$7K in Food Stamps?

[Widget]

I actually do know a family who falls in this myth realm. It was a large family in CA who was *barely* making it on the grocery budget on the EBT benefits they were getting. Mom woke up one day and found $6K deposited into her EBT account. She called her caseworker to find out what happened. The state had been under-estimating her benefits for a long time. The money was the balance of what she should have been getting. She didn't consider she was somehow in possession of too much month. She wept for joy because her kids were hungry and stocked up on staples to tide her family over through the rough times.

At one time I also had $2000 randomly deposited into my EBT for the same reason. No explanation and I had to track them down to find out why. They had been underestimating by about $200 a month for almost a year.

I also bought non perishable staples like powdered milk, beans, pasta, canned goods, etc with it. Really living it up. :roll:

I imagine this $7k situation could quite possibly be similar.

[MandyLaLa]

Are we sure it was SNAP benefits and not the EBT cash account on the card. EBT cards at least in Ct have dual function food stamps which is SNAP but also cash assistance and if you get child support through a court order it can be loaded on the card. So oftentimes when people complain about people buying beer or whatever with SNAP they're really using the cash only portion of the card.

[jenny_islander]

Maybe the shopper had been the victim of bad arithmetic, like a previous poster, and had had the amount owed to her deposited to her account.

Maybe she was shopping for a very large household in very bad circumstances.

Maybe she had been saving up her SNAP money, letting it roll for a considerable time, by managing to get good deals on necessities and making everything from scratch, so that if the day came when she had to get expensive convenience foods due to being too sick or busy juggling three jobs to cook, she could. (I note that most of the American poor who are not too sick or young or old to work are working poor, often working multiple crap jobs. This is why fast food joints can stay open in severely depressed neighborhoods: there's no time to cook.)

Maybe $7,000 is not enough to keep even one person alive for a year at U.S. prices and people womping on about how awful it was that this disgusting poor had SEVEN THOUSAND WHOLE DOLLARS should shut up.

As for the asses who say that poor people shouldn't be allowed to eat porterhouse steak even if it was given to them because it was about to turn rotten . . . may they someday be so hungry they can't sleep or concentrate on anything. May they look longingly at the free soup crackers on the deli counter at the grocery store. May they walk out of that store empty-handed because there is no money for food. May they find themselves in line for a box of discarded food. And may that box be full of nothing but off-date macaroni and cheese dinner and sprouting potatoes.

[Dysfundamental]

Yes, a lump sum payment of substantial back money withheld because of an error at the food stamp office could account for a high current balance.

While everyone's up in arms about this one person possibly committing fraud (and possibly having a perfectly logical explanation for the high balance), Xe (the former Blackwater) is padding invoices by millions in Afghanistan. But nobody wants to eliminate military subcontracting entirely.

[anniebgood]

When the errant spouse got laid off I looked into food stamps. We pay 1900$ a month rent which is my disability check. He gets 900$ a month in UE. Out of that comes utilities, gas, insurance, and food. But according to the state of CA we make too much. We live in a duplex, most rents around here are the same, our zip code makes the car insurance higher even though they say it doesn't. If I got $100 a week in food stamps we'd make out ok. But no. And now with the spouse being diabetic his diet has changed completely. I have to scrimp and save to do the shopping. Out of one UE check we hit Costco for the big stuff that will last a few months. I just wish the gov't could look at us and help us. (Besides we have to pay federal tax on our UE)

/rant over.

[Jinger Jar]

Let's assume for a minute that this person did have 7k worth of food stamps. So? She and her family aren't going to be going hungry for a while. And this is a bad thing because? It's not as if she could take her EBT card and fly to Vegas for a wild and wooly weekend.

One of the many things I loathe about the right in the US is that their ideology encourages such a crab pot mentality about food, access to medical care, education and other basic stuff we need to just survive. How much lower as a society can we go now that we're begrudging a women money for her food?

[roddma]

Yes, childless adults apparently don't need to eat.

That is my main gripe about the whole sytem. It is basicially saying don't bother applying for benefits because you haven't reproduced. You can get a few benefits , but they aren't really worth the hassle. Then, GOP wonders why childess adults loathe larger than normal families like longskirtslotsakids mentioned who can barely afford kids they have but continue adding children. It is one thing to be a struggling family with a few kids and another to keep adding kids. They aren't knocking the kids but the parents who let it happen. I know the famailies aren't getting rich, but the whole system favor a certain demographic. A poster on a Christian forum told another poster you pay less taxes once your family gets larger. Childess people pay higher income taxes as well as property taxes that keep schools running yet they are denied help. Even those with 4< kids sometimes don't qualify if they make $1 above the limit.

[Syd+Marky]

A family with 12 children would only come close to feeding their family adequately every month IF they were cooking everything from scratch on $2300/month for groceries. You would have to forgo most prepackaged food, go shopping at Aldi's, day old bakeries and Walmart AND forgo most fruits and vegatables to feed 14 people adequately on $2300/month.

There are 10 people in my household. To feed us comfortably and have enough to still provide fruits, veggies and the ability to still have 1 or 2 easy prepackaged meals in a month, we shop day old bread for ALL bread products, Aldi's for ALL produce and Walmart for nearly everything else we can get there. We save the actual grocery store for the speciality items we really cannot find elsewhere, and we spend $2000/month. We spent a LOT less when they were younger, but most of them are not now. School breakfast and lunch can take the edge off of a teen's hunger, but my kids still require at least one meal as soon as they get home to compensate for the reduced volume and calories they get at school, in addition to dinner. School meals run us $300-400/month on top of our grocery budget, so if the kids aren't going to school, that's money you have to compensate in all the meals they eat at home, but a responsible parent must still feed their kids at least two meals a day even if the kid eats breakfast and lunch at school, because the portions are small at school.

$2300/month in EBT benefits for a family of 14 is NOT leaving much room for a family to gorge on food. Plus, EBT can only be used on food--no hot deli items, no alcohol, no non-food items. It can be carefully planned to provide a holiday meal or even a birthday party, but you have to work around and adjust the rest of your budget in a month to do so. A mother too impaired to make meal plans, shop low budget stores, make careful grocery lists and cook from scratch is going to struggle to feed 14 peope on that $2300/month.

I know that sounds like a lot of money when you are one or two people, but it's NOT for a large family. My grocery budget is bigger than my house payments and will be until my kids leave home. My kids are super skinny but they eat constantly. They are active, athetletic, growing kids and NEED to eat.

I actually do know a family who falls in this myth realm. It was a large family in CA who was *barely* making it on the grocery budget on the EBT benefits they were getting. Mom woke up one day and found $6K deposited into her EBT account. She called her caseworker to find out what happened. The state had been under-estimating her benefits for a long time. The money was the balance of what she should have been getting. She didn't consider she was somehow in possession of too much month. She wept for joy because her kids were hungry and stocked up on staples to tide her family over through the rough times.

Im glad you pointed out that kids need at least two meals a day even eating breakfast&lunch at school.My kids eat a meal after school, &dinner in the evening also.

[Wolfie]

That is my main gripe about the whole sytem. It is basicially saying don't bother applying for benefits because you haven't reproduced. You can get a few benefits , but they aren't really worth the hassle. Then, GOP wonders why childess adults loathe larger than normal families like longskirtslotsakids mentioned who can barely afford kids they have but continue adding children. It is one thing to be a struggling family with a few kids and another to keep adding kids. They aren't knocking the kids but the parents who let it happen. I know the famailies aren't getting rich, but the whole system favor a certain demographic. A poster on a Christian forum told another poster you pay less taxes once your family gets larger. Childess people pay higher income taxes as well as property taxes that keep schools running yet they are denied help. Even those with 4< kids sometimes don't qualify if they make $1 above the limit.

I think it's also more than that, when I was in grad school I applied for a couple of graduate/internship programs. All of the people I met who had been accepted into the programs were women with kids, no matter if they were married or single. I was not accepted into them at all. Overall, society still has a bias towards people with children and against those without. I am hoping that changes as my generation gets older, but I have little hope.

[Mama Mia]

I think it is conceivable some family, somewhere, had 7k showing up on their EBT card. I do not think it is conceivable that this gas store clerk is seeing at least 10 people a day who are showing $2,000 or more on their EBT card -- and since he is clearly lying about that, I don't see any reason to believe he is telling the truth about the $7k.

I don't know how those particular receipts read - but it is entirely possible that they are showing not only the food stamps amount - but everything in their account. And that could include a family on Social Security who received a lump sum back payment - for example. Or maybe it shows amount spent year to date. Or this particular person with the 7k runs a board and care residential home for the elderly and receives all of the snap payments on one card. Who knows ?

And you certainly can't tell by what car a person drives - it could be their car that was paid off years ago, or it could be their mom's car, or they could have bought it used for really cheap. While you do get some people making high car payments while on aid - generally they will have gotten the loan before they lost their job - most auto companies aren't going to give a loan for a 40k car to someone with an income of 1,000 a month.

[Coconut Flan]

It won't be including Social Security because that won't go on an EBT. Likely he's either misreading the receipts or lying if he says he sees ten a day with thousands in the balance. At the grocery store the people that I've seen are more likely to overrun the card than have a large balance.

[Wolfie]

It won't be including Social Security because that won't go on an EBT. Likely he's either misreading the receipts or lying if he says he sees ten a day with thousands in the balance. At the grocery store the people that I've seen are more likely to overrun the card than have a large balance.

Or else there are a lot of families with court ordered child support in his area.

[Mama Mia]

It won't be including Social Security because that won't go on an EBT. Likely he's either misreading the receipts or lying if he says he sees ten a day with thousands in the balance. At the grocery store the people that I've seen are more likely to overrun the card than have a large balance.

I think that depends on your state. California puts everything on the same card. Possibly not federal benefits - but unemployment, state disability, cash aid, child support, snaps, everything goes on the one card.

[August]

I think that depends on your state. California puts everything on the same card. Possibly not federal benefits - but unemployment, state disability, cash aid, child support, snaps, everything goes on the one card.

IIRC correctly you choose cash or food, and the receipt has both totals.

[nelliebelle1197]

I work in social services, and I would rather not have volunteer AT ALL rather than one who shared this type of story littered with this many figurative eyerolls about my disabled clients. You may not have meant it this way, but the post drips with contempt. Sorry, but "nothing to do all day"? The woman has intellectual disabilities; it sounds more cognitive than mental. There is a difference.

Not at all. There are families out there with 7-12 children all on food stamps. THere is one (and yes, I know them personally as I worked with them on a volunteer basis) family out here that has 12 children, both parents are on SSI and food stamps. They get $2300 in food stamps a month. A MONTH. Can you imagine what you could buy with $2300 a month? (THey also get $3000 in SSI)

(Of course, they got their kids all taken from them, because despite having no job and nothing to do, they let their 5 bedroom apartment become so filthy and destroyed it was a hazard. I was one of the volunteers that helped them with family care skills. She was mentally disabled- I'd say about the level of a 12- 13 year old- and had no idea how to cook and clean. It was Macky's every night. She relied on the schools for 8 of the kids free breakfasts and lunch. The litte ones got snack food like fruit snacks and chips for breakfast. I shit you not, she complained about cold cereal being a pain to make.)

SO, if a large family got that much, and did not go shopping, a balance of $7000 wold only take three months to accumulate. Families that size are the exception rather than the norm, true enough- but they do exist. If there are 380K in that county ALONE, it is not hard at all to see how he might come across families like that quite often!

[hapamama]

I think that depends on your state. California puts everything on the same card. Possibly not federal benefits - but unemployment, state disability, cash aid, child support, snaps, everything goes on the one card.

Incorrect. The EDD uses a different card to distribute it's benefits than the card used for EBT. The EDD card is a Visa debt card through Bank of America. The EBT card is called the "Golden State Advantage" card and is just an ATM card.

[wild little fox]

Yes, a lump sum payment of substantial back money withheld because of an error at the food stamp office could account for a high current balance.

While everyone's up in arms about this one person possibly committing fraud (and possibly having a perfectly logical explanation for the high balance), Xe (the former Blackwater) is padding invoices by millions in Afghanistan. But nobody wants to eliminate military subcontracting entirely.

How about the pallet of USD $100 bills that simply "vanished" from a base in Iraq? Oh, we'll! Only a billion dollars. By the way we need to cut "entitlement" programs because we are is too much debt!

[flyawaystray]

When I go to the store, my boyfriend goes with me. He has a nice, new car (2012 VW Golf), so it may look like I am getting into a nice vehicle for someone on benefits, but I don't own the car. I can't afford a car so I'm getting a motorcycle license and will buy a moped instead. Insurance and gas is cheaper, and it's not like I'm going to be driving long distances on it.

I think too many people judge, tbh. Sure, there are a lot of scammers in the system, but then there are people like me who have a disability, or someone with a low paying job that legally qualifies for benefits. I paid taxes so I don't feel horrible anymore for having benefits, though initially I did feel a bit guilty.

[Coconut Flan]

Social Security and SSI are federal programs and won't be on the state cards. Can you imagine the horror of the federal treasury trying to distribute funds depending on state and separating the state benefit recipients from the other recipients?

[roddma]

I think it's also more than that, when I was in grad school I applied for a couple of graduate/internship programs. All of the people I met who had been accepted into the programs were women with kids, no matter if they were married or single. I was not accepted into them at all. Overall, society still has a bias towards people with children and against those without. I am hoping that changes as my generation gets older, but I have little hope.

And the parents who do try to make something of themselves lose benefits if they make $1 too much as I said. Gov officials don't understand minimum wage jobs often can't feed a family what they need and the little boost would help them back on their feet. I think society regards parents as important beause they produce future taxpayers. Anyhow, IMO the ones who complain most about food stamps and welfare are the same ones getting hefty tax breaks like Chris Jeub or they are being supported by parents like Josh Duggar. Help is help no matter where it cocmes from.

[boysmom]

Food stamps aren't designed to cover the recipient's entire food bill. I've looked at it, they look at whatever income you may have, perhaps unemployment, then assume you'll pay 30% of that towards food. If that doesnt' cover your hypothetical need, they will give the balance, assuming you meet income limits and have kids of course. so for us, with 4 kids and unemployment of 2000 per month, we'd have gotten about 600 per month. I never applied for them because we had assets to cover it and I just didn't feel right about it. If I couldn't have provided enough food for my kids I'd have applied though.

Referencing the above about needing 2k'ish to feed a family of 10, we are a family of 6, with 3 adult sized male children and one is is only 8, then the parents of course. I spend about 800 I think? And I don't deprive us, but I do shop extremely judiciously, and stock up on sale items and rarely pay "retail" for my food. That's hard to do for people who are just barely making ends meet I realize, because it takes money to build up the initial stash and stocking up isn't practical many times. But I do think that in my area, anyway, feeding a family of 10 could easily be done on 1300 or so per month. Also, anyone who qualified for food stamps would also qualify for free school lunches and breakfasts. Which are, of course, now a huge joke and do not provide anywhere near enough food for a child when you factor in the fact that they likely will refuse some of the food and there aren't good substitutions allowed. My son takes his lunch almost every day as a result.

[already hungover]

SNAP doesn't have a list, but it has limitations - only food, only non-deli/prepared food/hot (which is plain stupid. Are homeless people supposed to subsist on salad and raw fruit? Also, a $7 frozen pizza from the grocery store is eligible but a $5 hot pizza from Little Caesar's isn't). In some places people report a lot of fraud, mostly on convenience stores that sell both mis-classifying their cooked food so people can buy it on EBT.

In Los Angeles County, anyway, you can use your EBT at fast-food restaurants only if you are homeless or disabled. The assumption is that this population either doesn't have access to kitchen facilities or is otherwise unable to cook food at home. That's why I find it so ridiculous when people bitch about the EBT signs at Taco Bell or whatever. Not everyone on EBT is eligible to use the benefits on fast food. This isn't the case elsewhere, I don't think.

(http://dpss.lacounty.gov/dpss/restaurant_meals/default.cfm)

Regarding the original article: stories like this make me so angry. Does anyone ACTUALLY think that being on SNAP is some kind of luxury? I bet 99% of recipients would choose not to be eligible if that meant having a job with income sufficient to support themselves. I imagine that hardly anyone feels that the time-consuming, degrading process of applying for and receiving SNAP benefits and then having to use them to support a family is so awesome that it's somehow better than not being poor.

Also, who am I to give a shit what people spend their EBT on? Being poor sucks ass. It's stressful, it's humiliating, and it's depressing. If eating a lobster you buy with your EBT makes it suck ass a little less for one evening, if it makes you a little less stressed or humiliated or depressed, then go ahead. The world would be a lot better if we could all be a little kinder about shit like this.

(Full, sentimental disclosure: I grew up way below the poverty line. My mom refused to accept any government assistance. We often went hungry and without electricity or water. When I grew up and moved out, a friend managed to convince me that applying for SNAP didn't mean I was a bad person or a grifter or doomed to a life of loserdom. The first time I walked into a grocery store with my EBT card, I cried actual tears - I had never experienced being able to buy whatever food I wanted. It's a moment that I will never forget. Nobody should be hungry in the richest country on Earth. Ever. Even if that means letting a handful of people game the system.)

[Fargood]

Regarding the original article: stories like this make me so angry. Does anyone ACTUALLY think that being on SNAP is some kind of luxury? I bet 99% of recipients would choose not to be eligible if that meant having a job with income sufficient to support themselves. I imagine that hardly anyone feels that the time-consuming, degrading process of applying for and receiving SNAP benefits and then having to use them to support a family is so awesome that it's somehow better than not being poor

QFT. I don't engage in discussions about welfare and benefits with a lot of people, but the general sentiment that I gather from those folks against assistance is that anyone who is receiving assistance must also be completely miserable and if you're not then you're a welfare leech and a fraud. It's infuriating.

I used to work in public defense and so many of my clients had genuine mental health issues. I'm so sick of hearing that people should just "get jobs." Many of my former clients were unemployable, either because of criminal records, mental health issues or transportation issues. It sucks to be on assistance in this country (USA).

And from a purely pragmatic standpoint -- some unemployable people will do anything to feed themselves and their families. That means they turn to theft or other dishonest means to support themselves. Countries with lesser available social welfare programs have higher violent crime rates than those with social welfare programs. (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1997.tb01899.x/abstract)

[chaotic life]

When we lived in the south, I spent $1600/month on our food. We now live in a state with food costs similiar to CA and we spend $2000. A LOT depends upon where you live for food costs. However, even then, no matter how "adult size" an 8 year old is, they are NOT eating a teen portion of food, which is HIGHER than an adult portion. Teens require significantly more calories than adults, just as they require more sleep than adults. My oldest ate an adult size portion of food when he was 8 as well. I long for a return to those days because he sure as heck doesn't now.

Also, a family in an urban situation who is on food stamps is going to spend FAR more than what either you or I spend on food costs. We both shop frugally, go to multiple stores, watch sales.

When I went back to school, we spent two years in an urban city. I NEVER understood this part of poverty and food costs until I lived there. *I* had a vehicle. *I* drove around town for my best choices. *I* drove just over the state line because prices were cheaper there, twenty minutes away. My neighbors didn't have cars and public transportation wasn't going to take them to all the places *I* frequented to save money on my food costs. *I* could even drive to the outskirts of town where the food co-op with the super cheap bulk items were on sale.

My nieghbors walked to the ONLY shopping district in the urban center. They cashed their checks at the check cashing store, for a 5% fee, then went to the ONLY Kroger to shop. The prices were HIGHER at that Kroger than the one five miles out into Yuppyland, where I tended to shop. The selections were less, less variety and far less health. The fruit and produce section was basially a joke. If my neighbors were REALLY determined, they could hike 10 blocks to the day old bread store that was across the street from public housing, but most of my neighbors were not in public housing but working poor. They preferred to avoid the crime rate at that bread store. If by some miracle they DID have a car, and most of the cars were there during the day with commuters or within the pockets of urban rejuvenation scattered around, gas cost them 20 cents more per gallon than the ability to go where the cheaper food was to get gas. There was ONE bank in the area, and their standards fora checking account were HIGH.

Under those circumstances, I guarantee you that my neighbors were spending twice what I paid on groceries, and they were getting FAR less nutrition for their purchases. *I* bought whole wheat flour on the outskirts of the city from Sam's Club and made bread in my Bosch. I sincerely doubt most of my neighbors were doing that.

Seriously, we were in one of the pilot school districts in the country that gave free breakfast and lunch to all students in the district due to the poverty rates. I felt bad when my kids took supplemental snacks to school and it was often homemade stuff. It got to the point where my daughter would hide her food. My son was bussed 1.5-2 hours to the outer edges of the city by the military base, so he had far less struggles being embarrassed that we were not in the same situation as the other kids in the district. My daughter nearly had a nervous breakdown not able to grasp the poverty around her. It was a SERIOUS eye opener to how urban poverty manifests in this nation and how badly it impacts the kids. I'm 10000% supportive of food benefits for children after that experience. Children need to eat, if it requires our tax dollars to feed them, then I think we have a responsiblity to the future of our nation to feed our nation's children. We need to figure out poverty and nutrition issues for those who aren't children as well, but we've GOT to take care of our children.

[Rosa]

In Los Angeles County, anyway, you can use your EBT at fast-food restaurants only if you are homeless or disabled. The assumption is that this population either doesn't have access to kitchen facilities or is otherwise unable to cook food at home. That's why I find it so ridiculous when people bitch about the EBT signs at Taco Bell or whatever. Not everyone on EBT is eligible to use the benefits on fast food. This isn't the case elsewhere, I don't think.

(http://dpss.lacounty.gov/dpss/restaurant_meals/default.cfm)

That is AWESOME. I wish we had it here. The no-prepared-food thing is stupid. If we want people to work full time, then we should be building some time-saving stuff, from transportation to prepared food, in their benefits.

I only mentioned the fraud thing because, just like with medicaid, when authorities DO find fraud it's almost always by the businesses providing stuff, not the individual beneficiaries.

Also, i think this belongs here, because it's part of the overall argument about benefits, what they are for, how much they should cost, etc.

"Wealth Inequality in America" - compares what people THINK our wealth distribution is, to what it actually is.