Child Hunger, As Seen At Wal-Mart

According to The Budget for Fiscal Year 2008, Historical Tables, total outlays for Means Tested Entitlements in 2006 were $354.3 billion. This was 2.7% of GDP and Includes Medicaid, food stamps, family support assistance (AFDC), supplemental security income (SSI), child nutrition programs, refundable portions of earned income tax credits (EITC and HITC) and child tax credit, welfare contingency fund, child care entitlement to States, temporary assistance to needy families, foster care and adoption assistance, State children's health insurance and veterans pensions.

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Welfare and benifits actually do cost the tax payers a lot of money that could be saved or spent elsewhere...Please do some research before ignorantly defending the leechers...And by the way I have never had benifits in my whole life and never will...I will go to a field and starve to death before I do...I welcome death...I wont commit suicide but I welcome it....

And to those that think I am on some high horse or something...Negative...I make combined with my wife 70k+ own a 3 bedroom house and own our two cars...Been laid off twice in the last two years but found new jobs with in 1 month...I dont have any kids...We plan to may be have one but are still waiting to ENSURE THEY ARE TAKEN CARE OF....

And to the posters that bash me for being honest instead of being a hipster and saying "oh lets everyone give all thier money away to everyone else and live in a lovey dovey society...la la la" Lets take away all your money and divide it up to everyone else...I mean you want to help out right?

Dont get me wrong...I am quite a nice guy in real life...Just really tired of seeing a little girls face thats standing there on a street corner with her mother and 2 bothers and 1 sister who dont have a car and barely have a house...What kind of life is she going to have? How to you expect a child to learn and grow in a house hold that has no money? You really think that she is going to "Do her best" with a crappy home environment? She is going to join a gang to get money the first chance she gets...Its human nature to survive any way you can...

reply to post by illusion987


You seem to be completely missing the point that each persons life is different, and you cannot know the circumstances that brought that mother and her children that you speak of to the street corner. Just because you and your wife got a good lot in life, that you never had to experience what poverty is like, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist or that it cannot affect peoples lives in ways you cannot even imagine.

You seem to have a very limited perspective on this unfortunately.

Yeah everyone that is low on money ALWAYS joins a gang, what a moron.

ah...i love people who make assumptions about EVERYONE who's on foodstamps. I'm just shy of 32 years old, in 2007 i was diagnosed with Chronic Renal Disease. I worked from the time i was 17 years old until three months after my kidneys failed. I tried my best to keep working but i would work for a few months and then i'd get sick and spend weeks in the hospital and poof i'd be let go. Eventually it got to the point where i was sick ALL the time and unable to work, it took two and a half years of fighting and over 40 doctors (DIFFERENT doctors) letters to get my disability benifits. Even now people look at me differently because i get that disability check and foodstamps, they act like i'm lazy, as if my wife is lazy...like we're somehow less than people because we're forced to depend on those benifits. Well let me tell you something. I and most others who are forced to get benifits because of illness or job loss would MUCH rather be out earning a paycheck to pay for their own things. Its a severe blow to your self esteem to go from self sufficent, hard working citizen to a sick, unemployed wreck.

Another thing to consider is that some who are on foodstamps require a specialized diet. I am on a peritoneal dialysis diet and require massive amounts of lean protein. I have to eat large amounts of meat, red meat being the best for gaining and keeping the protein that is required by my treatment. We eat whatever meat is on sale however for the most part that usually means we eat chicken or pork but i have been known to get sirloins if they're on sale. To those who think food stamp recipients should eat nothing but beans and rice i'll tell you, i'm a country boy. i grew up on red beans and cornbread and thats a meal that i actually ENJOY. However i can't eat it. Phosphate in beans is one of the real dangers to my life if it gets too high. I'm forced into a very narrow diet plan that is unfortunatly expensive sometimes.

I've heard from lots of people how folks on benifits get everything for free. How its just so easy for them to go apply for something and poof have it handed to them. I'll tell you this is most certainly not the case. I would not wish my situation upon my worst enemy. Having to deal with the gov't is such a huge and horrible pain, you trade time, and frustration (and a lot of both) for the chance at scant gov't benifits. Its not easy and we barely get by, doing without and making due with less so we can have the things that we absulutely cannot do without.

Next time you who deride those on foodstamps see someone getting groceries with a EBT card thank god that you are lucky enough to NOT require that assistance. But be glad that it is there in case YOU are ever put in the position to need it.

4-Despair If poverty is a condition, despair is a state of mind. People who have always lived in poverty with parents who lived in poverty often see no chance of ever getting a decent job, leaving their poor neighborhood or getting an education. They are surrounded by drugs and gangs, and their parents may be addicts or non-responsive. A neighborhood gang can seem like the only real family they'll ever have. Joining a gang gives them a sense of belonging and being a part of something important that they can't get otherwise. In some cases, parents approve of their children joining gangs, and may have been a member of the same gang in the past.

Why someone would join a gang...

Here are some of the top reasons someone would join a gang...Gee #1 Poverty....I am not saying all low income kids will join gangs but they sure as hell have a good chance they will...How many documentaries have you seen where they say "To keep kids off drugs" "To keep kids out of jail" etc...

reply to post by illusion987


You really are clueless as to how the poor and disadvantaged live aren't you? Seems you are so far removed from that lifestyle that you have to check "How-To" websites in order to glean why someone might join a gang. It actually offends me that someone so ignorant of the disadvantaged can sit there and judge those who didn't have it as good as you......

reply to post by illusion987


Every child who grows up in poverty joins a gang? Wow, I better inform every one in my town that we are all sorts of special despite our high poverty levels and high unemployment rate, because there are no gangs here.

I just can't wrap my head around your limited view of the world. Perhaps you live in a gang riddled town and have never been to any of the neighboring areas. Most poverty stricken areas in the U.S, don't even have gangs. Although its funny to imagine all the children of the displaced farmers/miners/mill workers running around in baggy pants doing their gang symbols ect.
Gang life is a culture. A culture that exists in some areas of the U.S. mostly in large metropolitan areas. A huge defining factor of whether someone joins a gang or not is what kind of culture they grew up in.

Not every one who is poor has a bad life.
Note: This doe not apply to every poor person or every wealthy person, these are only examples.
Tell me which one of these child in the following examples has a better life.

Child A:
Family is poor with several children, yet the parents are active in their children's life, teaching them values and respect. There may not be much money, but there is plenty of love and the parents stress the importance of a good education Family can't afford cable t.v. so entertainment is the family doing things together. Child learns responsibility by doing his part to help the family by doing chores.

Child B
Upper middle class, parents both work. Child is rarely supervised. Has more than enough toys, clothes ect. but not the attention of his parents. Parents never help with school work and the only time they show concern about his school life is to berate him over his poor grades. Child spends most of his time in front of t.v. or playing video games. Child has no responsibility.

"Child hunger, As seen at Walmart"

Ah, the last few times I was in Walmart I saw some of the largest people I have ever seen in one place at one time. Sorry I see more obesity at Walmart than staving people. The staving go there at their own risk.

Seriously, are there any estimates as to what the monthly food cost for a family of 4, weighing a (conservative) combined total of 850 pounds. Ma & Pa averaging 250 lbs each and 2 teenagers, 1 @ 200 lbs and the younger one coming in @ 150. Any idea as to whether $600-800 per month in food stamps will cover 1/2 their monthly intake. I know, they're hormonally deficient and can't help themselves.

These days they are everywhere, like ticks on a dog. Sounds like they need to return to teaching "Home Economics" in high skrool, as they did in the olden days. I know people who won't prepare a meal if it isn't served cold or needs more than warming in a microwave. "Yeah, I got a stove, but I've never used it."

We may have a hunger problem in this country which food stamps are rightly deserved, but in the upcoming years the results of obesity will for the first time reduce the life expectancy of the average American.

So what I'm getting from this so far is;

only losers get food stamps.
the losers waste their food stamps.
people dont know how to cook or dont want to.
sick people getting food stamps are smarter than losers.
being in a gang can supplement your food intake.
gangs offer food or ways to get food.
unemployment is at an all time low.
walmart released its tracking data.
walmart doesnt sell american made goods.
china has all the jobs people would be working at if they were still making stuff here.

MOVE TO CHINA?

Originally posted by Kailassa

Originally posted by mblahnikluver
As for Wal Mart, well maybe they shouldn't throw away so much food and donate it to the needy. Canned items and chips even with an expiration date are still good. I have eaten many outdated items like that and I didn't get sick and I'm still here.

Legal worries.
If they give something away and it makes someone sick, they are afraid they may be sued over it.

Legal worries are just bs they spew as an excuse. The food they throw away isn't bad. It is just fine. They give to employees to take home, why not give it to those who NEED it.

Originally posted by hadriana

I would not want them to limit families to off brands only. I don't buy off brands - I use coupons and buy name brands cheaper.
.

What are you too good for generic? You do realize that generic is the same as name brand and more than likely made that name brand you clip coupons for. Also not everyone gets coupons and there is no way that clipping coupons is cheaper than generic. I have bought generic my entire life and it IS cheaper. My mom always got generic cereals growing up and I didn't have some trauma because of it. It's still food isn't it?

Are you one of those who has to have name brand everything?

Sigh.......

Generic is usually GMO instead of real food.

And sometimes it even costs more than the name brand item. I remember that from when I worked at Wal-mart.

People who work at Wal-mart make little over minimum wage and are usually worked part time. They will be fired if they are caught taking that food home. We had to count the item properly for claims and then it was thrown away.

The canned goods were usually sent out of town to the food pantry in another county, instead of the local food pantry where it would benefit people in the community.

reply to post by illusion987


actually my experience of problem children who join gangs (and this obviously does not apply to all) being the ones who's parents are never at home to look after them, ie both parents working full time to make ends meet(nothing wrong with that), the kids pretty much look after themselves and have to wait for the parents to get some spare time if they want any attention, the parents would rather the kids were out so they can enjoy the time they have off work in some relative peace or to go out for a drink in the pub. who do you think the kids are going to be hanging around with and trying to impress for some craved attention?? this is an example coming from my own experience growing up. and there were a few in my gang, i was in as a kid, who lived on the posh estate ie private as opposed to council house.

to me it proves it has nothing to do with being unemployed, it is more to do with how much time you have for your kids to bring them up properly.

anyone with a brain would check who their kids are hanging around with, if they are in the wrong crowd do something about it, don't let the gangs raise your children, start doing it yourself if you don't already.

edit to add: both my parents were terrible parents to the point where i no longer see them anymore, because i am better off without them, but i suppose in your eyes because my parents both worked full-time, then you would see them as superb parents doing everything right. it kind of explains the flaw in your thinking really.