How do you feel about

ricksang

I think sometimes junk food is a necessity for homeless people. Sometimes on meal a day s all these people get.

SarahSmile23

weird, I was just talking about this with my friend the other day. her sister is a single mother and lives almost entirely on welfare money and food stamps. i do not know the details of what she receives, only that she works about 15--20 hours a week and that's it. her sister decided that she likes being a mother more than she likes to work, so she had another kid with the same guy. so now she has two kids, by choice, and works 15--20 hours a week, by choice. she could work more or she could have chosen to not try to have a second baby. but she knew the system would allow her to do it so she took advantage of it. my friend has lost a lot of respect for her sister.

on the flip side, when i was a kid, my mom married a guy who had 2 kids. my mom had 3 kids. there were 7 of us living in a 2 bedroom house. my mom was working for min wage and my stepfather was a fire fighter. we had to be on food stamps for a short period. my mom was mortified and would only shop late at night so people wouldn't see her. she only bought healthy food with it and as soon as she could get off the food stamps, she did. i like to think that most people on food stamps are like my mother was, not like my friend's sister.

yuengling58

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_fell?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:6d40c16b-7265-48ad-b1bc-75ec0850bc78Post:5396bf53-b1f7-4ab3-9dac-db9a49f7864f">Re: How do you feel about</a>:
[QUOTE]I know this will be unpopular, but honestly:  if your life is the typical life on foodstamps, don't you deserve some damn Twinkies once in a while?  I kind of hate how, because people are poor and dependent on others to help them get by, they don't "deserve" any kind of treats or goodies. It just seems awfully uncompassionate to deny these folks some of the yummy but admittedly bad for you stuff that we (most of us) buy for ourselves as a treat.  Really - a mom on welfare can never buy Oreos for her kids?  They can never get a box of sugary cereal or a soda?  Dang.
Posted by ohwhynot[/QUOTE]

I normally lurk here but I agree 100%.

ricksang

Yes Sarah me too.

SarahSmile23

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_fell?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:6d40c16b-7265-48ad-b1bc-75ec0850bc78Post:0384b0a5-5a51-4911-8734-8ca37d93bc21">Re: How do you feel about</a>:
[QUOTE]Eww hominy stinks.
Posted by ricksang[/QUOTE]

yes. ugh. our dinner consisted of spam and hominey many nights!

i guess the reason i think my mom bought healthy food is because she always made sure we had a protein, a veggie, a carb, and a glass of milk.

and i agree about kids back then being more active. we played outside all the time!

J&K10910

My thoughts:

Welfare/EBT/etc
Theory = good (for the most part)
Practice = bad (for the most part)

That's all I can say for the moment because this topic tends to fire me up. 

ichellemay1

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_snarky-brides_fell?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:17Discussion:6d40c16b-7265-48ad-b1bc-75ec0850bc78Post:e2389464-a386-44c4-baf5-f1a305f30a11">Re: How do you feel about</a>:
[QUOTE]My thoughts: Welfare/EBT/etc Theory = good (for the most part) Practice = bad (for the most part) That's all I can say for the moment because this topic tends to fire me up. 
Posted by J&K10910[/QUOTE]

Me too. 

ricksang

Well I posted this thread to get people fired up!

jasmineh7777

Like I've said before, my family was on it for a while (Maybe 2 years?) while my brother was going through chemo. My parents did work. My mom wasn't popping out numerous babies to get more money. And we sure weren't driving an escalade. 

  I grew up in a pretty low income bracket. I would say most of my friends growing up were on welfare. It wasn't this life of luxury everyone seems to think it is. My H's family was also on welfare, and in and out of the foster care system. I can say he has never had a thing handed to him, ever.

 Honestly, I am hesistant to believe any of these stories about people on welfare driving fancy cars back to their mansions. I've read Nixon's speech all about it. I think it's both false and damaging.

And I agree with Own. I don't care what these people shop for. It's none of my business, and I am certainly in no position to tell these people what they are worthy of.

jasmineh7777

This is no fun if no one comes back to argue.
Get fired up J&K! Or someone say something incendiary, please!

ricksang

Good points Jas. This is what I believe. I also grew up poor and so did my H. We were never on FS but my H's family were. It isn't the lap of luxury.

zippityb

I guess I feel about it the same way I do about abortion. I would like to avoid it at all costs, but I want it to be there in case I am put in a situation where I need it. It's one of those things that's hard to judge because I know I'd feel differently if I was in that situation.

elizp267

I live in an area where we have a lot of illegal immigrants (like many people accross the country, especially in southern states). Many times I go to the grocery store and there are many family using the government assistance for their families (and many of these families are large). While I would never want to hear about a child starving and I don't know of another way for these people to live, I think one major issue that our gov't won't even touch for whatever reason is this issue. It is clogging our system, from schools, welfare, healthcare, you name it. People that come to this country illegally do not pay taxes, therfore we create a system where these people are esentially benefiting from our social programs. I don't know what the answer is, but I wish someone would stand up and address it either way (by making them all legal, prosecuting and deporting illegals, better border security). But its a touchy subject.

Also to add, these people genuinely do need the help.

marissa_claire

Going off what I said earlier though, I live in Chicago and it's a huge debate here about how poor the nutrition is among the poorer areas. Part of that is due the fact that a lot of poorer neighborhoods don't even have access to fresh foods.  I'm mostly thinking about the articles I see in the paper that talk about these poor kids and the long-term nutritional effects of eating Mac 'n Cheese every day.   I'm also not judging somebody by what they buy when they're paying for it on their own, but when they are using my taxpayer dollars I think it should be held to higher standards.  I don't look at the guy standing next to me in line using his debit card and wondering why he's getting so many Oreos.  And yes, those things are a treat.  A treat should be more of a luxury, not a given.  If I was starving and only given a bag of rice, I would never complain that I didn't get a Tootsie Roll too.

There's a section in the local paper where people can just email a complaint or issue anonymously, and some guy complained that he picked up a free bag of food that the local church was giving out to the needy, and he was totally complaining about all the food in there  - and it was necessities like rice and beans.  There was a huge backlash against him for complaining about not getting the food he chooses because it was free, so I think a lot of people must feel the same way.  Beggars can't be choosers, you know.

jasmineh7777

Illegals DO pay taxes!

I am so thankful Montana has no sales tax.

paprika28

+I come from the same type of area with a lot of illegal immigrants who get paid under the table so it looks like they don't have a lot of income and they get to use gov't funded programs. The WIC office is in the middle of said town, across the street from the planned parenthood, ironically... and it's a 6 week waiting period to get an appointment. It's taken me almost a year even to hear back from someone about CHIP for my dd. (who, btw has been pounding on my keyboard the whole time, so I apologize for any spelling errors, lack of grammar, or my post not making any sense.)

These are the people who come in, with their huuuge families, and fancier cars. They have the iphones, the designer clothes, and they pay almost nothing in rent, so they have all of this government funding to spend on their food, and extras. I don't know. i guess I just get frustrated because it seems like (especially in this area) that the illegal immigrants get everything handed to them, and everyone bends over backwards for them, (you can't even get a job in this area if you're not bilingual) yet those of us who were born in this country are struggling.

jasmineh7777

Paprika, I respectfull disagree with your assessment of the immigrant situation. I don't think most of them are living in luxury either.

ohwhynot

Jasmineh, I agree with you completely.  I'd like to see some of these "designer clothes" and iphones and fancy cars Paprika claims the illegal immigrants are driving around Philadelphia.  I don't buy it for one hot second.

Yes, of course there are incidents of abuse and people getting aid who don't really need it.  But honestly - designer clothes?  Luxury vehicles?  From what I, personaly, have seen, the illegal immigrants who work at "paid under the table" jobs (read: gardener, nanny, maybe bussing tables) are hardly going out and buying luxury vehicles. 

ricksang

You have to have a SS number to apply for EBT.

ricksang

Although if they have a child born in the US, they can get EBT.

paprika28

Sorry, i should have been more clear. I was too busy fending tiny fingers off of my keyboard, or every other letter would have been a *.

From personal experience, and personal experience only, with most of the immigrants that live in our area, (and I'm not philly, i'm closer to kennett/toughkenamon/west grove, if anyone has ever heard of it) a good amount of the people that we see at the only four local grocery stores (yeah, it's that tiny of an area- between 7 towns, we have 5 grocery stores) who use the gov't assistance have quite large families, quite padded wallets, and pretty fancy clothing. Whereas, normally, you might expect to see clothing from target/walmart/etc, it's abercrombie. southpole. the other smelly store at the mall. The women carry legit coach purses. All of the children are playing on their ds's or ipods, and texting like no other.
 
I'm not saying they're not working their rear ends off with the local businesses such as landscaping, cleaning, mushroom houses, carpentry work, etc, because they do work like crazy. But, they still have mucho dinero in their wallets, and pay with fs. I've seen a lot of people who aren't immigrants do the same thing though, so this is in absolutely no way directed completely and totally towards that demographic.

Jasmineh- i respect your disagreement, and i understand that my post made that specific demographic sound terrible. I meant in no way that they live in luxury, however i did mean that there is a large amt of people in the area who do abuse the system. I apologize again for making it sound insanely biased. That was not my intention.

Sorry for any confusion, and again, I shouldn't have been typing with little hands near. I never seem to make my point clear when I do.