Monday, March 5, 2012

Food Stamp Nation

Its 11:00 am

   Spanning the globe....

While Newt Gingrich run for President has faded into the wind...his legacy of words are still be tossed about by the American public. Like calling President Obama the "food stamp president". Telling blacks they should demanding a paycheck instead of food stamps.
  Our society is goofy...we encourage people to donate food to the poor and needy,run PSAs about 1 in 7 children go hungry at night because of a lack of food.
 The media covers the very poor at Thanksgiving and Christmas time at a food kitchen eating a hot meal delivered by churches,volunteers or even the station that is covering the story. Its a "feel good"kind of story designed to tug on your hearts. And for the most part,it does.
   But when those same folks are standing in line at the grocery store and they pull out a Bridge (what we call food stamps in Michigan) you get a very different reaction...people aren't so tolerant and you see the stares and hear the nasty comments. Having a Bridge card is a symbol of shame in America,a sign of poverty.
I worked at a grocery store for 7 years as a cashier and later as a store trainer and I saw Bridge cards every day in my job. Saw the customer often trying to hide the card if anyone was behind them.
  I never understood this,if you have a family and you're not making it,why should you be ashamed if you need help? I did my very best to help each customer no matter how they paid. Now I'm not going to sit here and not say every case was pure and innocent. I know far better then that..fraud does happen in the Food Stamp program,the USDA,which runs the program nationally kicked over 44,000 people off the program for fraud.
  Stores also abuse the program...offering cash for the cards. I saw this often in the neighborhood I grew up in..you get 500.00 in  food stamps but sell the card for 300 cash. A lot of folks robbing Peter to pay Paul (or their dealers). In Pennsylvania,over 175 stores were caught paying cash for cards.
  States are now tightening up the rules,fingerprinting in New York,drug testing in Florida,set limits for individuals to get off the dole. Food stamp fraud costs the US taxpayer 375 million dollars a year...(but compare that to the 60 Billion that doctors rip off Medicare,including one doctor just busted for 375 million alone!!)
  What exactly are food stamps? Its federal aid designed to help people affected by poverty buy food. The program started back in the 60s and actually used to come in paper booklets with dollar amounts attached to them. This was phased out in 2004 in favor of plastic debt cards. This made it easier to stop massive postal thefts which happened quite a bit and gave the person both protection and tried to hide the stigma that using food stamps brings.
  Newt Gingrich has said that more people have been on food stamps then any other president in history.
Good ol' Newt says he is a historian,well if he is,I guess he must consider yesterday to be ancient because if he had done a little research he would have discovered that food stamp use has gone up under each President since Reagan back in 1980...
While we can't argue that more folks since 2008 have added to the food stamp program is larger then any president's term,lets look at the numbers a bit more.
  Last year,45 million Americans used food stamps,that equals to roughly 15% of all Americans. In 2008,28 million folks were on the program when Obama took office. But the number of folks added has risen sharply the past 10 years and actually GREW BY A HIGHER PERCENTAGE under the 8 years of George W. Bush's presidency then Obama's. I hear the teapublicans start to stammer and sputter when reading this but it was under Bush's watch then this recession hit,not Obama's.
 But was the recession totally at fault for the rise? Not all the way...millions of Americans lost their jobs and went from being middle class to sliding under the poverty line,thus making them eligible for food stamps.
15% of all Americans now live under that line,1 in 7 of everyone you may meet is officially poor. An average family of 3 living under 19,090.00 per year is the poverty line now.
The average family of 2.2 members now receives around 290.00 a month,or 73.00 a week to eat on. It isn't much to feed 2 people on but food stamp spending does add up quite a bit. It has risen to 80.5 billion during the past 10 years.
  Critics  blame this upsurge in spending on different factors..Bush relaxed eligibility standards and an boost to benefits that Obama had to put in his stimulus bill after those millions of folks started to lose their jobs.
Obama also increased the time limits that folks could stay on the program as well as people just weren't rebounding in finding a job as quickly as they had in the past.
"No program in our government has surged more out of control more dramatically then  food stamps" Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama has said. He goes on,"Do you think there are 4 times as many people who need food stamps today as in 2001?"
That is a fair question....until you realize that Alabama ranks as the 3rd poorest state in the country with over 750,000 living under the poverty line. How exactly did Sessions get elected again??
  And Newt made it a point to signal out blacks as the leading food stamp users. But the percentage is this...of all food stamp users,34% are whites,22% are black,16% are Hispanic and the rest (Native Americans,Asians,etc) are the other 28%.
40% of families that on food stamps do have at least one member who WORKS a job. Again...not only did folks lose their jobs but by the time they found another one,either they had used up all of their savings and or found a another job at much lower wages thus keeping them under the poverty line.
  Is there abuse? Sure there is....in New York City,they found 2,000 people using two names to draw extra benefits costing tax payers 5 million. In Michigan we had a man win a 2 million dollar lottery jackpot and still be able to use his Bridge card.
And as I said...over 44,000 people have been kicked off food stamps for abuses....which equals one tenth of one percent of program participants.
  There should be no shame tied to using this program....only shame if you are abusing it.

Thanks for reading and comments are most welcome.

37 comments:

  1. I agree that there's nothing wrong in acknowledging that you need help, but abusing it is a different story. Your post reminded me of Typhoon Haiyan last year. My country was badly hit and there have been instances of people and sadly, some organizations who took advantage of relief goods and help from other nations.

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    1. There are always going to be the few that hurt the many. We have seen the massive abuses here in the U.S. hurricane Katrina and other disasters.
      Thank you for commenting!

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  2. Wow, I had never thought about that stores could abuse food stamps as well. It's too bad the ones that do but I also know of people that work hard and still need a little help.

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    1. Sadly,this does happen and every so often a owner is caught,fined and even jailed.

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  3. Wow great thought and opinion here. I don't know the issue since I am not a US resident but I have heard quite few of this, thanks for the heads up

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    1. Every country with a social welfare system will see fraud and abuse...which only hurts the good people who really need it.

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  4. Many factors have gone into this economy not the least of them the recession. There should be no shame in asking for help if you need it but all are correct in that fraud it wrong. It's the fraud and abuse by the 3% that ruin it for the 97% using the system properly.

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    1. Exactly Patty....there is nothing wrong in seeking the help...but abusing the system or ridiculing the people who need it and using it as a political fodder to encourage division and prejudice is just as wrong as people ripping it off.

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  5. nice thoughts, you write so nicely.. but I have never known of this thing as I'm not living in the US..

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    1. Thank you for that,Brijdeep...the US has many moral shortcomings as you can see...

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  6. I don't like to give my political opinions. Thank you for your opinion. It was a great read.

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    1. I think its more of a social opinion,not a political one.

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  7. Very well written article. I see you have done some good research on this.

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  8. I think you stated a lot of this very well. I agree that there should not be shame tied to it. I have a friend who desperately needs help, but refuses to sign up for the program because of the stigma attached. It makes me really sad to see them eat so poorly when help is available.

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    1. That is very sad...I think your friend should try a food bank run by a local church,I think she would be amazed at exactly who comes in for support.
      47 million people are in the system,there really is no stigma in carrying a bridge card.

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  9. Its definitely a tough subject to discuss. As a child my family was so poor that we were on welfare...we had food stamps. Now its just a card, but it used to be like like printed money. The problem with Welfare is they make it almost impossible to leave and get off Welfare. As soon as you make a penny over what they think you should be making, the government cuts you off completely. They don't allow you to make ends meet, and then they go and accuse you of abusing it. I am glad that as an adult and one now with a college education, I have never had to rely on this service. But due to my mother being a high school drop out, it was our only way. An education can definitely go a long way in making sure you don't need this "trap" of a service from our government.

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    1. My family did as well,Heather....and we were to have it otherwise it would have hard to eat a daily meal outside of school lunch.
      I know people with college educations who are even now using welfare...the loss of the middle class is going increasing demand for this service.

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  10. There's a lot of struggle, and abuse. My girlfriend works at a homeless shelter, so she sees a lot of it.

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    1. Its still everywhere and affecting everyone....

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  11. I had no idea that stores could abuse Food Stamps. I guess no matter what, somebody will find a way to abuse it for their own good.

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  12. Very interesting read, since this political I'll keep my opinion to myself.

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    1. Not political at all John....feel free to express your POV.

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  13. Any program that offers assistance is bound to see abuse. It's a shame, but it's true. I was surprised to learn the amount was not as big as I'd thought (and happy to hear it too).

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  14. I really think food stamps should be allowed to purchase soap, t.p. and other items that may people who receive food stamps aren't able to purchase. I think that would cut down on a lot of fraud

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  15. Thank you for sharing this information. I was unaware of the rules and fraud.

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  16. I'm not sure food stamps is the issue but fraud and people abusing the system, happens with food stamps, medicare, wic, and some many assistance programs

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  17. I agree, there should be no shame in needing the program, only in abusing it. Hopefully more people will understand that.

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  18. I think food stamps have an important purpose but I hate that they get abused. When I'm behind someone using them, I don't think poorly of their situation but I do acknowledge their good (or poor) decisions in how they choose to use the food stamps. Your comment "There should be no shame tied to using this program....only shame if you are abusing it." is dead on.

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  19. I am not in the US but when I was pregnant with my daughter and we were living there we were able to use WIC but we never abused it,

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  20. I think a lot of people are abusing things in so many ways. May be it big or small. Abusing food stamps is a no no. It's food and it is essential to humans.

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  21. Thank you! I always feel bad for the people embarrassed that they need help. The looks from some people are ridiculous and they should be ashamed for putting others down.

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  22. The topic alone pisses me off.. people who really need it can't have, people that have it, don't deserve it (not everyone, but the ones who abuse it). At one point in my life, I tried for it, I was denied it. Apparently having no income makes you make too much. I could rant about this all day.

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  23. people should be themself and dont feel embarassed. this is ridiculous.

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  24. If the number of people that abused food stamps was equal to the number of rich that abused the tax system, food stamp fraud would probably be the largest govt expense out there... Yet it's "poor person fraud" that we worry about.

    It's probably because we've convinced ourselves that the rich deserve what they have... that they're just "better" than poor people.. so obviously THEY aren't breaking the rules.

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  25. For such a rich nation with a sizable number of billionaires, it's amazing to me how much time is spent castigating the poor for needing a helping hand.

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    1. You must have missed the news - the rich won the class war... it's over... so the only people we can blame are the poor. People who couldn't afford their houses got blamed for the financial crash of 2007 - not the people who knowingly created the instruments of the destruction (CDO/CDS) - because they're rich.

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