Food stamps becoming more trendy

With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

While use is greatest where poverty runs deep, the growth has been especially swift in once-prosperous places hit by the housing bust.

www.nytimes.com...

If people need it thank god it is there. And if someone would like to counter with a pull yourself up by your boot straps type of argument!!!, I will not respond.

Now they use a "debit" or EBT card and not stamps. Not sure if it is trendy as it is more useful or needed. Most people are being affected by the downturn in the economy and could use the extra help.

With the amount of paperwork involved and the hoops you have to go to get Gov. Aid like food stamps and welfare and others, it is like a job. A job to get free stuff when you could be applying for an actual job or looking. Sometimes you just need the help and people nowadays are seeking help from the Gov.

Don't know about trendy, but it is becoming a necessity for many families.

I expect more to apply for benefits once their unemployment runs out. Many don't qualified because of unemployment check being too high.

Use it if you need it.

I myself am thinking of becoming "trendy". What the hell, it would be my first use of public funds ever. Do not say roads et al, I paid for those by the very taxes that were paid by me for their use.

Currently unemployed and have no resources, wink wink.

Anything to bring the collapse sooner.

As food stamps become an increasingly common currency in a struggling U.S. economy, they are dictating changes in how even the biggest retailers do business.

From Costco to Wal-Mart, store chains are rethinking years of strategy as they watch prized customers lose jobs and turn to this benefit, the stigma of which is disappearing not just in society, but in corporate America.

www.reuters.com...

I have a friend who hasn't worked in 20 years because she feels the jobs she qualifies for are beneath her. Once her ex-husband lost his job and stopped paying her $4000 per month alimony and child support she and her 18 year old son (who also doesn't work) went on food stamps (her widowed mother now supports her otherwise.) She just told me the other day about the lovely chandelier she purchased for her foyer -- with a price tag of $500! Yep, that $367 per month from the government really helps her a lot!

I know this story isn't typical, but it is just one example that indeed the use of food stamps is not only trendy but also abused in some cases.