If they qualify for the stamps, how they spend the money is none of your GD business.

If given an allowance which MUST be spent on food, they are likely to buy higher-priced items than if they had to pay cash.

They are not exactly a new phenomenon. I can't count how many times I have seen some big fat water buffalo, pushing a shopping cart right down the middle of the aisle(not letting people by on either side, because she's so god-damned wide-butted important), and loading up on expensive steaks, chops and junk food, pay for it with food stamps and loading it into a late model Cadillac.

Food stamps are a curse on the working poor, because they allow employers to pay sub-survival wages to their hired help, and we taxpayers make up the difference. Wal-Mart is the biggest recipient of food stamps in the USA, followed closely by McDonald's.

Don't curse the parasites, change the system.

Living in a small, food-stamp filled town and working as a Butcher in the local grocery store... I've seen how Food-Stampers spend their money. Between seeing people buy grocery carts filled with soda, and the ones who buy $66 worth of Lobster while exclaiming 'Wow! That's a great price!', I believe that the system is borked. I know there is some Single Parenting thing in Maine that only allows you to buy the basics, like no-name brand cereal and shiat.

/hates having to order 2 dozen lobster at the beginning of every month

j__z: I liked the guy who was buying king crab legs with his EBT card.

/happened about a month ago at a super market I go to. He bought about 3 pounds of the legs

You would have felt better if he'd bought 20 cans of chicken noodle soup and a loaf of wonder bread?

snowstradamus: 7of7: I'm more worried about the corporate execs buying multi-million dollar yachts with money they got because of corporate welfare.

I'm just glad we live in a system where it's perfectly acceptable to privatize the gains and socialize the losses. And that I can pay for these poor, helpless NYC living hipster art student's food just so they can spit in my face about my opinions... My god, I think I've reached Utopia.

I'm guessing by your name you're not short of opinions.


I for one would rather see a person on food stamps buy their child organic salmon than twinkies.

Likuid000: T.M.S.:
Not bad ideas but none of that stuff would work.

The truth is in the places where "food stamps" are used none of the existing rules apply. It is possible to spend your benifits entirely on scratch-off lottery tickets and no one says a word.

THIS

Every liquor store in the ghetto that takes EBT will sell you booze and smokes and crack pipes with an EBT.

Bullshiat
I don't know where you live but here they'll get in trouble for that plus it's recorded
/Now I have seen and even brought peoples foodstamp/ebt cards before for cheap

olddinosaur:

They are not exactly a new phenomenon. I can't count how many times I have seen some big fat water buffalo, pushing a shopping cart right down the middle of the aisle(not letting people by on either side, because she's so god-damned wide-butted important), and loading up on expensive steaks, chops and junk food, pay for it with food stamps and loading it into a late model Cadillac.


I guess it would be hard to count to zero. I think these guys are horrible but it was BS when Reagan said this and is BS now.

i'm here to judge people.

Knucklepopper

You would have felt better if he'd bought 20 cans of chicken noodle soup and a loaf of wonder bread?

Actually yeah, because the same dude bought beer with some cash he had.

"I used to think that you could only get processed food and government cheese on food stamps, but it's great that you can get anything."

Glad I could pay for it, jackass.

Get a job!

This thread has a distinct shortage of hipsters.

I pay lots of taxes, but this doesn't upset me one bit.

You know how many "food stamps" it takes to equal one Blackwater contract?

But thinking about that just makes me sad, instead of the air of superiority I get when judging those on food stamps.

OMG all the welfare people just use their food stamps on fried chicken and beer and shiat. If I have to pay for it they should have to eat healthy so i don't have to pay for their e.r. visits too!

I mean wait, now they buy healthy food with it. This upsets me too. Because...uh...taxes.

Clearly we have solved enough problems that we should worry about what a few pretend-poor bohemians are doing with their food stamps.

FlashHarry: 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.

They have a list behind the counter of those products/brands approved by the state of California. You can't even buy soda on food stamps in my area. The stringency of enforcement may vary by region though.

Interesting fact - you can only label salmon "organic" if it's raised in a pen, fed chicken offal pellets and then dyed red/orange to look like a wild salmon (farmed salmon have a gray/white flesh until dyed). "Organic" salmon are raised in pens over meters-deep layers of their own waste and because of the crowding and filth are covered in parasites. Yum!

Wild (actual organic) salmon can not be labeled as such because under US law, the producer must verify what the fish/animal was fed, etc. Hard to do when the fish has been netted out of the north pacific.

There was a federal case about this a while back when Alaskan fishermen protested this in federal court, and lost. So, if you pay extra for certified organic salmon, you are actually getting farmed salmon without the flavor or the omega oils that make salmon tasty (and healthy). We can take comfort in the knowledge that many of these hipsters are eating the dyed, parasite-filled "organic" salmon as sashimi.

EducatedBum: "I used to think that you could only get processed food and government cheese on food stamps, but it's great that you can get anything."

Glad I could pay for it, jackass.

Get a job!

I had one, Le Cordon Bleu trained cook. Then a Mexican took it.

Now I let their taxes pay for my fat ass to start my own small business and have a family, seeing as unless my wife was pregnant, she was disqualified for healthcare due to pre-existing conditions. Now that I'm on welfare, have a baby on the way, and a thriving company, I feel that I can succeed.


This is how you do it.

How about this one:

1. Most people hate hipsters.
2. Most people suck.
3. Therefore, hipsters are good.

i got nothing

R.A.Danny: Funk Brothers: Uh if people created jobs, this article would never been published in the first place.

Ok, so create some.

(whining) I'll do it tomorrow, I swear!

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.

She sounds fat.

SusanIvanova: There's nothing wrong with eating healthily, of course, but the people described are getting $150-$200/month in food stamps. That's more than enough to feed yourself adequately, if somewhat modestly, if you're shopping at Safeway or Wal-Mart, but I seriously doubt you can sustain yourself on a Whole Foodie diet for that amount ($5 or $6 a day for an adult? At Whole Foods, home of the $18/pound salmon?).

I strongly suspect these people have additional income from somewhere that they're not reporting -- probably Mommy and Daddy.

THIS

Right, so there are two problems. The problem is not "how dare they choose better food rather than cheaper". However, the fact that they are interested in choosing expensive high-quality food implies that problems exist.

1. the government obviously gives out too much in food stamps. If the beneficiaries aren't trying to find cheap stuff, they're receiving too much.

2. people accept the maximum aid they qualify for. The aid ought to involve a long-term loan, so that people would have a financial incentive to use less than the maximum they are given. Obviously you don't want the loan payments to come due the moment they get a job (that would be a perverse incentive), but there should be some repayment for those who can afford it.

006andahalf: FlashHarry: 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.

They have a list behind the counter of those products/brands approved by the state of California. You can't even buy soda on food stamps in my area. The stringency of enforcement may vary by region though.

So if a guy who happen to have lost his job of 20 years 5 months ago can't buy a farking soda on his food stamps

I'm on food stamps and I can see most of you don't know what you are talking about. They can only be spent on food and you only get a certain amount per month to spend. If some idiots want to blow it all on luxury food items and run out of food half-way through the month, that their problem, because they won't get more stamps until next month. They also cannot be spent at restaurants or on any hot food. I wouldn't not be able to live on my own if it wasn't for food stamps, as none of the jobs I have been able to find lately would pay a decent living wage. And I live in a crappy one-bedroom apartment! I have a feeling most of these supposedly bootstrappy folk biatching about social programs are basement-dwellers.

And yes, if anyone should lose their welfare, it's the large corporations who screw over their workers to the point where they need food stamps.

Rice and beans for you!

Dextro Shade: And yes, if anyone should lose their welfare, it's the large corporations who screw over their workers to the point where they need food stamps.

Victim complex much?

/snark

I don't see how this is any worse than someone who is buying lots of cheap food with the same amount of stamps.

I'd rather they ate a smaller amount of expensive vegetables and fish than 4000 calories a day of freezer pizza and corn dogs.

They are given the same monetary allowance as anyone else on food stamps, they just use it differently. If they are buying food so expensive per pound that it prevents them from getting fat, that's money saved on health care costs later down the line.

As skinny as most hipsters seem to be, I'm not surprised that they can be gourmets on food stamps.

Brostorm: I guess it would be hard to count to zero. I think these guys are horrible but it was BS when Reagan said this and is BS now.

I would presume you've never worked in a supermarket? He's exaggerating a bit... but just a bit. The argument with people over what they could and couldn't buy with Food Stamps or NY's WIC program were some of the nastiest I was ever in.

/No sir, prepared food is not a valid food stamp purchase.
//Nor does Hi-C count as juice.
///I understand that a roasted chicken is food.
////I am not judging you, nor is my mother what you claim she is.

Dextro Shade 2010-03-16 06:15:25 PM

I'm on food stamps and I can see most of you don't know what you are talking about. They can only be spent on food and you only get a certain amount per month to spend. If some idiots want to blow it all on luxury food items and run out of food half-way through the month, that their problem, because they won't get more stamps until next month. They also cannot be spent at restaurants or on any hot food. I wouldn't not be able to live on my own if it wasn't for food stamps, as none of the jobs I have been able to find lately would pay a decent living wage. And I live in a crappy one-bedroom apartment! I have a feeling most of these supposedly bootstrappy folk biatching about social programs are basement-dwellers.

And yes, if anyone should lose their welfare, it's the large corporations who screw over their workers to the point where they need food stamps.



You sound hungry

I'd rather eat Ramen than go on food stamps. If it ever came down to it though, I guess we'd keep our shopping routine but cut out things like sweets and such. As it is we just run up to the mini mart every four days or so to get some snacky treat, but it keeps the evil out of our house lol and it is one step further away from us getting it. As far as TFA goes, you can eat pretty well for pretty cheap. I'm not saying Perrier is a sensible buy (who buys that stuff?), but if people aren't going to get mad about Shanequa, then the hipsters should be able to do their thing as much as I hate to say it. Not that it makes ghetto trash or hipsters any less douches, it is just another notch against them. Maybe there SHOULD be welfare cheese like Chirs Rock's "Tossed salad man" to serve the reminder to get off welfare/stay out of jail.

drjekel_mrhyde: So if a guy who happen to have lost his job of 20 years 5 months ago can't buy a farking soda on his food stamps

I don't know about single-sized sodas, but I've seen 2-liters, 6-packs, 12-packs and up all get sent back as not approved. You might be able to get a single 2-liter of store brand cola. I haven't gone down the list-- I've just seen folks get told that such-and-such isn't approved while waiting in line. Besides, food stamps should favor the most economical choices-- carbonated sugar water is not very economical for one's health.

dumpstergirl: I don't see how this is any worse than someone who is buying lots of cheap food with the same amount of stamps.

I'd rather they ate a smaller amount of expensive vegetables and fish than 4000 calories a day of freezer pizza and corn dogs.

They are given the same monetary allowance as anyone else on food stamps, they just use it differently. If they are buying food so expensive per pound that it prevents them from getting fat, that's money saved on health care costs later down the line.

One these are not your usual poor. They are hipsters with college educations. Why are they on the dole at all? If they are young enough to be hipsters they are young enough to go "I state your name..." and enlist.

Buying luxury food items pisses the tax payer off and pissed off the actual poor who need to feed their kids. Poor allocation of resources.

Some of you seem to think ever person paying in food stamps are on food stamp.. No the ones buying the expensive shiat more than likely brought card/stamps from some crackhead
/$150 worth of stamps for $100

I completely fall into the same demographic as these fools, but articles like this about hipsters still embarrass me so much. Yes, I too live in Baltimore, qualify for food stamps, yes I like to eat 'foodie' things sometimes, but I would have to be in pretty dire shape to consider applying for food stamps. I'm 23, healthy, college educated, and childless. There are plenty of people in worse situations than me and I don't feel right about using those resources to buy overpriced shiat from Whole Foods. If I want to buy something not in my budget I babysit or try and work an extra day. Sorry, girl whose funding got cut because of the recession, I do not pity you. I have a science degree, I worked in a museum, my funding got cut too so I said "Oh well, life goes on, things will get better later" swallowed my pride, and got a job waiting tables. A lot of people are underemployed right now. That's just how life is for the moment. Sometimes you have to work jobs you don't like. That's life. If nothing else, it builds character.

Also, I'm calling bullshiat on the "I can't make good food on a budget" thing. Be creative, buy what's in season, volunteer at the farmers market, grow food in the community garden, split meals with friends.

/end rant

So you're a hipster if you have good taste now?

still no this?

thats what a $41 billion a year food stamp program gets you.

I qualify for food stamps, but I'm not on them. Every day it seems like a better idea. In a household of two professional cooks, it can be hard to turn around and cook for yourself, but we manage to about 6-10 meals a week (I have the incredible fortune of being able to eat at work), and our food costs are ridiculously low because we go to the produce carts and the small farmers who sell good, organic or no, incredibly GOOD food for low prices and they all accept food stamps from the people I know who use them. Even the guy from the reservation who makes his very legitimate business catching salmon and selling them by 18 pound filets will accept stamps if that's your preference.

It's tempting.

In a day that we cook three meals, we're spending less on our food than somebody who dollar menu'd at McDonalds instead, and yellow curried coconut (or bamboo) is incredibly awesome as well as cheap. I'd eat it every day if it didn't eat up 30 minutes just on produce prep. Even if a lot of the other things mentioned in TFA are unnecessary, it's good to keep in mind that just because a restaurant will charge big for something doesn't mean it costs more than nickels and dimes to make at home (mushroom asparagus risotto, stuffed roasted red-bell peppers, even tuna tartare with a decent tapenade, etc.etc. can all be made for less than five bucks for two servings if you know where to shop).

It think it's a terrible reflection on the more and more defined caste system in America that people are appalled, APPALLED if somebody low-income isn't buying pre-packaged fried chicken and cheese-whiz. OF COURSE people can't be poor AND educated enough to want a good diet. That opinion isn't directed at the article, just observations from knowing people in my same income bracket who choose government assistance.

I guess I'm a hipster. To the HR office!

(PS: Just kidding, I got a second job instead. Rent and school are the problems, not food)