About those folks on "food stamps"

[Odoreida]

[samnsara]

1. ive been on food stamps, state $ assistance and medical coupons....

..but as a single mom and later as a single mom college student. I cant imagine having to use them if i worked full time.. i would be so pissed.

[SallyHemmings]

2. Walmart has been using the government as a benefits department forever

[Odoreida]

3. Walmart is the biggest therefore the most notorious, but ...

... low wage businesses of all sizes do this.

[Scarsdale]

4. There are military

families who have to rely on Food Stamps. How shameful is THAT for the wealthiest country on earth?

[IndyOp]

34. Extremely. (n/t)

[MyOwnPeace]

45. SO many ways for the wealthiest country on earth to be shamed;

and so much of it centers on how we treat those with the most needs.

The "haves" say F-U to the "have nots" - and that covers it from top to bottom, even in the military!

[RGinNJ]

52. When I was in the Navy '79 to '99 no one was allowed to receive food stamps.

Not that they weren't necessary.

[Scarsdale]

54. My husband was in the USAF

and many of the guys from the base had to have part time jobs to get by.

[intrepidity]

42. Remember that Walmart drove wages down everywhere

Walmart is a market force.

[summer_in_TX]

53. Walmart and Sam's Club have been struggling recently.

Some 60 stores closed in 2019. Wonder how much is due to those of us who have boycotted them for years over their wage issues and their tricking employees to work longer hours without overtime.

[tecelote]

38. Corporate Welfare

Our taxes pay for food stamps so Walmart does not have to pay a living wage.

Sure, our taxes pay for public assistance programs. But those that abuse it are not people but corporations. People need assistance because Walmart does not pay a living wage. Our taxes pay the difference between Walmart wages and the needs covered by public assistance. We, the people, pay it instead of Walmart.

Our taxes go directly to Walmart's bottom line. They call it profits.

Corporate Welfare should be a talking point in 2020.

Our taxes should not be going to Walmart's wealthy owners when their employees need help getting by while working full time.

[sandensea]

5. But alas, self-righteousness works

Right-wing elites have known this since at least the Victorian era, when Dickens' works created such an uproar among the middle class that they felt they needed to counteract that somehow.

So they appealed to middle-class pettiness.

"The poor are poor because they deserve it: they're coarse, ugly, and troublesome - not like you, the upstanding middle class."

And it still works - not with everyone, of course; but with far too many.

[wnylib]

14. I worked with a woman who supported Trump

from the day he announced his csndidacy. She ranted on about how he would get the "freeloaders" off of food stamps and Medicaid.

One day when telling us about a bad experience at a medical appointment for her daughter, she let slip accidentally that her daughter was covered by Medicaid. Not sure now what the circumstances were that made her eligible, but I could not resist reminding her that she was one of the "freeloaders" that Trump would go sfter. She was self-righteously indignant at my comment and ranted on that her circumstsnces were different from "the others." I suggested she tell Trump, not me.

[sandensea]

19. The old 'I deserve it, you don't'

Thanks for sharing that sad - but very illustrative - anecdote.

Racism, I suppose, is the ugly twin sister of self-righteuosness ("the problem with this country is all those damn minorities", etc.).

Describes about 90% of the Republicans I've ever met. I bet most here on DU would say the same.

That's how we got this:

[wnylib]

25. Your description fits her to a T.

"I deserve it. You don't."

That was her whole personality and character. Our office was always chilly, an hvac problem, so we had a space heater set up for everyone near our cubicles. One day we couldn't find it and shivered until she took her break. Another employee found it tucked under her desk to keep her legs and feet warm.

We placed it in the common area again, but as far from her cubicle as we could.

She had a hard life growing up and told us about it as her reason for being "self-reliant." One day I was so tired of hearing it that I snapped back that there is a difference between self-reliant and just plain selfish. Told her that some people learn the value of community and sharing from hard times. I accused her of blaming people who receive assistance of any kind for the things she dealt with as a child. "They didn't do it to you. Stop taking it out on everyone."

[MyOwnPeace]

46. I respect your right to make your comment.........

but, GAWD!!!!!!!!!!!!!, did you have to include that picture?

[sandensea]

47. Sorry. Let me make it up to you:

[MyOwnPeace]

48. Oh....................

puppies win every time!

[sandensea]

49. After seeing a mug like Trump's, you need something THAT sweet to make up for it

Have a great New Year's.

[MyOwnPeace]

51. And to you!

Here's hoping we ALL do come November!!!!

[SWBTATTReg]

26. Good for you in calling out this hypocrite...they whine and bitch gripe about everyone else on...

the dole, but when they are on the dole, nothing wrong w/ that, they're 'special'. Hypocrites.

Thank you for standing up!

[CTyankee]

43. "born on third base and thought they hit a triple" is how I have heard it said.

Arrogance has no bounds with these people.

[sandensea]

44. +1

I'm convinced the root of all evil isn't money. It's the ego.

[Ohiogal]

6. When my husband was teaching

There were first year teachers who qualified for WIC which also gave you food coupons. What is wrong with our society!!!!

My sister and I were discussing this a while ago, and she said that "Not all jobs are meant to provide a living wage." I'm like, HUH?

[samplegirl]

7. I got mine syndrome

same with my siblings.

[Oppaloopa]

56. I always said that should be the real slogan of the republican party. I got mine and the hell if

you got yours.

[appalachiablue]

21. Wow, 'not a living wage' where did your sister hear that one?

It has to be a straight up RW talking point if I ever heard one. And *new* to me at least.

There's a long term campaign going on to demean & belittle teachers, besides the low wages, overwork and no respect.

It has to be a part of the aim to reduce teaching to employees with less education working as attendants basically in private schools and being paid next to nothing. Shameful.

> On another liberal site recently I was astounded when I saw a post, "teaching isn't really a profession yet." What!!??

[Ohiogal]

31. She tells me she also hates the phrases

"paying your fair share"

and

"for the common good."

Where would you get those from? Fox "news"? Rush?

[appalachiablue]

32. Those have to be foxrush. I realized this year how vast,

entrenched and disastrous these media forces have been in the last 30 years. It's really destabilizing the country.

There's big money out there and with all the millions spent on campaigns, I don't know how there's no interest in developing an accessible counter media venue on the left. I'll never live to see it.

[Dukkha]

33. Fox News works hard

at convincing the poor it's their fault because they're not working hard enough and the rich should get more breaks.

[Ohiogal]

35. Or, if the poor would

just stop making bad choices, and go out and get a college education! Bootstraps! Because it's your own fault you're poor!

[calimary]

8. Oh My GOODNESS, that's a great graphic!!!

I feel like making a protest sign of that. When’s the next march?

[mathematic]

9. Do you feel the same way about government provided health care?

Also, is the image even correct? Walmart starts at $11 an hour. Minimum for full time is 30 hours. That's $16500 a year, which is above the threshold for a single person to get SNAP benefits.

[mwooldri]

10. "Government healthcare"? No I don't feel the same way.

Having grown up in the UK's NHS where everyone has access to care at no charge at the point of delivery... to me this is the standard. America doesn't meet this standard.

The image may be correct... Add in children, add in different poverty rates in different parts of the country, that Walmart employee working full time may well need SNAP.

[mathematic]

12. Why should food be dependent on your job but not healthcare?

Seems like a strange distinction to maintain.

Personally I don't think somebody's ability to do useful work for somebody else should be a factor in whether that person gets food, shelter, or healthcare. It is society's responsibility to ensure people have their basic needs met, not the responsibility of any single employer.

[stopdiggin]

36. You apparently endorse a more encompassing

form of socialism (not using as a pejorative) than most. The U.S. model (if you wish to call it that) employs means testing for a great many things. (education assistance, health care, legal representation, school lunches, tax benefits .. the list is fairly long) Many see this as not only the norm but a proper method of administering programs and extending benefits. You're free to disagree of course .. but what is being discussed here in this string is wholly within that norm.

[mathematic]

37. My position is entirely consistent with means testing

(It's also not socialism, which is an economic philosophy regarding social ownership of the means of production).

My position is consistent with means testing and I support means testing. I think it's entirely appropriate to say that people that can afford to pay for their necessities should do so and welfare spending should be directed towards people that can't afford it.

It's the message from the OP that is saying that these welfare payments shouldn't exist at all. Or, at least, not for employed people. They're saying that the compensation for any employment should include enough so that the employee doesn't need any social welfare. I don't consider that viewpoint the foundation of good policy. Why does it matter why somebody needs welfare spending? (Answer: it doesn't). Why should the cost of welfare spending not be borne by the public in general? (Answer: it should, preferably via a highly progressive individual income tax).

[stopdiggin]

39. thanks. a better understanding (I think)

to me, the weak spot in you position (if in fact I have it right now) is it does not seem to address predatory employers. Those that are deliberately making sure their workers are not full time employees (or are not "employees" at all) .. with the deliberate strategy of skimping on, or avoiding, benefits and other responsibilities. Thereby passing those costs and burdens on to the public at large. Do you embrace the concept (nebulous as it is) of a "living wage?" Do you think there is such a thing as a predatory employer, and predatory wages? I guess that would be the more germane question.

(there are lots of forms of "socialism" .. and today they are mostly describing something that is not the textbook definition of "public ownership." but .. seeds for another discussion.)

[Recursion]

13. The problem is we never answer "a living wage for how many"?

How many people should the lowest pay an employer can offer support? And what happens to households larger than that?

[Recursion]

11. Employers are reluctant enough as it is to hire single parents

I worry this kind of thing makes them even more reluctant.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. And that's assuming they get 30 hours each and every week.

Why can't Walmart actually have them work 40 hours? And what's the cost in a given state or city of renting an apartment?

And what if this person making a whopping $16500 year (and that's before any taxes. FICA will always be taken out, which knocks that princely sum down to $14500, if I did the math right) has a couple of kids?

Alas, that image is not as outdated as it ought to be.

I recall reading a couple of decades ago that along with showing videos about the horrors of unionization, Walmart's new employee orientation included teaching them how to apply for food stamps.

[Rorey]

23. I worked at Walmart as a union as a union salt

It was over a decade ago. Needless to say, it was futile, but I did learn a lot about Walmart. At the time, full time was over 28 hours, and full time workers were never scheduled over 37 1/2 hours. This was to make sure they didn't go into overtime. Managers got bonuses for keeping payroll low. I was part time, and was often asked to work more hours when needed, and I always declined. I had no desire to rob hours from a full time "associate" who needed them, so I always just said, "Sorry, I have plans."

After the holidays it was particularly heartbreaking to see how hours were cut. I walked into the room where some managers were working on the schedule and heard one say to the other that she wasn't to schedule anyone for more than 30 hours. Then I got to see the devastated faces of those "associates" when they saw their schedules, wondering how they were going to pay their rent/bills. To make matters worse, Walmart structured the schedule-making to discourage moonlighting.

Walmart sucks. They did then. They do now.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

40. Did that definition of full time include benefits?

My guess is, absolutely not.

[Rorey]

41. At Walmart, a benefit is not a benefit

At least the way it was during my short stint there, they called it a benefit, but their so-called benefits weren't affordable on their meager wages.

[CatWoman]

15. kick

[SunSeeker]

16. K & R

[Tribalceltic]

18. K & R

no words for my anger at this

[PatrickforO]

20. Indeed.

My cousin, a Trump supporter and die-hard Republican, veteran of thousands of hours of talk radio, came out in early December when his father, my uncle, died. He had a good long life and had told many of us that he was quite ready to go, so it wasn't a particularly sad occasion.

So my cousin called and came over. He and I had a long talk, and when I told him that billionaires were a failure in policy and we need to readjust the tax code so that instead of billionaires, they are turned into millionaires, he discounted my career in the public sector on the basis that 'I'd never really been out there in the world and had to depend on my own effort to eat.'

Seriously.

Then, when I mentioned the drain student debt is on our economy, he said that no one is holding a gun to the heads of these kids who sign on the dotted line. I replied that since investing in our children's and grandchildren's education is a public good in that we all benefit from an educated, productive labor force, he began to speak of personal responsibility and asked me how I made it through college.

I replied that I had the privilege of attending college when it cost around $500 a semester and maybe $100 for books, and so was able to work my way through and graduate without debt. I told him that in Colorado, we have around $733,000 people who owe an average exceeding $30k, and have to remit an average of $350 per month that in aggregate drains around $2.7 billion from the state's economy - in other words, since this money leaves the community, it cannot be used to purchase local goods and services.

I then pointed out that if we could somehow subsidize college so people can go debt-free, and create a forgiveness program for all these outstanding loans, the entire economic structure of the nation would be better, and more importantly, we would have created a more even playing field for people who didn't have the advantages of growing up a white male in middle-class suburbia, as I did.

He snorted and had none of it. I just couldn't get through the brick wall he's built around personal responsibility.

So, while I absolutely agree with this visual and its message, and feel like we need to impose confiscatory taxes on people like the Waltons - they can be millionaires - that's fine, but billionaires? Nope. Not when a single Wal-Mart store costs a community upwards of $900K per year in welfare and SNAP benefits for its employees. I mean, basically EVERY single Wal-Mart store is a scathing indictment of corporate socialism in that WE TAXPAYERS ACTUALLY SUBSIDIZE THEIR CORPORATE PROFITS by providing welfare to employees paid below subsistence wages.

Have the Waltons created value? Not in these circumstances.

But, for my cousin, they have added value, and it is this woman's choice to work for Wal-Mart. If she had made better choices, he would maintain, then she would have a better job and better skills.

Sigh.

This is a third of our population, folks. Basically people who feel absolutely no compassion for the less fortunate, for minimum wage earners, for people who can't subsist on their full-time wages because they made the wrong choices in life.

It would be nice, if everyone could understand we are all in the same boat, and we need to rethink how we organize ourselves anyway. Human need should always trump human greed, people should always be more important than profit, and Wall Street needs to have its wings clipped.

[Rorey]

29. No compassion at all

A long time ago I used to post on a very combative message board with some absolutely vile creatures. I remember one particularly vile poster who had absolutely no compassion for anyone, always saying that "they should have planned better." I looked her up a couple of years ago and saw that she had filed for bankruptcy. I had to resist the temptation to message her and tell her she "should have planned better".

Effing repubs just don't get it. All it takes is one unfortunate event to put someone in the category where they can't make it through without help.

[MyOwnPeace]

50. Sorry, Rorey,

you missed a "teachable moment!" (not that she would have learned the lesson anyhow, but still...........)

Should'a sent it!

[Rorey]

55. Karma

I saw a photo. She appeared to be in poor health, so I'm thinking she probably got served a big bowl of Karma.

[SWBTATTReg]

30. Good post. NT

[AwakeAtLast]

22. I have been saying this forever

If you are paid so little that you qualify for food assistance, the company should have to reimburse the government!

[Martin Eden]

24. The REAL problem in this country is the POOR have it too damn easy!!!

That's what self righteous "conservatives" are misled to believe by the malefactors of great wealth who laugh at their useful idiots all the way to the bank.

[dalton99a]

27. Kick

[dem in texas]

28. Why Don't the Dems push this message more?

The change in income distribution started over 30 years ago with Reagan. Remember the big lie: Profits will trickle down. What a joke! Sadly this is a joke that hurts many people at the bottom of the income ladder.

The minimum hourly wage has not kept up with the growth in other costs. Stockholders are getting richer as the government subsidizes these companies with massive tax cuts and by paying part of the costs of the low level employees through food stamps, earned income credits and Medicaid. Further outrage is large Fortune 500 corporations don't pay a penny in income taxes.