn't a charity, sounds like that would have to be an awfully sweet deal to bring one in. We have the same issue in Richmond, there are large areas that do not have good food options because of lousy demographics and crime.

I was speaking with an attorney recently about a Walmart in the suburbs that deals with a million dollars a year annually in shoplifting losses. In the suburbs. Move that store closer to poverty? I would think that has much to do with why grocery stores - which operate on thin margins - shy away from poor demographics. Between the poverty and the crime where is the profit to be made? A few decades ago a local grocery store owner tried to do this in Richmond, and his stores failed after a few years. A bus to Walmart doesn't sound like such a bad option from my chair.

Actually, I was talking about Richmond  :)  Just moved back to Texas this past summer, after DH got transferred away from the base there.  I worked for HUD and so was intimately involved with the political decisions that impacted our tenants.
 
Wow, I had no idea that the shoplifting had such a profound dollar amount attached to it.  That certainly does adjust my perspective about the tax incentives.  And so then the logical conclusion one could draw from this is that the corner store set up has to jack their prices up to cover not only non-wholesale pricing but also high pilferage rates.

Hmmm...maybe the Mayor knew what he was doing after all...the optimistic part of me just wishes that people could just BE DECENT.  I wonder what the real root cause of the shoplifting was, and what kinds of things were taken.  Betting it wasn't bananas and apples.

[iris lily]

I did read that part.  It is an excellent point, and does acknowlege the challenge for small owners of grocery stores in low income areas who want to accept SNAP.  What I saw in the urban public housing areas was that the only food within walking distance of public housing was corner store type arrangements where the owners would go to Sams or Walmart and buy low cost, calorically dense but nutritionally negligible food in bulk, mark it WAY up, and then advertise that they accepted SNAP.

Naturally, business was booming.  The local mayor decided that the way to fix this was to offer a free bus ride, once every 3 weeks, to the closest Walmart (10 miles away) so that the middle man could theoretically be cut out of that equation.  Talk about face punch time.  He had the power and influence to offer tax incentives to bring in real food stores, but no, he simply bussed the residents away from their neighborhoods.

Do you think tax incentives would have made that much of a difference? I don't blame businesses for not opening shop in areas that they don't see as profitable, which is why you just plain don't see much retail of any nature in poorer areas. A grocery store isn't a charity, sounds like that would have to be an awfully sweet deal to bring one in. We have the same issue in Richmond, there are large areas that do not have good food options because of lousy demographics and crime.

I was speaking with an attorney recently about a Walmart in the suburbs that deals with a million dollars a year annually in shoplifting losses. In the suburbs. Move that store closer to poverty? I would think that has much to do with why grocery stores - which operate on thin margins - shy away from poor demographics. Between the poverty and the crime where is the profit to be made? A few decades ago a local grocery store owner tried to do this in Richmond, and his stores failed after a few years. A bus to Walmart doesn't sound like such a bad option from my chair.

Thanks for this post. I had exactly the same thoughts, exactly! Living as I do in an high crime urban area where nearby grocery stores were here, then gone for years, than back, and hearing about the shoplifting rate at Walgreen 2 blocks away (and they keep many things under lock and key) I think the bus option is brilliant!

[Luck better Skill]

I did read that part.  It is an excellent point, and does acknowlege the challenge for small owners of grocery stores in low income areas who want to accept SNAP.  What I saw in the urban public housing areas was that the only food within walking distance of public housing was corner store type arrangements where the owners would go to Sams or Walmart and buy low cost, calorically dense but nutritionally negligible food in bulk, mark it WAY up, and then advertise that they accepted SNAP.

Naturally, business was booming.  The local mayor decided that the way to fix this was to offer a free bus ride, once every 3 weeks, to the closest Walmart (10 miles away) so that the middle man could theoretically be cut out of that equation.  Talk about face punch time.  He had the power and influence to offer tax incentives to bring in real food stores, but no, he simply bussed the residents away from their neighborhoods.

Do you think tax incentives would have made that much of a difference? I don't blame businesses for not opening shop in areas that they don't see as profitable, which is why you just plain don't see much retail of any nature in poorer areas. A grocery store isn't a charity, sounds like that would have to be an awfully sweet deal to bring one in. We have the same issue in Richmond, there are large areas that do not have good food options because of lousy demographics and crime.

I was speaking with an attorney recently about a Walmart in the suburbs that deals with a million dollars a year annually in shoplifting losses. In the suburbs. Move that store closer to poverty? I would think that has much to do with why grocery stores - which operate on thin margins - shy away from poor demographics. Between the poverty and the crime where is the profit to be made? A few decades ago a local grocery store owner tried to do this in Richmond, and his stores failed after a few years. A bus to Walmart doesn't sound like such a bad option from my chair.

Actually, I was talking about Richmond  :)  Just moved back to Texas this past summer, after DH got transferred away from the base there.  I worked for HUD and so was intimately involved with the political decisions that impacted our tenants.
 
Wow, I had no idea that the shoplifting had such a profound dollar amount attached to it.  That certainly does adjust my perspective about the tax incentives.  And so then the logical conclusion one could draw from this is that the corner store set up has to jack their prices up to cover not only non-wholesale pricing but also high pilferage rates.

Hmmm...maybe the Mayor knew what he was doing after all...the optimistic part of me just wishes that people could just BE DECENT.  I wonder what the real root cause of the shoplifting was, and what kinds of things were taken.  Betting it wasn't bananas and apples.

The real solution is to use law enforcement to reduce shoplifting and other crimes.  Shoplifting laws are pretty much enforced by business owners. 

[ministashy]

Another bit of satire that I think might be rather relevant to some of the commenters on this thread (or perhaps at least inspire a little more understanding and a little less outrage):
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-growing-up-poor/

[arebelspy]

Another bit of satire that I think might be rather relevant to some of the commenters on this thread (or perhaps at least inspire a little more understanding and a little less outrage):
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-habits-you-develop-growing-up-poor/

That was an interesting read. Thank you.