STIMULUS WATCH: $25 check may cost you food stamps

Years ago while working for the Food Stamp and Welfare office I had to perjure myself like every other eligibility worker. We had to interview people for continual eligibility and sign a paper saying that the renewing applicant had explained how they lived on food stamps and like $150 welfare for a family of a mother and 4 kids.

Of course, there had to be someone helping-- usually a man who the women wanted to please and frequently wound up pregnant again.

One time I had a Latina women who actually did get buy on it. She went into great detail. Every mo I first buy 50 lbs of rice and 50 lbs of rice. So much cooking oil etc, before the check and stamps are exhausted. My sister who is a maid in a hotel, and she takes toilet paper, toothpaste, soap and other stuff you can't buy with food stamps etc.

Sounds like fun for heartless conservatives like Juicyfruit I guess.

 

Lost in this topic is how welfare keeps the man down, instead of encouranging him to work out of his situation.

i.e. if you make $1500/ month, you get full food stamps.

if you find a 2nd part time job, to improve your financial situation, you lose all your food stamps benefits and other benefits. hmmm, let me see what I'd rather choose?

the same senario goes for medicade, housing, tuition assistance, etc...

The elderly are in the same boat. if you work for more than x $, you lose your medicare, ss benefits and other benefits, etc...

 

Uh - I think there is a plausible middle ground between communism and "not giving a **** about the poor".

 

No there's not, at least not in the terms that the GOP have used. Anything that doesn't tend towards anarchy = communism/socialism/facism.

 

I'd rather teach a man to fish, then to continually give him fish every day.

 

I personally know a family of 4 that spends $88a week on Groceries...thats less than $100 a month per person. They do what people USED to do a long time ago. They plan their meals for the week, buy real food (not processed junk food) and they COOK (gasp..the horror) all of their meals. They eat leftovers quite a bit. It can be done, you just have to plan in advance.

I saw a story on TV about a family of 4 who live on 35K a year with NO federal assistance. They live in a nice house, but don't buy luxery items like new TV's, cell phones, and other unnecessary purchases. The wife CHOOSES to stay home and not work, so that she can raise the kids. They eat good nutritional home cooked meals every night.

 

Juicyfruit is curiously callous in his attitude toward the poor. Where is he from?

 

If you learn to cook, it's possible.

Packaged and Canned foods are very expensive. Drinking water instead of name brand drinks can save $1-4 a day or $30-120 a month. You are limited to only buying meats that are on sale, so you can't just buy everything from the same store every week.

I grew up eating rice and noodles with chicken and pork and vegetables. It kept us from getting fat like our neighbors that drank sodas, ate junk food like candy, pastries, chips, or had frozen dinners, or ate at McDonald's. We were too poor for fast food, so it was a home cooked meal every day. For special occasions, we would go out and eat vietnamese food.