Fun with WIC/EBT

[Severen13]

During my brief stint at Wal-Mart I never had any real problems with WIC or EBT customers. It was always the snotty rich people and their demon spawn that gave me a hard time.

[Dreamstalker]

I've talked to my dad several times (he's a politician) about somehow making it so that those who buy healthier foods get more money, and those who buy junk and abuse the system get systematically less money.

Now that is an awesome idea.

However, would the people who are trying to buy junk figure it out on their own, or would they just abuse the state/cashiers?

Food stamps should only be allowed for purchases on REAL food. I.E. fruits, vegetable, whole grains, dairy etc. Let them fucking COOK for chrissakes.

Agreed completely.

I went to a very interesting seminar for a class last year; the panel was on local food banks and farmers markets. One of the women from the food bank said that not many people know how to actually cook anymore. So, what her food bank does is offer free cooking classes on various foods (fish, squash, beans, etc). The farmers market puts together "dinner kits" with ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes.

[Rapscallion]

If memory serves, people who eat healthily and cook for themselves save money anyway. All that preparation costs.

Rapscallion

[Retail's Bitch]

Got a question for the OP... These cards, WIC, EBT... They're so families can have food on the table for their kids right?

Why begrudge their kids a birthday cake? I have no qualms bitching about people who outright abuse it, but shouldn't these kids have a normal life as possible? Why should their kids go without fun things like a birthday cake just because Mum and Dad can't afford one with their own green?

Just my two cents.

[stickycoins]

Why should their kids go without fun things like a birthday cake just because Mum and Dad can't afford one with their own green?

Why didn't Mom-Dad buy the cake mix and icing(much cheaper)and make it themselves? As far as I know, prepared foods aren't allowed on EBT anyway so the cashier was the one who made the mistake or the person paid for it with cash. I always loved my moms cakes even if they came out lopsided, it was the thought that counted. She was a single parent until I was 15, always worked, and it was hard. But as far as I remember we never got any kind of Gov. help with food, rent, or anything. It CAN be done. You just have to want to do it. But evidently it's much easier to sit on your @ss and let good ole Uncle Sam take care of you. Like I said, the ones who really need it can't get it.


*EDIT-Fixed quote tags

[RavenStarr]

*Points to stickycoins* Yeah,what she said. The parent could have just bought cake mix.

When my Mom got divoriced she had 5 kids ( I wasn't born yet). Before she met and married my Dad, she managed to take care of herself and her family. She did this with no child support, (because her exhusband was an asshole, and this was before they had the deadbeat parent laws.), no assistance of any kind. So stickycoins is right, it can be done.

[Lehk]

Why didn't Mom-Dad buy the cake mix and icing(much cheaper)and make it themselves?

growing up my mom always made birthday cakes from cake mix, the pre-made cakes suck real bad anyways

[Ree]

Why didn't Mom-Dad buy the cake mix and icing(much cheaper)and make it themselves?

Not everyone has a knack for cooking or baking.

You guys all make a good point about those on the programs making their own food fom scratch, etc., but have you ever once seen it from the eyes of the kids? I think RB is doing just that.

How do you know if, in this case, the child hasn't had a homemade cake every year, but just once, as a treat, Mom decided to get a fancy decorated one?

Maybe Mom felt that, just once, it might be a nice treat.

It's easy to generalize, but not every person on these programs is out to cheat they system. In fact, I have a hunch all these dramatic stories are not the norm, and are actually exceptions, but because they are such extreme cases, and worthy of anger, they get more attention.
Stories like that get repeated.

It's kind of like when one customer gets angry at your store and passes on the story. Maybe the story gets passed on to others who had a bad experience too, then they make the connection with their own situation. Suddenly, your store has a reputation that it sucks big time, when in fact, there were only a handful of people out of thousands of customers who had a problem.

Nobody ever passes on the good stories.

[Retail's Bitch]

Not everyone has a knack for cooking or baking.

You guys all make a good point about those on the programs making their own food fom scratch, etc., but have you ever once seen it from the eyes of the kids? I think RB is doing just that.

Exactly. Some people just can't cook. I had a roommate in college who couldn't boil water. I swear to god. She would buy nothing but those EASY MAC packages, and I told her, "Well you know the KD that you boil, etc, is cheaper."

I tried to teach her how to make Kraft Dinner... I showed her how to boil the water, add the macaroni, the butter, the milk, the sauce packet... She's just dumber than a bag of hammers.

My ex-brother-in-law tried to make MINUTE rice once.... Thought the box said 11-21 minutes and popped it into the microwave. The box said 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes... The house and microwave smelled like burned popcorn for months.

So maybe Mum burnt the cake, and had the kid's birthday party in an hour... Isn't this 'helping hand' to make the family's life as normal as possible? So the kids aren't going hungry and going without? If Mum can't cook worth beans and burns the birthday cake, or forgets to put in one of the ingredients and it doesn't rise, or doesn't set, Timmy should go without?

Sure my mum baked a cake every year. My mum's a great cook. But one year I wanted an icecream cake... That's all I asked for all year long. Now my Mum can cook, but she can't make icecream cake... So she went out and bought it.

I'm sure these kids get picked on enough as it is for their parents being on assistance. I remember a few kids in my classes as a kid getting teased mercilessly for being on the "welly..."

Not like the kids can help it and go out and get a job. So, yes... There are some families out there that abuse it. But as the mods have said repeatedly. Don't tar everyone with the same brush. It's not fair to the people on the board that use assistance. Or the kids you're punishing because of it.

So next time a big lavish birthday cake comes through your line. Instead of scowling. Make small talk. "Oooh so Timmy's having a birthday! How old is he going to be??" Instead of zeroing in on how Timmy's mother is cheating the system.

Again... Just my two cents.

*EDIT-quoting entire post.

[Gurndigarn]

Got a question for the OP... These cards, WIC, EBT... They're so families can have food on the table for their kids right?

Why begrudge their kids a birthday cake? I have no qualms bitching about people who outright abuse it, but shouldn't these kids have a normal life as possible? Why should their kids go without fun things like a birthday cake just because Mum and Dad can't afford one with their own green?

Just my two cents.

The WIC program isn't too bad, since it's got specific items you can get. It is a pain for the cashiers when you check out, but it's a lot harder to abuse.

Food stamps/EBT, however, is pretty bad. It's a blank check, so [1] it gets abused (about half the EBT purchases I've ever seen I questioned for one reason or another), and [2] it removes a lot of the incentive to learn to cook. The amounts they give people seem to be high enough to allow them to get enormous quantities of meat or pre-packaged (nuke and go) meals, rather than learning how to make real meals with less-expensive (and, typically, healthier) foods.

And my own personal experience with the system: one of our daughters had an eating disorder when she was young (she decided that breast milk tasted terrible, and only drank enough to barely stay alive. At six months, she weighed three ounces more than at birth, and was more wrinkles than not-wrinkles.) Our income was tight at the time, and we were trying to save up for a down payment on a house. Y'know, we were trying to be financially responsible: no debts, start on the owning land. It meant not having a lot of luxuries, but that was OK.

It turned out that we had too much money saved to be eligible for food stamps. Well, OK. I was disappointed, but I understand why those rules are there. What irked me was the way the lady on the other side of the counter was more than happy to tell me exactly how much money we would need to spend, and what I shouldn't buy with it, in order to become eligible, plus how to refill the paperwork... I swear, if she had winked at me during this process, it would have fit perfectly. She practically said "Well, the government will give you money... if you do things that make you rely entirely on the government."

In the end, the WIC program got us what we needed, our daughter recovered, and we did buy a house some time later. But every time I see someone whip out an EBT card to buy a dozen TV dinners and a package of ribs, I think back to that very helpful lady at welfare, and shake my head.

[NightAngel]

There was a time, many moons ago, when I was one Welfare. WIC, foodstamps (actual stamps), AFDC, HUD, the whole 9. My oldest son's Dad and I both worked. We did NOT live grandly (at all) but for whatever reason we couldn't make it.

I was standing in line at the grocery store one day and pulled out my food stamp book and this woman behind me says, "It's people like YOU that are the problem with this country! Why don't you get a job?"

I replied, "I HAVE a full time job and I have a child, but I can't make it and my child WILL eat. Everytime I pull out this book I'm swallowing every ounce of pride I ever had. My kid won't starve because someone like you thinks I'm scum."

She looked embarrassed.
I was in tears and ran out of the store.

[KayEm]

Nightangel,

I am so sorry that happened to you. Outright cruelty and humiliation is just something I cannot stomach. Seriously, I may have my bitches and moans about FS/EBT, but I would never indicate to a customer my thoughts in any way simply because I do not know their circumstances and I never want to hurt anyone like that.

Yes, with food stamps there are abusers, but there's people who work and couldn't make it without them but you don't know which is which, so we've got to give the benefit of the doubt.

My main bitch at the end of it is that it's just hard to take when I see them buying things that I can't even afford. That's it.

[stickycoins]

I don't think any of us here begrudge anyone getting aid if they need it. You're right Ree, only the bad ones stand out. I know I felt pretty bad about even appyling for help. It's the ones that brag about never having to work, not trying to do anything to better themselves, and take advantage of the system that we're talking about here. And I would NEVER say anything to someone like that person did! That was just plain RUDE!

[Crazyredhead]

Yes it is the bad people that make it hard on those of us that are trying to do right. It is the bad people that never get caught. I used to get the paper stamps before and I would die a thousand deaths when I had to pull them out. But I kept telling myself that it was for my kids, and it made me feel better. I will swallow my pride if it means something for my kids. I will take charity for my kids, but not for myself. I haven't a clue as how to buy myself something like clothes or shoes. I spent most of my adult life wearing uniforms and never had anywhere to go anywhere, so I don't even know what looks good on me. Now don't get me wrong, I do have clothes to wear but nothing really nice.

I know that this thread was meant for those who abuse the system. And I dont' take offense to anything here. I just need to get this off of my chest, cause I deal with it all the time, on this side of the register. But I don't really care, my kids are not skinny and hungry. They are not obese or fat but they are not underweight. They are between the 50th and 100th percentile for there weight and height. My 15 year old is off of the scale with height and weight. She is almost 5' 10" and 140 lbs, she is healthy and still smaller than me at 5'7" and 170 lbs. I have had people ask me if I am her sister, and they are shocked to find out that she is my daughter. But then all of my kids averaged about 10 lbs when born (except the baby, who was 7lbs 12oz)

I wish I could get a little bit of EBT cash funds for toilet paper, paper towels, cleaner and dish liquid. Only about 20 dollars would be fine. But in a way I am glad I don't. I don't smoke, and I don't drink (all the time).

I have seen the people that buys more junk than anything else and it makes me mad. I don't work but have 5 kids, my husband is the one that works and is just getting comfortable. But I hardly ever see him, he works tons of OT. My kids are actually getting new clothes for school this year. I never use my kids as an excuse for anything. I do get SSI for my son but I don't tell everyone why. I hate people that use there kids to get things and freebies, it just makes me sick.

I just registered my son for preschool and found out that they turned one single father and his daughter down for making $5.00 to much a year. It is instances like that that make me hate the system and want to get completely off of it but if that were to happen, we wouldn't make it. My hubby needs to work another year before he can fully sustain us on his pay alone.

I'm sorry. I get talking and I don't know when to stop.

[Lace Neil Singer]

It's the few who abuse the system who make it hard for the many who need it.

I can understand how some of you feel when having to pay for food with food stamps; I went thru a similar thing when I'd just left college and had to go on the dole cuz I couldn't get a job. There were so many people who either treated me like poop when I was queuing up to cash my gyro, or who told me to my face that I was a scrounger, and why couldn't I just get a job and stop leaching off the government? I went to thousands of job interviews before I finally struck lucky; I made my dole money last and I was working in a charity shop to get me out the house. How dare those people judge me and lump me in with all the real scroungers who do leach off the system? So I know how you feel.

(sorry, bit long)