Likuid000: This is different from LaQuondiesha or ShaVondeiesha buying 15 pounds of filet and porterhouse and two bags of shrimp every first of the month how?

Still less per pound.

Plus the University of Chicago is hardly a second rate education, not being able to find a job is more a sign of not even trying.

IrateShadow: Their plight is funnier.

I shouldn't laugh at that.

I'm more worried about the corporate execs buying multi-million dollar yachts with money they got because of corporate welfare.

My oldest sister is on food stamps. And disability. And some other forms of the dole. She has ailments (real or imagined, they're real enough to her) that prevent her from holding down a job.

The cash money she gets from various governments doesn't come near to paying her monthly non-food expenses, even considering that she lives in the crappiest house in the crappiest backwater in the state and her ex-husband pays her mortgage. So the rest of the family helps pay her utility bills.

She has two teenage kids but they live with their father.

But good lord do they give her a lot of food stamps. They won't give her money to pay the gas bill but they'll give her food stamps enough to eat prime rib seven days a week.

Why? My guess is agricultural subsidy.

When she asked why they could give her more food stamps but not more money for bills, they told her they just couldn't, and suggested that she try selling groceries purchased with food stamps.

Not condoning it, just relating the anecdote i have, which i know is not data.

Asa Phelps: My oldest sister is on food stamps. And disability. And some other forms of the dole. She has ailments (real or imagined, they're real enough to her) that prevent her from holding down a job.

There are legitimate users of public aide, like you sister, that are being hurt by able minded and bodied persons that just refuse to work "beneath their station". Sad

R.A.Danny: There are legitimate users of public aide, like you sister, that are being hurt by able minded and bodied persons that just refuse to work "beneath their station". Sad

Hey, i didn't say i don't think my sister shouldn't just seek treatment for bipolar disorder and chronic pain instead of claiming to have untreatable fibromyalgia.

It's more that i wanted to point out that food is the one thing you'll never worry about in our welfare system. You'll have so much food-buying ability you won't know what to do with it all.

But if you freeze to death in the winter, that's your own fault for not being more bootstrappy or something.

In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore -- equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird


Northwest Baltimore is equal parts Black and Jewish.

Nothing kitchy or artsy about it. Plenty of sketchy, though.

I assume they're talking about Hampden?

Likuid000: I work ~~50 hours a week and the government doesn't finance my lifestyle

No, you finance theirs. It's not about "helping the poor", it's about helping a bunch of lazy farking art students and failed bloggers eat their weekly dose of quail's eyeballs.

That said, I used to buy food stamps (back then they were actual paper things) outside the liquor store near college. It's a totally corrupt system full of graft and abuse, so why not get a little of my money back? It's not like I have the option of not paying into it, so sure thing I'll give the rummy ten bucks for $20 worth of food. He wants booze, I want food, it's as much of a win as can come from something as screwed up as the food stamp program.

Asa Phelps: Hey, i didn't say i don't think my sister shouldn't just seek treatment for bipolar disorder and chronic pain instead of claiming to have untreatable fibromyalgia.

It's more that i wanted to point out that food is the one thing you'll never worry about in our welfare system. You'll have so much food-buying ability you won't know what to do with it all.

Didn't mean it that way. I was suggesting that if there wasn't so much grift then maybe laws could be changed to allow some money to be channeled towards other bills. Sorry if I was unclear.

/mom has fibromyalgia.

Funny, I was just yelling at somebody for doing that.

Barbigazi: Funny, I was just yelling at somebody for doing that.

You're buying skrimps with mah munny!

R.A.Danny: Didn't mean it that way. I was suggesting that if there wasn't so much grift then maybe laws could be changed to allow some money to be channeled towards other bills. Sorry if I was unclear.

I really wouldn't mind paying, if I knew it was actually helping people in genuine need. And it's bizarre that the gov't would let someone freeze to death while eating whatever they want.

There are a lot of people that legitimately need help. They should get it. Not these 20-something assholes with useless poetry degrees who obviously can't get any old menial job in order to make ends meet.

R.A.Danny: Barbigazi: Funny, I was just yelling at somebody for doing that.

You're buying skrimps with mah munny!

Not skrimps, lots and lots of fat tire though.

Who are we trying to describe with the word "hipster" today?

As opposed to the inorganic salmon I usually buy.

I traded my foodstamps for used books, vinyl records and Dan Deacon tickets.

fwiw, in utah it's an ebt card, and the card really only rings up for non-prepared food items.

If you've got a bunch of foodstuffs + a sandwich from the deli, the "utah horizons" card will pay for everything but the sandwich. And then you have an awkward moment when the clerk asks for another $6.

ne2d: tallguywithglasseson: Who are we trying to describe with the word "hipster" today?

It's quite simple:

"Hipster" = "someone I don't like"
"Person buying gourmet food with food stamps" = "someone I don't like"
Therefore:
"Person buying gourmet food with food stamps" = "hipster"

I think it's called the communicative law.

Other than hippies, I can't imagine anyone else to blow food stamps on expensive organic food, but even the hippies I see at Whole Foods tend to buy the bulk grains and cheaper produce and don't get the more expensive stuff. So, yeah, I'd say this would have to be confined to the only people self-absorbed enough to pursue food snobbery in the face of personal financial hardship, and hipsters fit the bill.

ne2d: patrick767: If you eat ramen noodles for every meal that none of your friends see you having, you can afford to buy some good stuff for the meals that they do see.

See, I eat ramen noodles ironically, so I get to be hip and save money at the same time.

Don't forget to ironically quaff cans of PBR.

logruszed: How about people with allergies to a lot of preservatives found in the cheaper foods, but who don't wish to eat just boiled rice and ground lamb/mutton?

I find it hard to believe you "can't think" of anyone with a reason to buy this stuff who isn't a hippie or a hipster; unless you're retarded.

Yes, as someone with a number of severe food allergies, I could not relate. Okay, fine, show me someone with severe food preservative allergies or a gluten allergy who also happens to be on food stamps who also happens to buy the expensive stuff. I am sure the rates of that are higher than one would normally expect. Also, the cheap bulk stuff at Whole Foods doesn't have a lot of those preservatives. I know because I buy them. And the article didn't mention food allergies, and I don't know what confluence of food allergies would require someone on public assistance to subsist on roasted rabbit in a butter tarragon sauce with sweet potatoes, but maybe that should have been taken in to account.

/oblig

006andahalf: Here in my corner of SoCal, the checker will balk at you buying getting anything but the most basic things. Got the Kraft instead of the store brand cheese? Go put it back. And don't even think about singles.

it's not the checker's goddamned business, frankly. if they want to do so, the government could simply preclude certain brands or items, like they do with alcohol and tobacco. you scan it, it comes up "not allowed," so you have to pay with real money.

frankly, if any checker is actually doing this, they need to be reported to the authorities. this is not their job.