I got food stamps

reply to post by Pimpintology


Oh nothing except your missing nutrition. I love biscuits n gravy.

reply to post by Xeven


I take the best multivitamin you can buy. Think I read somewhere that you cannot out supplement a bad diet though. I sure hope that's wrong. I like things that are bad for me.

reply to post by Drezden


I feel sorry for you having tough times, hopefully things will go better soon

I do not get it though, why should anyone feel ashamed for receiving government assistance?

Maybe it comes from the overall attitude, the perspective how you look at it.

Round here, being on local assistance program is seen as nothing bad. Everybody might need it every once in a while, why are they paying their taxes then? You, just as every other taxpayer, is adding funds to the social security budget. When your having tough times, you use it. Like an insurance. Nothing extraordinary, getting what you are paying for. How would you like insurance where you pay monthly and when things go bad, they are not covering the fees?

This is how collective insurance works, everybody puts something in. When anyone needs help, they get helped. This year some people are helped, they get back on track and start paying taxes again. Next year someone else needs help and so on and so on. Your parents have paid taxes to the fund, you have worked before paid there, why kill yourself with work and bad nutrition in order to avoid what you are paying for?

I have not heard people taking up 3 jobs and sacrificing all their life and health in order to avoid gaining insurance money, so what is different in this situation. You pay every month, when things go off the track or go too tough, you get some of the money back you, your parents paid/will pay, it is not "free government money", it is getting back the insurance you paid for. It is not like this lasts forever, at least it should not be and that is where the problems start.

The overall attitude of the society matters a lot. Here people such things as granted, although there are possibly much less people using the system than in US. The taxes are high and these are taken as an insurance policy. Pay taxes -> # happens -> receive up to 80% of your previous salary for a year (if not worked, there is a fixed minimum which is quite high also) + get innumerous free trainings and help to get back on track -> back on track & continue paying taxes (insurance). Such system works well, if larger majority of people do not use it to their advantage. If too many people start using it for their advantage, it will bankrupt any country in the world, just as successful universal healthcare requires stronger focus on the health by majority of members in the society. Currently both of these are working well round here.

You said you were taking college classes. Rather focus on them and live off the money you are entitled to from the monthly goverment insurance payments you have paid (social security tax). Taking up several jobs besides college will only worsen your studies and overall education level and at the end might cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars, which stronger education could earn you more(depends on your major) . Same goes with nutrition, if you safrifice your nutrients, it will come back later and possibly pay you and your government far more at the end. Don´t overstress yourself, you are getting what you paid for. Just eat well, sleep well and focus on your classes to make your future better

I would rather a 100 people like you get food stamps than one person who is buying steaks and shrimp with them because they are too lazy to work or because they are working an under the table job and not claiming their income. I had a ' friend' on food stamps many years ago who traded her food for her drugs........and on food stamp day she had a big barbecue and invited all her other ' friends' for steaks and shrimp and always name brand drinks and chips. I would say ' why do you get Lays potato chips and not the store brand'? Reply was " i'm not paying for it, why not get the best ? ' At that time I was very poor and could not even afford generic chips ! I could buy no snacks or sodas because I had to buy FOOD with the little money I had. That is just outright abuse of the system.
You, OP, are working towards independence and this is a stepping stone and you are paying into the system, so don't feel bad. Just if you have to have chips, please buy generic.

I remember being on EBT down in Florida, the VA screwed up and didnt pay me my pension for a year, I had just had a heart attack, there was no work, but had to eat. You gotta do what you gotta do.

I remember my mom having food stamps when we were growing up, she had 4 of us and our scumbag dad wouldnt pay child support. We had to eat. Its life, things happen.

reply to post by Drezden


Move to a better state and take care of yourself.

reply to post by yamammasamonkey


I'm pretty sure he IS trying to take care of himself

reply to post by Drezden


Food stamps were intended for hard working folks like you, don't be ashamed!

That being said, I have seen how food stamp fraud works first hand. My former manager was hooked on drugs and was involved in the food stamps program. Before he went to jail, I saw him altering pay stubs on his computer. All he did was use MSPAINT to change his paychecks to say that he made less than what he really made. This sounds so easy to catch, but the food stamps program does not even check pay stubs against IRS tax returns. He told me he had been doing it for years. He also told me where to buy food stamps for .5 per dollar and named several different people. There is no real oversight for the folks on food stamps. I even anonymously reported everyone I knew to be involved and they didn't even check in on it.

Because of bad guys like this, people associate all food stamps users with fraudsters. That is unfortunate.

reply to post by Drezden

my heart goes out to you. i think that it is only morally right to have some kind of program like this to help people. although, i must confess i think the program is ran horribly. social programs like this leave me with many mixed emotions.

at one time i considered myself a libertarian, but now after looking at all the evils of capitalism and people in general, i'm not sure what i call myself. the word is probably "disappointed".

hamdoguhoh
reply to post by Drezden

 

Food stamps were intended for hard working folks like you, don't be ashamed!

That being said, I have seen how food stamp fraud works first hand. My former manager was hooked on drugs and was involved in the food stamps program. Before he went to jail, I saw him altering pay stubs on his computer. All he did was use MSPAINT to change his paychecks to say that he made less than what he really made. This sounds so easy to catch, but the food stamps program does not even check pay stubs against IRS tax returns. He told me he had been doing it for years. He also told me where to buy food stamps for .5 per dollar and named several different people. There is no real oversight for the folks on food stamps. I even anonymously reported everyone I knew to be involved and they didn't even check in on it.

Because of bad guys like this, people associate all food stamps users with fraudsters. That is unfortunate.

i have had a similar experience. i once had a guy come in my shop bragging about accepting food stamps for drugs.

Every buck they give out in food stamps keeps farmers, grocery stores, truckers and the others in the business in jobs. It's actually a very good use of taxpayer dollars compared to what else they (the government) would spend it on.

Every buck you get is a buck they don't spend bombing some third world country. You're doing a public service.

Most of the people who are snotty about 'those food stamp people' are racists, plain and simple. They don't seem to realize that them thar 'blacks' that they love to disparage wouldn't be here if their ancestors hadn't gone over to Africa, hunted them down and put the youngest and strongest on a slave ship with a 20% mortality rate and then hung them if they tried to learn to read once they got here. Our society is still paying the price for that obscenity.

Obviously, don't get me started.

I've been on the downside of poor too. I just now got a 9$/hour full-time job at a hotel. And no that's not alot of money when you are on your own and rent is $804 a month and you have a car payment, insurance, powerbill, gas, food, emergency situations ect. ect.

It's hard to feed yourself and keep up with today's times too.

And people look at you weird if your not in fashion, or drive the right car or have the right hairstyle.

Even though it is primarily people with extra money that look at you that way.

I find our WHOLE WORLD interesting.

- Con

reply to post by Drezden


No one is more strongly against government welfare than me. But my family qualifies for "WIC" which for those of you who aren't familiar is a food program where specifically designated food and juice products can be purchased at the store on the taxpayers' dime.

Do I take advantage of the program, even though we're living comfortably? Or take the "high road" and not participate?
The answer for me is "use it". I pay taxes, and I suffer the consequences just like everyone else, and those of us on the lower end of the food chain (who ARE paying taxes) suffer even more because we will feel the loss of income (via taxes) than those who are making much more than us.

I had a former friend who used the system because she was lazy. I watched her do this over and over and over again. She would only work at any given job long enough to collect unemployment. She would then quit saying that everyone hated her or whatever other “issue” would arise. She would then get unemployment and food stamps. She also got money to attend school twice and never finished either degree. Yet always managed to have her hair and nails done, go out and party it up, but couldn’t keep a job. This was a healthy young woman who just didn’t want to work. She would pitch her sob story to anyone that would listen and work him or her for money. She would constantly complain she was broke, yet wouldn’t get a job. All I could ever think was actually working has to be so much easier than constantly lying and scheming so you don't have to. After seeing her true colors and having been one of her victims I was gone. There is no place for people like that in my world.

Sadly there are a lot of people like her out there that abuse the system. Even worse, is the state allowing this to happen. They know who these people are and what they are up to yet they keep handing it out to them. But if you are normally a loyal and hard working individual and you fall on hard times and need a bit of help they make it almost impossible for you to get it. They actually make you feel like a criminal. I had to do unemployment once and it was nothing but drama. I have worked my butt off my whole life and the one time I need to use the unemployment I have been paying into my whole life, they get to decide if I deserve it or not. WTF is that all about!!! The flawed system rewards the lazy capable people who want to live off it, and punishes the ones who really only need it only during hard times.

I don't know about the US, but in the UK benefit fraud (we don't have food stamps per se) is more imagined than real. That's not to say it doesn't happen - and indeed I've met plenty of people engaged in it - but it's not nearly as widespread as some think. Avoidance of tobacco tax, for example, is reckoned to be between 50 and 100 per cent larger than benefit fiddling.

And people are always judgemental of others as a group, but when they hear individual stories or know someone on government support they tend to be more forgiving.

yamammasamonkey
reply to post by Drezden

 

Move to a better state and take care of yourself.

Do you have any idea how much it costs to move? Especially to a new state? I just moved from Cali to Montana so I have a bit of an idea. It is upwards of several thousand dollars.

You have to have a place to move to especially if you have kids, to there is first, last and deposit on a new place.

You have to turn on utilities on at the new place and many places charge a deposit and connection fee up front.

The Uhaul can be close too two grand if not more depending on the size you get and how far you are going.

And then there is gas to get there. You are looking at a possibly a grand or more for gas in a Uhaul.

reply to post by Drezden


You and about 50,000,000 Americans are getting food stamps. Amazing feat for the pinnacle of civilization.

solongandgoodnight
reply to post by Drezden

 

at one time i considered myself a libertarian, but now after looking at all the evils of capitalism and people in general, i'm not sure what i call myself. the word is probably "disappointed".

I consider myself a libertarian in an ideal world. However we don't live in an ideal world.

Oregon does check the income reported against what the employer reports to the tax man. I wrote a lot of over payments due to those reports. If the amount is large enough and obviously fraudulent, the person could be banned from the program for a period of time and in some cases prosecuted. An interesting factoid is that more bankers were under investigation for fraud than food stamp recipients when I worked.

When an employer hits hard times and changes a full time job to part time, many households start to run short. Mom, dad and 3 children have to make $2298 per month to be above poverty level. That household needs to make $13.26/hour to be above the poverty level. If both parents are working, the cost of day care will wipe out one parent's earnings. It is cheaper to have one parent stay home if the children are young. So you have a family, working hard, but still not making enough money to get by because the economy shifted and dad's job hours were reduced. This is a more common story than the frauds everyone talks about. The frauds often get caught too, but it's not as good a headline as a fraudster bragging about how they got away with it.