Gwyneth Paltrow’s decision to try to live on the $29 a week an average food stamp recipient gets lasted slightly less than four days. The gesture was considered by many to be a publicity stunt, especially when she posted a picture of what she bought on Twitter:
Paltrow was planning to show poor people how you can eat healthy on just $29 a week, but after four days she found herself seeking out “some fresh broccoli and chicken.”
While she may have had the makings for a nice burrito, complete with salsa, she failed miserably at what the working poor struggle with here in the real world.
Which of those items was she planning on packing for her lunch at her minimum wage job? A hard-boiled egg a day for breakfast might be all the protein a film actress who weighs 102 pounds with rocks in her pockets may need, but could you stand on your feet all day and perform your job on it? With the entire dozen it’s possible to eat one egg for lunch, maybe wrapped in a leaf of romaine and served with 1/5th of an ear of corn.
And just what is the deal with the limes?
Paltrow now understands that even a Hollywood waif needs to eat, and no matter how thrifty she thought she was being, you absolutely can not eat real food for $29 a week.
SNAP recipients are most often reduced to Ramen Noodles and Dollar Store entrees. Especially if they want such luxuries as milk, or God forbid, a piece of meat. If you buy one of those tubes of ground beef at the beginning of the month, costing you about 1/5th of your benefit, you may have enough to eat Hamburger Helper once a week. If you don’t mind the risk of E. coli that is.
The truth is, unless you are forced to live this way, you don’t understand. You can’t understand. If you have lived this “freeloader’s dream” of what conservatives think is free steak and lobster, you know the dirty looks you get when you use an EBT card. You know what it’s like to have to tell your children “no” when they ask for a treat.
You also know that the majority of SNAP recipients use the program because they fell on hard times, or in my case because Dubyah crashed the economy. You paid taxes all your life, and when you needed help it was there, even if it wasn’t enough.
You’re absolutely enraged when conservatives call people on SNAP lazy, and you’re absolutely enraged at that picture of Paltrow’s purchases, no matter how good-hearted her intentions.
Thanks for trying, Gwyneth, but please, leave reality to those who actually have to deal with it.
H/T: Washington Post | Image: Cleveland.com
Very well put. Thank you.
Eat the Rich.
Too much fat and not enough muscle
I think you are being a little hard on Miss Paltrow. She tried and she found out for herself. Perhaps her bravado of the pictures were a bit much. You never made a mistake? The losers in this world are the ones who don’t try and just want to lie on the couch and criticize others. Miss Paltrow tried. Now she knows from her own experience. Good show Miss Paltrow. Good Show!
The point isn’t that she tried, it was that she took the challenge to prove a point, showing “those people” how they could eat her definition of healthy on $29 a week.
No, that’s not why she took the challenge. She took the challenge to raise money and awareness for the NYC Food Bank, by demonstrating that it was not easy. Her whole point, and the point of the challenge is that it’s incredibly hard to eat healthy on $29 a week.
Yeah, you’re wrong.
The original thing was not to prove that she could survive on that much a week, but to show how hard it was and to see if she could survive on it. She shot the challenge in the foot though at the opening by not buying a sack of potatoes… (Or a bunch of other necessity cheap high calorie items.)
When you’re living low on money for food, you have to reverse the thinking that everyone in society is trying to claim you should live by. You aren’t looking to get low calories with high nutrients/vitamins/etc. Firstly you want calories. These are energy and chances are you need every bit you can get. Secondly you start looking at things like protein and certain nutrients. And then lastly, if you have anything left maybe grab some vitamin C and other things of that nature that sure would be nice to have but might not be possible to find that A: Won’t spoil in less than a week. Even once a week shopping is unlikely for low income. B: Isn’t already high enough in calories to have been bought for the first reason.
Now, you see people on food stamps buying soda, right? They shouldn’t get soda, right? Wrong. Soda is high in calories, low in cost, and provides sugars for energy. Is it an ideal meal? No. Is it gonna help them have energy alongside their ramen noodle egg flower soup? (Ramen + Egg.) Yes.
that was brilliant.
You know what you’re talking about, I eat Ramen pretty much everyday for lunch when I have to work. Sometimes I’ll throw in a handful of frozen mixed veggies. I buy frozen veggies because I hate canned and can’t afford fresh. What I get in SNAP benefits lasts about 2 weeks. We are always super tight the last two weeks and often after the benefits run out I spend about $30 out of my check a week (I would spend more if I could afford it, but we have to make the best decisions and get what is most important) and we go to the food pantry once a month and choose wisely there. Even then at the end of the month McDonalds is our best friend because spending $2 for a sandwich for each of us is cheaper than anything we could buy at a grocery store for dinner. I work 40 hours a week and I barely have enough to pay our bills, I end up juggling them and get late fees. I get a 20 cent raise and my food stamps drop by $20 a month, it doesn’t make any sense. Plus they don’t count car payments or car insurance as money going out because it is not a necessity. I think it is, if you don’t have a car you probably won’t be working. It’s like they trap people into being poor and keep them in that cycle because they probably make money off of it somehow. Money makes the world go round and poor people are corporate america’s scapegoats, how many hours a week should I have to work to be able to think about anything other than survival? Must be nice to have new clothes, I wear clothes with holes that are over 5 years old, when I buy clothes it is a big decision. Shoes? We don’t get new ones until the old ones are falling apart and we consider that a big expense. We usually eat nothing but chicken, since it is the cheapest meat, this month I picked up a tiny beef roast for $13. It was a hard decision to make and I probably won’t be able to eat it until next month when I will have to splurge for the carrots, celery and potatoes to go with it unless we get lucky at the food pantry next week. Nobody really cares until the problem is their problem, people in America like to tear each other down when we are on the same side and should be supporting each other. I am not looking for sympathy because I am sure other people have it way worse but it is a problem and something needs to change. Nobody is better than anybody else, maybe just luckier.
my life, except I don’t qualify for food stamps because im a student and I’m a stay at home mom. One check that is what we live off.
I know what you mean, I was in your boat when my kids were younger. They want you to better yourself so you can get off public assistance but at every turn it feels like they sabotage you. I ended up dropping out of college and finishing a couple years later.
I live on a strict budget, and in a very low economic neighborhood to cover my income loss. I have to forgo a safer nicer neighborhood so I can feed my family.
I’ve always wondered why students are persecuted with SNAP benefits. Doesn’t make any sense.
You know, if we who are all up against it, and I’m including those of us who, for whatever reason, may be below the poverty line but not qualify for SNAP, banded together, we would make a political group ourselves. There are also many who have been there, and remember what it was like. There shouldn’t be disagreements going on, since many people, as we have seen since the last of GWB’s presidency, and the recession, found themselves losing homes and jobs as the economy took a nose-dive. (Just imagine if Social Security had been privatized-how many folks would have been looking at a future with nothing to show for all their hard work!) I wonder if those who wish to cut sodas and so many packaged foods have any idea what they’re doing. These folks need to live on this amount of money for at least six months-their families, pets, all of them-and freeze family assets meanwhile. Maybe they’d find out that the things they think people are buying is their own imagination working overtime. And filling out the forms-something they truly need to experience-would convince them that living on these benefits is truly a decision of desperation; no one gives up that much dignity unless they have no choice!
The most important thing at this point politically, is to get people to vote in the midterm elections. Until those of us at the lower spectrum involve ourselves enough to vote every time, every election, we’ll continue to fight the battle with the ignorant who’ve voted in these clowns. We have ourselves to blame for not getting out the vote. I’d like to see Debbie Wasserman Schultz hit the road. She doesn’t have the nads for the job. She’s like a Mary Burke. Very nice, but needs a strap on set to get the point across.
They’d whine like little babies and cheat. It isn’t possible for people who live like they do to understand how it really is.
good point
If she was not the same woman that a while back said that working woman with children do not have it as hard as she does, maybe I would cut her a little slack. . And, quite frankly, I think the 7 limes and cilantro show exactly how out of touch she is. If you are going to slum down and do a challenge such as this, follow up. Buy the food, make it, eat it, and nothing else-no lunches out, no cheating. And post every bit of it. Explain to those in inner cities where to go shopping where 7 limes don’t cost an arm and a leg, and what entrée you can whip up with them. A better challenge would have been to take your chef/nutritionist/ fellow Goop member out to the store and show how to stretch $29 as far and as healthy as you can. I hope she meant well, but her past comments that smacked of condescension to us little folks made many sniff a publicity stunt.
*fist bump* you are much nicer to her than I am. GOOP is pretentious, period.
She’s a c**t.
Limes!? LIMES??? How is that a “good show”? What can a person possibly make out of limes that would last them for a week. Even someone who has never experienced poverty or the pain of going to bed with an empty stomach can figure out a grocery list more realistic than that. People on SNAP (and i was one of them for a short time) have to buy things like boxes of store brand pasta when it’s on sale for 2 for 1 or some other really good price. You can make a lot of things out of pasta. You buy a big can of tomato sauce. You buy potatoes. You buy a block of mozzarella cheese so you can make some cheese/tomato/pasta dishes that will yield leftovers. You buy bread. You buy peanut butter. You MIGHT buy jelly, but that’s a big splurge item. You buy eggs. You buy a gallon of the cheapest milk you can find. You buy a bag of cheap cereal. You buy whatever will get you the most meals for the least money. She did try to buy healthy items - but they are also extremely fragile and they spoil quickly (the greens). The beans and brown rice are good picks, but that’s assuming you don’t work 2 jobs and race home between them to throw together a quick meal for your family before racing off for your next shift. Brown rice takes time to cook, and beans take a LONG time to soak and cook. People on SNAP don’t have that kind of time. Salads are simply not on the menu. The foods required are a) too expensive b) spoil quickly c) don’t have sufficient protein to keep you full longer. When you get two meals a day (at most), you want to make sure every meal you eat packs the most punch to fill you up and make you feel full longer so your kids don’t have to go to bed with that awful, gnawing, pain of hunger. Nice try, Gwyneth, but your attempt was a pretty epic fail.
Salad Dressing, water flavoring, guacamole.
I don’t understand why they still are trying to live on a budget like food stamps, it’s impossible to eat healthy when for 3-4 dollars I can buy a case of ramen noodles to fill in buy some chicken or ground turkey add to the noodles with maybe some discount “fresh” veggies you find in the grocery store wrapped in shrink wrap….My kids know the struggles of eating poor…I buy a case of hot dogs make some sauce and use it to make spaghetti….feeds them for a few days
I don’t like feeding children anuses. When you feed them hotdogs, they are eating those parts.
They are cost effective and fill hungry bellies. Bologna is fairly cheap. Peanut butter and bread. Hamburger helper (throw in lots of extras really gives it a boost) canned veggies and fruits. Generic items. Who has time to soak beans overnight?
Elirinn you buy what you can afford. Hotdogs are cheap Whether you like them or not at least you are eating something
You may not like it, but for some of us, that’s reality. I’d love to eat healthier, tastier foods. My husband has high cholesterol and high blood pressure; I have a congenital heart condition along with chronic anemia and high blood pressure. Both of us are supposed to be eating better, healthier diets but on $29/week? We do what we can but survival trumps healthy eating.
Yes I am diabetic and have a congenital heart condition as well but you have to eat even when it’s high in sugar (like rice, potatoes, bread, corn, peas etc) you have to add them or the food isn’t filling and I won’t ley a kid go to bed hungry….
Fill up on water.
I drink practically nothing but water already. It doesn’t do anything about being hungry. Why do you lack compassion, Eirinn?
I don’t lack compassion. I used to think the same way. I am poor and I eat 70 percent fruits, vegatables and water. I have found it is actually cheaper than a regular American diet. I feel better than I have in years, lost a LOT of weight and it changed the way I think about many things. My taste buds have learned to enjoy the taste of a tomato or pepper or carrot or avacado without all the extra crap I used to put on them like salad dressing and butter.
Eririnn you DO lack compassion you are a waste of time sitting on your throne, you don’t have kids do you??? If so I really will pray the Lord finds someone better to take care of them than you, you are bitter sitting there screaming about water, well kids NEED more than water you have no compassion you seem more like the Grinch to me than ahuman NO ONE sits there and says drink water…If your child is hungry I hope to God they find someone who will fix a meal for them instead of screaming water…
Stop being silly. When my kid gets hungry, I feed them. I just don’t feed them pop and sweets and salty snacks and way too much wheat and too much starch. My kids are not starving by any means. The issue is that people need to change their attitudes about food.
We are talking about ramen noodles, rice etc not pop and sweets you can barely afford to feed your kids much less sweets, you need to change your way of thinking when you are poor and feeding people you don’t sit around thinking “Oh I need to boil these beans two hours after working until 6pm then wait 2 hours then FIX them another hour while my little ones sit and drink water” yeah that is not possible when you have to get up the next day and work from 6 am (getting kids ready) get them to school work at a job until 6pm get home fix dinner and then get your kids ready checking homework and getting baths all the while wanting to collapse
I stand corrected. I’m glad that diet works for you and that you’re happy with it. Seriously. That’s not sarcasm. We’re not all you, however. For example, my husband is allergic to many fruits and some vegetables. I’m an Aspie and the texture of many veggies makes me vomit. I do like many fruits but they are ungodly expensive in the supermarkets here, and I don’t have transportation to get to a farmer’s market. Aside from that, I am chronically anemic and have been advised by doctors to eat plenty of lean, red meat and organ meat such as liver. I know you can get iron from other sources. I do what I can.
Thanks, Melinda! That was nice of you to say.
Hey, I’m not totally unreasonable. *grin* I can see that you’re not just being a smart-arse and truly believe in your diet. I gotta give you props for that.
And have the kids die of starvation wow HOW CHRISITAN of you you must be a Republican with your stunted way of thinking
Ha I am neither. Kids aren’t going to die of starvation, they get breakfast and lunch at school, right?
Maybe yours does but NOT all kids do yet….and they need mopre than peppers, tomatoes and water I see CPS coming at you…there is no way that is even healthy there is no protein or fat for their brain they need those to DEVELOP so tell me again how peppers and tom,atoes are going to make a doctor happy with you theyt won’t get scurvy but they will die of stavation since they need more protein and fat then we do
You think cps is going to come after me for feeding my kids healthy food? I told you they also eat beans and meat. You are simply looking to run people down on the internet. You offer nothing constructive to the discussion.
No I said if that was all you were feeding your kids was tomatoes and peppers and water they would, I myself do think you would feed your kids more, but you seem to like saying fill up on water and have them eat JUST tomatoes, and peppers, not me you said it…if that was all you did feed the kids then yes CPS should come, but I am not stupid enough to believe you would only feed your kids just watrer, tomatoes and peppers…READ what i wrote and read what you wrote I said they need more…
If you don’t have money, you have to get rid of those hoity-toity notions.
No. You have to change your thinking about diet.
I’ve been bisquick biscuits made with water, nothing on them, for dinner poor. I would have loved to be given a package of hot dogs. Or any kind of protein. So happy those days are over for me.
Well sweetie it’s that or nothing in this WONDERFUL country of our where corps are people and the REAL people are ignored food stamps being cut all the time so you make do it’s either that or starve which is what too many kids these days do…I always have 1 or 5 or 7 kids in the neighborhood as well close to the end of the month since their Moms and Dads have run out, I freeze soups, spaghetti sauces buy the stuff cheap and make do freeze most of it and buy some rice and make the soups stretch so I can feed people…These days when parents are young and just going through this I try and teach them how to stretch out meals but sometimes even I have a hard time but you make do……
When my husband lost his job, we also lost our health insurance. Ramen was the only thing I could afford to eat, but it also ran my blood sugar (I have diabetes) up to almost 600 - near coma levels. Of course without insurance I couldn’t refill my insulin pen because that was hundreds of dollars. Basically, I went for as long as I could until I got too hungry and then, after eating, became so tired that I had to crawl in bed and sleep off the sugar. Welcome to America…
I’m so so sorry that you went through that
I hope things are better now.
Packaged Ramen noodles are incredibly high in sodium and eating them every day is a health hazard.
Don’t use the entire “flavor packet”. Just a little pinch, for seasoning the noodles AFTER they are cooked.
No spices, no meat, no drink, and those dried bean cost more money, we have to factor that in, they need lots of cooking, bumping up the cost. Hardly any variety.
No conservative ideology/methodology can be successfully applied to any real life situation; they fail on their own every time…
So just exactly what “conservative ideology/methodology” is failing here? Sounds to me like the liberal ideology of “give people $29/week to eat” is what is failing. NOBODY can eat for that…at least not in a healthy way. Not sure what it is you’re referring to in your comment except to bash an ideology with which you obviously disagree; as if liberal ideology/methodologies have been so successful.
considering its the republicans that have slaughtered SNAP benefits and restricted what one can and cannot purchase, and the demonized those who use it, I would say THOSE ideologies
That was the response I was expecting…if a program doesn’t work as planned, blame Republicans…as if Democrats had nothing to do with the votes. Some may “demonize” those who use social welfare benefits…I’m not one of them; however, if you can afford some of the bad habits and hobbies on which tax-payer money is spent (tobacco, alcohol, tattoos, jewelry, etc, you probably don’t need govt support. THAT’s what conservatives believe, and that is what liberals call demonizing. Many people need help, no doubt, and they should receive it through these type of programs. But when there exists somewhere around 20% waste, fraud and abuse, something needs to change besides raising more taxes.
Tomira??? Have you checked the headlines, Republicans are NOW cutting into medicare a thing we PAID into all our lives…THEY have been cutting into all programs to HELP THE CITIZENS but they want to help their buddies the corporations not people…not us the citizens I worked 30 yrs but they want to cut into what I worked for…
God forbid the poors have anything nice.
I wouldn’t deny the poor having anything nice…but I would deny people spending money on things it’s not being provided for. If we want poor people to have nice things, then let’s come up with a nice-things-for-the-poor program…I’m sure there will be all kinds of support for that.
Why should your sets of values be the paradigm for the rest of us? How far do we go, complaining that the poor have been ‘provided’ TV’s or a refrigerators.
You seem to be the one pushing the paradigm. I’m an advocate for assisting the poor. Have you read any of my posts? I simply believe that government is not competent nor trustworthy enough to manage that noble effort. Too much of OUR hard-earned money is wasted on bureaucracy, padding big donor pockets for votes, bailing-out banks that should be allowed to fail because of mismanagement, etc, etc, etc. There exists so much money in this country that there should be no “poor.” I don’t single out ANY political party for blame; both are equally culpable. But since FDR in the mid 1930’s, Americans have been pumping money into the coffers of government and the poor are still poor. I’m saying, there’s a better way, and it’s not government control.
Its not that government is too big, as it is who controls it - I would agree. But good grief - you said, “Some may ‘demonize’ those who use social welfare benefits…I’m not one of them;” [if your not one, why add] “however, if you can afford some of the bad habits and hobbies on which tax-payer money is spent (tobacco, alcohol, tattoos, jewelry, etc, you probably don’t need govt support.” I might add 2 of those items include a ‘poor tax’ that more then offsets the cost to society, including health and medical. Or did you think the excessive usury fees (legal loansharking today) charged to the underclass by predatory financial banksters was charity?
Usury fees? Poor tax? Now your running down other rabbit trails… You make my argument for me except in a more angry way…but the government IS too big…and cumbersome, and selective, and unfair, and if you trust them to manage tax-payer money in an efficient and fair and transparent way, continue to vote Democrat…..I’m outta here.
I trust the Dem’s better than the Republicans, who just voted to add 239 billion to the deficit so trust fund babies of the .02% don’t have to pay any taxes on their inheritance. Not paid for, of course, per the Republican “deficits don’t matter unless we aren’t in control” mantra. And so we should trust Republicans to care for the rest of America? I don’t think so.
Of course you are ‘outta here’… as you’ve never even ‘been here’. No argument was made for you; yet, your insulting listing of ‘bad habits’ devolved to the point of stating poor people may not have jewelry.
You… made the argument against yourself. And your discomfort with your stance and your need to distance yourself from the hateful comments you made are obvious in the devolution of your writing (from sounding as one educated in an ivory tower to suddenly losing the ability to properly execute a pronoun and verb combination such as you’re rather than your).
The Usury fees and poor tax he’s talking about aren’t charged by the government. He’s talking about banking institutions for the most part.
Good idea Tomira. You were losing out to reality in your meme quickly so it was indeed time to eject.
TROLL.
Maybe we should waste our vote and vote Libertarian!
ha, she said she was not for either party but here is where the truth comes out!
Bull… you are just railing back because you are under attack (and justifiably so) for your incredibly close-minded and superior commentary.
Why it it that you think everyone else deems themselves superior simply because their opinion is different from your own?
so the poor are not the problem: why demonize them as thieves when the thieves sit in boardrooms figuring out ways to steal even more. our government is the people by the people for the people but we hand it over to private for profit corporations. “government” control is what keeps chalk out of milk. opium out of children’s sleeping syrup. cars that don’t fall apart on the highway. airplanes that fly. sewers that keep the feces out of our drinking water. “government” gaves us airplanes cell phones the Internet antibiotics tornado warnings bridges that don’t fall down all of our highways railroads airports canals electric grids vaccinations destroying small pox tuberculosis polio mumps measles whooping cough clean water to drink clean air to breathe closed the hole on the ozone layer and without government control you get the crashes of 1929 and 2008 and the hudson river too polluted to swim in. and acid rain destroying trees everywhere. without government you get hundreds and thousands of people dying in the winter from smog and old people freezing to death in the winter. without government control whole cities burn down and fall down in earthquakes and food on the shelves full of E coli from human feces and red color creating cancer. “Americans have been pumping money into the coffers of government and the poor are still poor.” not true. pure propaganda. at the end of 8 years under clinton blacks in the usa for the first time ibn USA history approached equity in pay. [no wealth yet but in pay] this was immediately destroyed by bush. who instead of paying down usa debt impoverished us all. every republican administration ends in a recession and job loss. go check it out. every democratic administration gives is job growth and a good rise in the stock market.
under clinton gore, they systematically reduced regulation and reduced government employees. before RR the whole world owed the USA money. After 8 years RR left us owing the whole world money. under obama the whole world pays the USA to loan it money. governments pay negative interest on USA government bonds and it makes a profit. Under obama there are more new millionaires than all the new millionaires in usa history and the usa dollar is appreciating against world currencies. republican budget cutting has left usa infrastructure behind the rest of the world. we are the only advanced country in the world without high speed rail systems, the only advanced country without rural internet and without inner city internet and we are going to collapse if we don’t invesrt inb basic ibnfrastructure a new electric grid and in education. our students are the poorest in the advanced world and we lead the world in child poverty: which means we as a nation are bankrupting our future.
There are more new millionaires under Obama because of recent oil/gas industry activity in Ohio and Pennsylvania shale formations. Of course, Obama probably drilled those wells with a hand auger….
@rachel patterson why even bother to know anything or learn the facts when you have your prejudices so well rehearsed. so much easier.
While the alternative spoken of in loving tones by the right, is to Privatize everything, to make it “more efficient”. Now, let’s try that again, like the contractors in Iraq, which were paid near 10x what the military is paid, and used to perform those functions. Tell me, HOW is paying 10x more, a “savings”? HOW is adding a profit margin to anything, cheaper than having the work done by the govt at cost? My math tells me, Cost + profit, will ALWAYS be more than “cost”.
in iraq, everything built by halliburton or its subsidiaries was unusable within a year of being built. or it was not even built and in the case of some military facilities actually killed and disabled USA personnel. billions of dollars of private profit all spent politically correctly and 100% wasted.
You cannot privatize a service such as helping the pour. The government MUST manage it. Any privatized venture becomes a for-profit venture. You want benefits to tumble while costs sky-rocket? Privatize it.
nice things like food to eat and safe homes after working all day. but what we get is laws making feeding the poor illegal and stop and frisk laws that make poor people unsafe in their own neighborhoods. anyone stopped and frisked labelled a “thug”
Let me guess. You voted for Romney a man who made his money by buying and gutting money from the hard work of others, laying everyone off, then burning the wreckage. Corporate raiders are the scum of the earth but I bet you thought his conservative policies sounded great.
Unless you are earning 7 figures there are no GOP policies that support you.
Oh and they just gave the richest 2% yet another tax break.
You’re a real fffffing moron!!
God doesn’t forbid it, men in suits do…
“Defense” spending is the most wasteful and abusive and fraudulent of all, and I suspect the actual number is much higher than 20%, more like 50%. Congress even passes legislation authorizing weapons systems the military doesn’t want. Congress could easily pay for programs like SNAP and infrastructure repair by rewarding Defense contractor “whistleblowers” for reporting waste and fraud instead of persecuting and punishing them. (reward should be 5% of the fraudulent/wasteful spending identified by the whistleblower).
SNAP is a tiny fraction of the size of the “Defense” budget.
The actual waste and abuse and fraud in the SNAP program is actually very low, because benefits can ONLY be used for food, cold food specifically. A hot, deli cooked chicken is NOT SNAP-eligible, the same chicken, cooked but cold in the refrigerated case, is.
SNAP benefits can’t be used in restaurants.
SNAP benefits can’t be used for alcoholic beverages (not even cooking wine), nor tobacco products- but some Republicans in Congress, and in the media, struggle to understand this.
In fact, the SNAP program has been a resounding success through most of its history, and converting from the paper scrip to EBT card technology has nearly completely eliminated abuse and fraud. It is beginning to fail now because of Republican cuts that can only be described as “Draconian.” And these cuts are largely decided based on bigotry, ignorance, and lies.
I’m not simply talking about SNAP. That program is not even an issue in my opinion. Major entitlement programs (including SNAP) = 49% of federal spending. National defense = 18% of federal spending. I have no doubt that WF&A is greater in the defense budget and I agree that drastic reform measures need be taken in that dept as well.
SNAP is less than 2% of the federal budget. I don’t know where you got 49%… Please site your source…
I think if you read that post again you’ll find I’m talking about ALL entitlement programs, to include SS, Medicare, Medicaid, etc…
And I think YOU will find your statistics are still off, regardless of that….
Social Security isn’t part of the federal budget. You literally have no idea what you are talking about.
Which is totally misleading, since SS is a fund of its own, and NOT an “entitlement” like welfare or SNAP. It is an INVESTMENT paid for previously by taxes on their incomes. You know, like those on Wall st that are made by wealthy folks, and expected to return upon investment as agreed, without politicians later making decisions to CHANGE the agreement long after it’s too late for people to make new arrangements to cover their futures.
Actually, “entitlement” is an accounting term, which Conservatives understand full well. It simply means “Items that must be paid, by law.”
It doesn’t mean “benefits people are entitled to,” although Conservatives like to fire up their base by allowing that misinformation to fan those flames of bigotry.
“Non-entitlements” are “discretionary spending-” like most of the “Defense” (“War”) budget. And that’s the best place to go looking for the fat.
It might help to stop calling it “Defense” spending; it’s “War” spending. No politician wants to be seen as “weak on defense,” but most don’t want to be seen as “hawkish on war.”
They get that by including paid for programs like unemployment insurance Social Security, and things like Medicaid and Medicare. Thst 18% is out of the whole budget, and does not include the VA ( cause that is part of the other number), or the military spending that comes out of the Homeland security budget, etc. All very simplistic. Just putting SS in the mix makes it look out of control, when it isn’t.
Which is another rant entirely, since MOST, pay SS deductions on every dollar they earn, while some, pay only to an arbitrary point and then pay no more. IF ONE American is taxed on every dollar, EVERY American should be taxed on every dollar earned as well. That’s called EQUALITY. The fact some would pay more than others in DOLLARS, is because they GET more dollars to be taxed. They too can pay less, by earning less, it’s THEIR FREE CHOICE to make.
You know what COULD have helped? Those JOBS that the tax cuts were premised upon. Had those profits derived from the tax cuts not just been banked, or used to buy out competition, or off shore their business and jobs entirely, there would be fewer dependent upon Snap or any other welfare like program. Maybe we could/should repeal the tax cuts retroactively and repay the treasury to fund all those unemployed people that WOULD have jobs had the rich actually followed the premise of the law. As it is, they took a lot of profit on one premise and then changed their actions to another, that failed to address the issue the law was written to address. I think it falls close to fraud .
your figures are wrong. Social Security is profit making. medicare requires payments. veterans care is part of our foreign policy and defense spending. social security costs the general taxpayer nothing. it is an insurance program. medicare is also financed through social security. The USA pays nearly 20% of its GNP to health care and has worse health care a declining life expectancy than any other advanced and half the world’s developing countries because 80% of its health markets are monopolies. all other countries pay one tenth we pay for health care and get better health results. the usa has the highest rates of low weight births, infant mortality, maternal death, child abuse, deaths from treatable illness in children, and child malnutrition. large areas of the USA in rural and inner city areas have virtually no health care. The most important reform must be in health care. Since OCA was enacted for the first time in 70 years health care cost have declined while health care outcomes have improved.
food housing and education subsidies are literally investments which have huge rates of return. veterans benefits are crucial to a national defense. veterans’ educational benefits drove some of the greatest advances ever in the USA economy after WWII. measured against benefits and increased revenues our programs gain more than they cost. Those states of the union which invest more in families have far higher employment, far lower unemployment and faster growing economies. our investments in families are crucial to our survival.
Here, here! Lets outlaw the “bad habits and hobbies” on which corporate welfare money is spent (tobacco, alcohol, tattoos, jewelry, extravagant parties, toys etc), you probably don’t need govt support. Sign me up for the dystopian America you imagine!
Get a life man.
The “conservative economics” life? That is what austerity, Reaganomics, bank deregulation, outsourcing, criminalizing of the poor, and pretty much everything the political right has done over the past couple of decades to tear the ground out from under the middle class. The goal of the political right appears to be, to turn society back into a feudal aristocracy.
Margaret Thatcher said it best as she was saving the United Kingdom from their out-of-control social programs… “The problem with Socialism is that eventually, you run out of other peoples money.” That’s the problem with the “liberal economics” life…believing you can “control” everything and everybody to create a more free society. Under liberal leadership, the middle class has most certainly not prospered. But you’ll simply blame conservatives for that because that’s the way your kind operates…accept credit when something goes well, pass the buck when something doesn’t go so well. I’d be the first to agree with you if what you say is true, but what you say is simply liberal talking points…nothing more.
My kind - my kind of what? Before you re-write US history, America is not a socialist state and “Maggie Thatcher, the Milk Snatcher” also famously declared “there is no such thing as society”. Your conservative argument seeks to resuscitate a marginal politician from parliamentary Britain as examples of our “out-of-control” social programs. Those social programs of which you speak have been cut and slashed to an all time low by both Republican and Democrats, relegating almost 50 million of our citizens into poverty, during a time when we face a second gilded age. At a time when income inequality has risen to levels not seen since the Great Depression. We are witness to the greatest transference of working class wealth (other peoples money) to the top richest percentiles. While your facts a bit warped - you complain about the meager pennies we spend on social welfare and humanitarian programs while the real ‘operatives’ who happen to be the absurdly prosperous rich, legislate the lions share from you.
The US has certainly done better under Democratic Presidents, check your facts. And while your there instead of Fox News, check out how successful Socialist Democracy governments like Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Germany are doing. Free education, good wages, higher taxes, yes, but people are working. People are for the most part happy with their country. Unions are supported as being a voice between the company and the people, like they were during the 1950’s, when America’s economy was booming, and while the rich and corporations were paying their fair share instead of sending jobs overseas. Truth hurts. The biggest thing we are missing is free post high school education. You have no idea the issues of those who are poor and/or working minimum wage. It would be the biggest boon to our economy, having people with skills that are needed.
You do realize that Thatcher is HATED by the majority of Brits, right?
Facts do NOT support your opinion in any way Tomira. Actually, PEOPLE in America have done BETTER under Democratic administrations consistently , than they have under Republican administrations.
While we hear the meme of “Tax and Spend Democrats”, reality has given us “borrow and spend Republicans” over the last several decades. And their tactic of spending their successors budget before he takes office and then going over the top to “cut spending” when he tries to juggle his way along on what is left and blaming the “debt” on HIS spending, is just dishonest at best, and cynically diabolical at worst.
Thatcher was a dipshit. Like you.
Unfortunately, you do not understand how socialism, or, for that matter, how capitalism works.
When you start quoting that sociopath Thatcher, you fail across the board.
What liberal leadership? We haven’t had a liberal leader in the White House since Carter. You are mistaking centrist Democrats for liberals.
Right back atcha !
You are a troll. Take your own advice.
Ditto. I thought you’d “had it” and left with your little red wagon. Why are you back?
“But when there exists somewhere around 20% waste, fraud and abuse”
No. The estimated fraud in the SNAP program is 1.3%.
and all the fraud in medicare and medicaid is by hyper profitable doctors corporations hospital corporations and medical testing corporations: private corporations. and private corporations hired to manage medicare and medicaid were 10˜% 20˜% 30% more expensive. church owned medical and hospital chains make a whopping 25% profit margin which goes then to its managers.
Jewelry? Are you kidding me? Because someone is poor they are no longer allowed to have any accessories… and you’ve arbitrarily decided that jewelry is a bad habit?
Well, that’s the response I expect from an entitled Republican who claims to understand the impoverished but who, without a doubt, believes she has the right to determine what another human being may or may not have or may or may not do with their finances.
Unfreakingbelievable… Oh… and I’m an upper middle class white woman who has never been hungry a day in my life… and I have more sympathy in my pinky toe (which is abnormally small) than you currently have in your entire being.
With any luck, your condition may change.
I’m poor. I live off my disability. getting approx. $1300 a month, I make too MUCH to qualify for SNAP. The GOP is worried about people like me buying jewelry? Cruises? Tattoos? WTF? The last pair of pants I bought was 10 YEARS ago. I own ONE pair of jeans. Unless I can find a decent pair of used Levis at Goodwill, I wear the same pair over and over.
I don’t know where they get the idea we poor people are living so high on the hog, but it’s clear they ain’t got a clue.
that is demonizing the poor.20% waste fraud does not happen.medicare fraud is 100% doctors and hospitals cheating. food stamps go to working families where parents and children together work. food stamps go to hungry children too young to work. not to cigarrettes. that is the very kind of demonizing denigrating hatred of the poor that more than anything proves how godless conservative and conservative “christians” really are: god in the bible gives the poor rights.
I don’t know what orifice you are pulling your 20% out of. The waste is more like 3-5% and most of it is committed by VENDORS, not recipients.
And I was having this exact discussion with my sister yesterday, who used to get food stamps when she had 3 kids at home and was on disability. She admitted to “fraud.” Do you know what fraud looked like?
She and all her neighbors are poor. Most of them worked. She could not. She was an extremely smart shopper but received very little cash assistance. So at the end of the month, she might have $50 in food assistance left, but her kids needed toilet paper and toothpaste, etc. So she would sell her $50 in food stamps to a neighbor (who was working) for $25 in cash (since you cannot buy toilet paper and toothpaste with food stamps). The neighbor got a deal on groceries (which helped their minimum wage earning family) and my sister could make sure her children could wipe their butts and clean their teeth.
Yes, she officially broke the law. But are you actually prepared to tell me and everyone else here that she did some MORALLY wrong?
I was going to write out a very long response to this and go over each point that you made point by point when I realized you made no points. This is just an enormous pile of stupid. The thing that most people mess is that when they see somebody that is poor on food stamps with let’s say an iPhone they assume that these people have their own phone plan they could very well be on somebody else’s phone plan a parent a cousin a sister a brother. We need to stop judging people and start helping people. The best way to do that would be to raise the minimum-wage. That way we could stop benefiting companies like Walmart that under pay their employees. Walmart under pays their employeeshas their employees get on food stamps and then there boy spend their food stamps at Walmart making Walmart even richer this is the problem.
I’m pretty sure you need to Google “The Food Stamp Challenge” It’s been going on for a while now. Check as to why it was originated.
Please go away now. You’re an idiot.
SNAP has a fraud rate of around 1% according to the USDA. Where are you getting your figures?
You might want to give it up. Your positions are textbook cognitive dissonance.
Tomira, where in the nutty world do you get that 20 percent waste, fraud and abuse figure? In ALL of the various programs, SNAP,TANF, Section 8 and Social Security COMBINED, there is ;less than 3 percent waste, fraud or abuse.
You’re just rattling off Faux news talking points - 20% waste is total BS! Error rates for the program were much higher during the Bush administration, before the 2008-2009 recession pushed millions of Americans into poverty and boosted participation in government-administered nutritional assistance programs. Thanks to your flunky Bush!
That’s a rather skewed definition of demonization then.
There also seems to be a slight inclination towards the favoring of logical fallacies coming from you, Tomira. Contrary to what the Republicans and their Fox-esque propaganda machine would have you believe; I’m afraid that’s not how you convince people who don’t live on BS mountain.
☠ Isn’t it nice how your side conveniently omits the fact that none of those claims or concerns actually exist?
“Fox’s Eric Bolling relied on a Republican-commissioned study on federal spending for social benefit programs to claim the government spends more than $1 trillion on welfare. In fact, spending on welfare comprises less than two-tenths of a percent of the federal budget.”
That’s two-tenths of a percent Tomira. I’ll not bother entertaining your non-existent fraud, beer ‘n tattoos claim any more than to mention it and wonder; how much is 20% of .2?
☠ Isn’t it sweet how they think so highly of the less fortunate that they would never demonize them by reminding everyone that most people on assistance either work or have worked and paid into the system that they’re now using?
Their ‘Welfare Queen’ simply doesn’t have the effect you’ve been lead to believe she has. Their side consistently misinforms and/or outright lies, the proof is offered daily and is undeniable. Your replies in this thread prove some of the damage they cause, and history shows the damage they’ve done.
SNAP is reduced to that amount because of Republicans, so that they can run off and find their non-existent WMDs on the backs of the working poor and middle class. THAT is what ideology is clearly failing here.
Snap and other “benefits” that are given to people struggling with minimum wages, or joblessness, disability, old age, ect., have been cut to allow for the reduction in taxes of the “job providers”. This has all been a conservative ideology and has nothing to do with liberals. Sorry if I have burst your little bubble. But at least you agree that $29.00 is not enough to feed a family on. Perhaps you could write to your representative and have that upped to at least $100.00 for a family of 4. Or better still don’t vote for that asshat next time he comes up for election. I would write but they disallow me from contacting your states representatives.
Again, many people need help, no doubt, and they should receive it through these type of programs. But when there exists somewhere around 20% waste, fraud and abuse, something needs to change besides raising more taxes. I’m not living in some “little bubble” and there is no need to be so condescending…as if you have all the answers. Conservatives and Liberals alike are to blame for failing social welfare programs and the bottom line is that many people receiving these benefits who don’t truly have a great need are the ones stabbing the truly needy in the back.
Could you please show us all where you’re getting your information. I’ve never heard of this 20% waste, fraud and abuse. I have heard about the absolute failure of drug testing welfare recipients to save money. It’s actually cost more in the states that have enacted those laws.
And please let your news source be legitimate and unbiased. Thank you.
20% waste, fraud, and abuse is exactly the type of B.S. lies that Republicans spread.
Try 1%.
Please list your sources for all these numbers you’re throwing around. Otherwise you fall into the 49% of respondents who post replies that are 87% incorrect and 13% outright lies…
I’ve tried to send a couple of different sources, but this page keeps putting them on “hold for approval”!?! One of the sources is “Center on Budget and Policy Priorities”. Their email is center@cbpp.org Maybe you can access a website from there…otherwise, hopefully, my post will be approved soon and you can simply click to it!
I just went to that page and, interestingly, the first item to come up was that “The House and Senate budget plans each cut more than $3 trillion over ten years from programs that serve people of limited means. These deep reductions amount to 69 percent of the cuts to non-defense spending in both the House and Senate plans.”
So, again, I call BS. What, exactly, did you find at that site (you can post a direct quote that may be easily Googled if, as you say, direct links are being blocked) to support any of the hate or misinformation you are spewing as supposed fact?
There are no reliable sources that quote 20% fraud. Most times when you dig though the the BS “citations” you find someone “quoting” something off someone’s blog, youtube, or The Onion. Those things aren’t really facts unless you live on BS Mountain (please youtube Jon Stewart if you’re not familiar with BS Mountain).
The fact that the “conservatives” think that is “too much” while giving billions to multi-million dollar businesses even more money than all welfare funding combined.
Conservatives wouldn’t have even given them that. Conservatives would have paid them less than $29 a week for working full time, and then called them stupid and lazy for not being able to live on it.
Erm, not one conservative ideal/method/tactic/whatever has ever succeeded. History proves this, Repubs reinforce it constantly. That you have the wherewithall to insinuate that the probs with the SNAP prog come from the left shows you to be seriously misinformed, at the very least.
But it’s clearly necessary to forbid you from taking cruises or gambling in casinos while living so high on the public’s $29.00 a week.
it’s a fantasy to think that actually happens.
It’s not fantasy. It is a power trip by a bunch of sociopaths in the Kansas legislature. They ENJOY making people feel miserable.
Just go read one of the conservative blogs like “True Patriots” or something. Those nitwits rant and rave about their tax dollars feeding people steak and lobster and sending them on cruises. At the tax brackets of most of those crackers it is unlikely that they contribute anything but even if there are some people abusing the system if you factor out the 95%+ that are legitimately being helped it they could be contributing, at most, a few dollars per year and more realistically, a few cents.
The Kansas legislator is either trying to get their vote, believes it themselves or is, as you say, sociopaths. However, the law will have no affect because no one is using their food stamp money to go on cruises. Making laws against things no one is going to do is ridiculous. As they say:
“The law in it’s majestic fairness prevents rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges.”
The point is made. No one can eat a health promoting diet on $29/week. Especially now, with the climate change exacerbated drought in California; fruit and vegetable prices a set to explode.
For $29 in seeds, pots / containers made from repurposed objects, you can grow enough natural, healthy food to be able to afford better meat and/or proteins and live a VERY healthy life on EBT if people used it differently…
And what do you eat after you have spent the $29 on seeds and soil?
wow….. you are completely out of touch with most peoples reality aren’t you!!
You can’t buy seeds with food stamps; and what are they supposed to eat in the meantime? Wake up to reality, not your idealized and non-existent world.
Yes, you can buy seeds and food plants with SNAP.
Try it.
None of your suggested items can be purchased with food stamps. Also, by the time the crops come rolling in, you’ve starved to death. I do hope you were making an attempt at humor because your comment is ridiculous.
Totalitarian conservatism - “Everything good in this country was
built on the threat of starvation.”
Seeds and vegetable plants for transplanting CAN be bought with food stamps.
Do you have any idea of the time between planting and harvesting? I’m guessing not a frigging clue.
I cloned green onions in my windowsill. 2 bunches, they replenish every two weeks. Thats one bunch of green onions every week for FREE.
OH BOY!! CHILDREN WE ARE EATING GOOD TONIGHT>>> GREEN ONIONS!! ooooo weee…
Hey it saves 2 bucks a week. I use them a lot. Great on potatoes, salsa, all kinds of stuff.
Sounds like you don’t cook much. Onions are an important ingredient in almost every meal.
I never eat onions. Ever. So… while you believe they are necessary for every meal, realize that is in your home… not in the homes of everyone else.
So you’re a picky eater too. I feel truly sorry for someone with such a sour and negative attitude.
my daughter has issues with them too. and leeks.
yeah, flavour and vitamins!
Well good for you. Do your kids eat lots of green onions? Green onions…… are you for real?
Well, yes I do, decrepit. I’ve kept a garden since I was a kid. Not everyone has the wherewithal to plant a few seeds and tend a little garden but really it’s not too hard. Beans, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, all easy to grow and don’t take all that long to harvest. Believe it or not, grocery stores are a relatively new invention.
Really Mark, how long since you were a kid? It’s been 75 years for me, and I was raised on garden produce. It still takes well over a month for all the things you listed to produce and they don’t produce all that long once they start. Do you also grow green onions?
Hey, people do what they can do. What are you so upset about?
I’m only 62 but I’ve been growing onions for over 50 years. Sweet onions double set so half are pulled as green onions and the other half allowed to mature. Grandpa was a farmer and a citrus grower and I was expected to help in the garden pretty much from the time I could walk. $10 worth of seeds can easily produce $50 worth of fresh vegetables. Yes, it takes a while but it’s certainly worth the effort.
Oh, no… you forgot that you said it was so easy! Make up your mind… Is it quick and EASY? Or is it an endeavor that takes time and effort (ie, “certainly worth the effort”).
Sucks when your own post bites you in the butt.
I don’t recall saying that gardening was “quick and easy” just that seeds and transplants can be purchased with food stamps. Gardening is not difficult if you have a place to plant and a little time to invest in it.
A place to plant and the time to garden both would be things that for most SNAP beneficiaries are also in very short supply. That’s even if you ignore the fact that 75% of SNAP beneficiaries are elderly, children, or disabled - three demographics that may not have the physical stamina or ability to garden even with time and space.
I am disabled and fairly “elderly” yet am still able to do a little gardening. I’m surprised that everyone seems to feel that SNAP recipients are too weak or pathetic to spend a few minutes a day tending a garden. Children love to garden and all would benefit from learning to grow a little bit of their own food.
But there’s a big difference in letting the kids learn to grow a little bit of their own food or doing a little gardening on your own and in producing enough food to feed your family in any sort of meaningful way, especially when you have very little to invest in getting started.
The fact that some people can garden successfully doesn’t mean that it’s realistic to expect that everyone can. You have to have somewhere to plant; even if you plant in containers you have to have somewhere with suitable light and growing conditions - not necessarily easily available in most low income neighborhoods. And while it sounds easy enough to say that you don’t need special tools or gadgets, someone that doesn’t have the most basic garden tools, fertilizers, pesticides either will have to buy them or know how to work around it.
Know-how. Knowledge. People aren’t born knowing how to produce food from seeds and dirt. If you don’t know *how* to garden, you either have to experiment and learn by trial-and-error or have easy access to the needed information. If the information isn’t easily available, trying to teach yourself is a good way to lose a lot of plants or get very little from your efforts. And when you’re talking about a very limited amount of money available to feed your family, the idea of spending any portion of it experimenting isn’t necessarily a good financial move.
I’m not saying that it wouldn’t be great it SNAP recipients could grow of their own food. (It would be great if *everyone* could grow at least some of their own food.) I *am* saying that looking realistically at things as they currently stand, it’s not realistic to expect that home gardening is the answer.
I have never said that home gardening is “the answer” to anything.
But it is an option that is available to some of us. Most SNAP recipients have internet access of some sort, all the information one could possibly need is readily available. Many of us own or rent homes and live in rural or suburban areas with lawns and ornamental plantings. Even apartment dwellers often have small patios with a few potted plants.
SNAP recipients are not lazy and they aren’t stupid. It continues to amaze me how much everyone here is opposed to them growing a few vegetable plants. I suspect that many of them, like myself, do just that.
It really isn’t rocket science.
I grew up in the country, and I’ve always had a garden; I would never be so condescending as to say gardening is not hard. It can be fun; it can be rewarding; it can be used to supplement a diet or to provide organic foods at a more affordable price.
It is NOT, however, easy. In addition, while suggesting these impoverished people start growing veggies via seeds, will you also be paying for their soil, their containers, their fertilizer, their soil amendments, and their gardening tools?
Any simple trip to a hardware store (or even a Wal-Mart) will show you how ridiculously expensive these items are. In fact, purchasing just the starting requirements to create a home garden large enough to provide food for a family of four would cost more than a week’s worth of SNAP benefits.
And before you say anything asinine such ‘dirt is free’… realize that digging up dirt from the local park when you live in the city is rather frowned upon. The soil in the empty lot next to you (if there is one) is not exactly ready to be garden dirt. As someone who says he is an experienced gardener, you should know better than anyone that growing a garden requires serious effort and investment, both in time and money.
Of course, there’s always the chance that your idea of gardening is to buy an herb plant at the checkout stand of your grocery store… and then commend yourself for having some fresh rosemary for your pork tenderloin.
Goodness you just hate the idea that poor people could grow a few vegetables to supplement their food stamps don’t you? I’m disabled and dirt poor but I manage to get all the tomatoes I can eat from just a couple of five gallon buckets. I’m fortunate enough not to live in the city and have a small plot to garden in, all I need is a shovel, a rake , and a hoe.
I’ve planted some tomatoes and the plants said, about 80 days. The habanero peppers said about the same, but they were from seeds. The purpose of those was for flavor, in sauces, eggs, and other foods. I’ve never done this, so idk if it will work. But that’s a long time. And I have to garden small. Still, while it’s a great idea, it doesn’t work everywhere, or for everyone. And if we didn’t give these poor, suffering corporations so much money (snark) maybe there’d be more for people who need food-say, like families-and even for old folks.
You can buy seeds with SNAP, but you have to buy the dirt. I’m doing plants for my garden and donate the rest to the food bank I volunteer at, and really should ask for them to reimburse me for a bag of dirt if I have a lot of plants left over. You also have to have a place to plant them, not everyone does. I wish I had people who wanted to weed and harvest. I have plenty of land where I live, but can only do so much.
Wrong… Seeds and vegetable plants can very well be purchased from walmart with SNAP. Problem is, not everyone has a green thumb.
I stand corrected. After double checking, a person can indeed buy seeds and plants with SNAP. This is hardly really that beneficial unless a person has the space or ability to self grow produce.
Where are you supposed to grow your garden? Even in my moderate condo area, anybody walking by will help himself to my garden. Or are you imagining people have nice private yards, or sunny patios?
Most urban areas have community-based gardens where you can obtain a plot.
not most urban areas have community-based gardens. not in chicago anyway. those with homes might have backyard gardens, but those living in apartment buildings in some areas are lucky to have grass out front, instead of just lackluster dirt.
Only in your dreams. Reality is quite different. But then… you’ve visited every urban area in the country, focusing on the more impoverished areas, and can contradict my comment, right?
We were going to have a revolution, but we couldn’t get the day off work.
I happen to agree with you, to a point. The idea is a good one. but not everyone who needs to use ebt to survive are capable of affording the planting supplies, and often don’t have any garden space. So, soil also becomes an expense. I live on a farm, and I also get ebt. I have the space to grow a garden, but I consider myself damned lucky that way. I can supplement my food needs by growing that garden. What about the seed, the soil, the space to grow….those things can’t be bought with an ebt card. So, no. It’s not possible for everyone. Unfortunately.
You can buy seeds with EBT, however you cannot buy pots or soil. Most people on SNAP live in apartments, they can’t possibly grow their own food. And no person can go four months without eating while they wait for food to grow.
The OP did say “re-purposed pots.” So I’ll give them a pass on that.
I’ve been using newspaper pots that you fold up. Nice video on you tube. Gave away a lot of my pots last year, had 8 trays of tomato and peppers.
You can’t buy that with stamps in every state. And what happens in drought or if all the plants die from a virus? Screwed. Also costs a lot more than that to garden.
And how long would it take for me to feed on the stuff you suggest I plant?
The big challenge those of us in food banks see is getting people to try and use vegetables they aren’t familiar with. We can give them recipes and samples sometimes, but it’s really hard to talk people into trying something different. I know, I volunteer at a lucky food pantry that gets so much greens and veggies. Even with an additional distribution date, where anyone can come, there is still waste.
Do that in an inner city and working 2 jobs. Not feasible. How ridiculous. Its good if you have access to land to do that or the time for it. You would also need fertilizers and other things to make sure the crop is healthy. Hope squirrels and birds don’t eat it as well. Get real.. Not a good idea.. and seeds are available in the snap program.
It’s not ridiculous. I didn’t say it was a solution for every single person or situation. All I was trying to do is point out that there are ways to work WITH assistance in conjunction with other methods of obtaining healthy food. Food ‘stamps’ shouldn’t be used as the only way to aquire food. If you are working 2 jobs, have a smart phone, and time to surf the net, then you have plenty of time and energy to figure out how and where to plant about 6 tomato plants in buckets, potatoes in a small raised bed or on raised shelfs outdoors like my grandparents did… I lived in the inner-city for over 10 years and I always knew someone with a little corner in their back yard or neighborhood community garden. There are options, and they would be found if people spent as much time looking into providing natural, healthy food as they spend voting for the next American Idol. There’s no shortage of solutions, only of encouragement, education, and examples of productive urban gardening…
People don’t want to find solutions. They want to cry and whine about their plight and act like smart alecks when you offer ideas that can help.
Give that line a rest, please. Some are not able to do those things, don’t have time, or have other reasons why it isn’t possible or practical. We’re not all the same and not like you or anyone else who might make gardening work. So can we not judge each other? Ultimately, we have more that we share than we don’t, and more reason to cooperate than we do to point fingers. Thank you. High five!
Odd… I don’t recall crying or whining; I do raise my own vegetables and herbs, but I do so by choice, not to supplement my income. I’m quite lucky as I was born into a family where money was not an issue. I was able to obtain higher education due to the status of my parents. I married a man from similar circumstances and, together, we are quite comfortable.
What I am not is a superior or condescending brat who presumes that anyone living on SNAP who is not spending their $29 a month on seeds for which they have no money to plant because SNAP doesn’t cover soil, fertilizer, pots, or a place in which to place the plants is, therefore, crying, whining, or acting like a smart aleck.
Try some sympathy… or, heck, go live for a month as one of these people (in today’s world). Set up your home, feed your kids, pay for your transportation to work, pay for your medical bills… all on the amount of money average to their economic situations. That might actually teach you some empathy.
I don’t have much sympathy for someone who says it’s too much trouble to boil beans. See, I am one of those people. However, I don’t cry about how I am a disabled single dad at every turn or call names when I disagree with someone. You dont have to be rich to grow some vegetables. Period. Most urban areas have programs if someone cares enough to look them up. Most of the programs offer everything you need at free or very little cost. I have plenty of empathy for people who do more than make excuses or hurl insults instead of find solutions.
I could not agree more with you Semaj. My little brother gets SNAP for his family, and they do just what you have said. Come growing season they always set a side a portion of their SNAP for seeds and plants, they never go with out healthy foods. Everything they grow gets canned or frozen so it will last until the next growing season. It’s unbelievable the amount of healthy food they produce, they haft to feed 5 children and two adults and they still end up giving some of it away!! It can be done, and in my opinion they should be teaching this to all people who receive SNAP . Sadly most people are to lazy and to accustomed to relying on the Grocer stores for their food. It’s a sad reality.
Lazy is a harsh word, and likely applies to some. As someone who didn’t can foods until a decade ago, preserving food is something you have to have the desire and the equipment to do. You can’t buy jars or even jar lids on SNAP, which seems stupid to me.
you did not say where your brother lives, in a house with a yard ? if he lived in a Apartment or Duplex or condo then no he would not be planting a garden, most low income folks do not live in a house at least not here in Portland,Oregon
Well that’s some interesting projection in your post. So, any folks in impoverished areas who find it difficult to garden without a plot of land, a balcony or terrace, or the ability to afford, soil, pots, and fertilizer must, then, be ‘surfing the net’ using their ‘smart phones’ and ‘watching American Idol’.
That, right there, Folks… speaks volumes. Let’s give a big hand to the poor little boy whose grandparents raised veggies for him and who ALWAYS knew someone in the inner city who had garden space.
SMDH
Nevermind, Folks… I clicked on Semaj’s profile to learn more about his life as a sufferer in America’s inner cities… and seeing his other posts will educate you as to his issues. Good for a laugh.
First of all I’m not a ‘poor little boy’. If you want to make it a personal matter and resort to name calling, I think that shows who the little boy is…
My grandparents lived in the country and grew and proved food for themselves and their neighbors, not me. As far as living in the city, I’ve known many people who raised tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, kale and more in 5 gallon buckets with half potting soil and half soil from the yard or wherever… Fertilizer is free…
And it is an absolute fact that if people spent as much time educating themselves online instead of surfing Facebook and Twitter, there would be a lot less people on assistance.
But as I’ve said before, the only thing people on here like to really do is attack people who have different ideas and suggestions. Everything gets turned into name calling an insults. That’s just not how adults should communicate. Shame on you.
Or if they weren’t hungry NOW, but only in 6 months. Or should they tell their kids, “No dinner tonight, honey, but in 6 months you can have a nice salad?”
and while you wait…? also, you can’t live on some greens and tomatoes alone. you need actual calorie producing foods, you need fat and protein.
I didn’t say they absolute or immediate solution … All I was saying was that you can produce some vegetables with very little space and rather inexpensive. I didn’t say you could live off what you can grow on a balcony or porch.
People on here just love to rip apart ANYTHING good or positive people try to say or convey. I figure the more crap I get about things like this, the more I see that there is absolutely no chance of having a positive, intelligent conversation.
i stand by my point. you can grow a little but if you’re actually nearly starving there’s no t much time or money for anything else.maybe over time you can build up a little cache.
there are limits to indoor growing as well.
have you actually ever lived on that little?
I’m not sure what the exact dollar amounts were, but yes I have lived on a VERY small food budget. This isn’t about me though.
isn’t it? and why not?
The greatest exacerbation of the drought in California is EPA regulations…because Delta Smelt are more important than people.
The Delta Smelt has absolutely nothing to do with the lack of snowpack in the Sierras for four years running. Go ahead and hate the EPA but the drought extends throughout the west all the way to Colorado and beyond. Your junk science has nothing to do with reality.
You really aren’t that bright are you? THE DROUGHT is brought on by nature and lack of rainfall for the past 5 or 6 years.Do you know what brings that on… climate change through polluting and DESTROYING the envrionment. We did it. More EPA regulations are needed. Quit supporting the republican bums.
Why is it that when people disagree they resort to insult? Droughts happen…you can call it climate change if you want to…the science isn’t
“settled” regardless what you choose to believe. It will rain in California again…when the climate pattern changes again.
Lets just rehash … for TomIRA. (not sure who said it, maybe ‘NodorElf’ ?
but its applicable)
“The issue is that political conservatism has long abandoned any ideas that facts and evidence should be the driving favor behind public policy.”
“This ‘conservative economics’ is just a smokescreen for something far more insidious, which is to dismantle the middle class and to transfer all of the money up to the rich. That is what austerity, Reaganomics, bank deregulation, outsourcing, and pretty much everything the political right has done over the past couple of decades is trying to accomplish - kill the middle class.”
“They want to turn society back into the 19th century. They are not trying to fix the economy that their policies crashed in the first place. The goal of the political right is to turn society back into a feudal aristocracy.”
“We are not going to persuade the political right about economics any more than we are going to convince them on rejecting Creationism as religious junk in favor of Evolution, on women’s rights, on accepting gay marriage, or for that matter on addressing global warming.”
“They simply have abandoned the scientific method - actually they never embraced it to begin with.”
- NodorElf
$29/week is a bit more than $4/day. It can be done, but it’s going to require eating some canned food, lesser cuts of meat (hamburger chubs or “lunch meat”) or eggs for protein.
Breakfast: 2 eggs (15¢), slice of toast (5-10¢), 4 oz canned (not fresh) OJ (12½¢), 1 slice of thin-sliced “lunch meat” style ham (about 6¢) (I would spurge and have coffee as well, but it’s not in the FS budget) = about 43½¢
Lunch: Package Ramen (17¢), made in the microwave with juice of 1 can of “French style” green beans (89¢), add the green beans after the noodles are cooked= $1.06.
Dinner: Ham sandwich (2 slices bread (10-20¢), 8 thin sliced of lunch meat ham (8 x 6¢= 48¢), 1 slice cheese (8¢), small amount of lettuce (5¢), mustard (2¢) = 83¢
And a multivitamin every morning (about 4¢) because you really aren’t getting proper nutrition on this diet. Unfortunately, I don’t think multivitamins are covered by SNAP.
$2.37 per day. For variety, switch lunch and dinner menu.
If I shop at Aldi and make use of coupons whenever possible.
They aren’t…and you reminded me….online there are places you can get coupons! If you shop at Walmart, for instance, they have some for their store, and check out the sales. Most stores have online sales ads, if you use loyalty cards anywhere, there are those, too. Just a thought…also, there’s Savings Star, and I’ve seen coupons for produce. I haven’t used them, since I don’t drive, so I never know when I’ll get to the store. But I thought I’d mention it.
At least she knows now. I’m glad for that and I hope she actually does something with her experience
Why is it that people think this “failed?” The whole point of this experiment is for the more affluent to Understand the challenges of those on government aid. I was telling family just wait, she will find that kind of food will last 3 maybe 4 days, but never 7. But she WILL learn something and the rest of us will learn something too if we pay attention. The point is not to necessarily successfully live on that 29 dollars a day, but to truly understand how difficult it is to do and force one to have a bit of empathy for those who do. And of course inspire us all to find ways to change this. So she didn’t actually fail, but she did learn.
$29 a WEEK, not per day. My husband and I are disabled, and our SNAP benefits work out to about the average of that $29/week. It’s impossible to live on, but the government doesn’t intend for anyone to do that. It’s the SUPPLEMENTAL Nutritional Assistance Program, meant to supplement one’s existing food budget. Unfortunately, too many of us have zero food budget to begin with. I’m luckier than some — we live on $912/mo. but our house is paid off thanks to a wonderfully generous friend who came into a windfall and wanted to help, so we do have a little to spend on food. Less than $100, but it’s more than many have. We also have two food banks that we utilize. One of them is pretty good but you don’t get much. The other. . . well, you get a lot but it’s mostly junk food, spoiled produce, and marked down things that are stale, damaged, and/or disgusting. I give what we can’t use to others who may want it and can use it.
To really have empathy she would have rationed it out for the full 7 days and if she ran out she should have went to a food pantry. Then she would really know what it feels like to have to survive…
She wasn’t doing it to show how you can eat healthy on $29 a week, she was doing it to highlight how you can’t, not very easily. Good reporting.
Exactly, Chuck. I’ve seen half a dozen articles like this. It’s ironic how many of these snarky writers are missing the point. They are shooting fish in a barrel by ridiculing Gwyneth Paltrow, and they end up looking more clueless than she is.
Not to mention a lot of the families on aid are single moms working one, sometimes two jobs. By the time that get home, trying to fix a meal out if a few limes and a dried bag of beans? Idiots that rant and rave about food aid should try it before they run their mouths.
It’s much easier to slice a couple peppers and tomatoes and sit a gallon of water on the table than cook spaghetti.
How is that going to feed a child??? They would starve you MORON
Um no. A pepper and a tomato with a glass of water would fill a child’s belly. Kids don’t eat much. They would not starve.
PROTEIN a kid needs fat as well to BURN fuel to go to school my kid goes to school and tell them they had a tomato and pepper for dinner I see CPS coming to my house the next day,
Yes, we have beans all the time. Sometimes we have a little meat too, just not big slabs of it. Smaller portions of meat, around 4 ounces are very healthy.
How can you afford a decent cut of meat with 29 a week to feed them??? I had pb and j, eggs, ramen noodles, hotdogs once in a while hamburger and tuna in a can was my kids meals, beans take too long when you don’t have the time and most working Moms are working at least 1 1/2 jobs to make ends meet…When making 79 cents to a mans dollar you have to work at least 1 1/2 to make it
Ok this is where you are being disingenious. Its 29 per person. So for a family of 3, 1 adult and 2 kids its 90 dollars week. You can buy meat. A bag of chicken breasts would give two meals for this family, 1 per week. People have this idea they need to eat a big fat piece of meat every day. It’s not necessary and unhealthy.
I notice you have tons of complaints and excuses, why?
because I worked and didn’t get 90 a week why are you so ignorant and not understand the “working class” maybe you didn’t work??? There is only so much time you have in a day ever think of that when you work your life away…Never got to see my kids, always in a hurry to get to work, worry about my kids because they wer alone so much no one helping but getting a lousy 200 a month and paying rent, electric meds etc so yeah I got plenty of excuses but at least I am humane unlike you I have been through the REAL struggles not the made up bs you are spouting…
If you worked, you had the money to pay for food. I’ts one or the other.
`Yes and meds and rent and electric etc I had 3 kids and NO child support so the 200 they gave me paid for food but as I had already told you my insulin alone was 200 a month as well as bp pill 30 each took 2 for my heart, glucose strips 45 then as well as 60 a month for a doctor becuase I couldn’t get insurance of medical assistance since I worked I already posted my meds prices in another post why can’t you keep up???
Eirinn some of us have medical needs I am a diabetic (200 at the time no insurance at the time (in the 80)) also arthritis and congenitial heart defect ( about 30 each back then ) to control my bp pressure since the valve to my heart was defective from birth had to see a gp (60 a pop) every month to check glucose (45 a bottle) as well as heart I had to stop working at 46 when I collapsed from my heart so who has trouble with money now Eirinn???? My original post made almost half an hour ago…why isn’t it sinking in yet I had no money for extras there is also the cost of going to work (bus it’s not free) and my kids needed clothes (Good will, thrift store etc) heartless much?????
I understand you had expenses. You still should have had money leftover for food working all that overtime you claimed kept you from operating a crock pot.
Hate to burst your bubble but min wage was 3.35 an hour and I worked 3 jobs like 35 one job and about 15-20 between the other 2 (one was cleaning kiosks in the mall I worked for) one was a deli job one was a salesperson so the big total before taxes were 183.25 if I worked all 3 jobs that’s before taxes considering I had 365.00 in medicine and dr I needed each month so I had 733.00 roughly if I worked all three jobs coming in before taxes so I had on a lucky month I had 368 left ( before taxes) left but that’s not how it worked I paid rent which to be honest I think it was about 250 or 300 then electric probably 60. or so then what my kids needed (depending on the yr and if school was in session) so I was always behind on my meds see the min wage didn’t raise until 1991 I believe and that was 3.80 an hour so how much money did I have once again???? See I can tell you facts when you have the nerve to call me an addict (unless you want to say I was addicted to living to make sure my kids were raised) Admit you’re an idiot I already told you I had 3 jobs so no overtime that is why I worked 3 jobs,,,Sooo I believe you are one heartless, uncompassionate person who thinks they are some kinda power trip to see if I am lying look the facts up yourself I made minimum wage since I had only a card from the health dept to certify I was trained in food safety…
I don’t disagree with you. My family and I have had hard times but we’ve been blessed with family to help, we’ve made it through without government assistance. But I have great admiration and empathy for all single parents struggling to feed their kids and put a roof over their heads. Including you. My point us that people who have never had to do it, have no clue what they are talking about.
Wow, you are UTTERLY missing the point
Gwyneth Paltrow tried to abide by a $29 weekly food allowance as part of a food stamp challenge thrown down by her friend, and Food Bank activist Mario Batali. The entire point of the challenge is to highlight how difficult (impossible) it is to feed one person, much less a family, on $29 a week.
Of the experience, she said it was “difficult it was to eat wholesome, nutritious food on that budget, even for just a few days—a challenge that 47 million Americans face every day, week, and year.”
“As I suspected, we only made it through about four days, when I personally broke and had some chicken and fresh vegetables (and in full transparency, half a bag of black licorice).”
“After trying to complete this challenge (I would give myself a C-), I am even more outraged that there is still not equal pay in the workplace.”
Thank you, Gwyneth, your point was admirably made: If a waif like yourself, who knows how to make nutritious choices, can’t survive on $29 a week for food, what hope does anyone else have?
That’s what I was going to post, but you beat me to it. Good job, Aleatha.
Actually, it’s this article that is ridiculous and fails.
The point of the SNAP challenge is that it’s impossible or extremely difficult to eat HEALTHY on $29 per month. Paltrow’s “failure” demonstrated exactly that.
The writer takes aim at the softest target ever, and ends up looking more irrelevant and clueless than Paltrow herself.
The point of the SNAP challenge is NOT that it’s impossible or extremely difficult to eat HEALTHY on $29 per month … it’s that it’s impossible or extremely difficult to EAT on $29 per month.
Technically, it’s $29 per week per person. 😉
Thank you - I stand corrected $29 per week. DC Jr, failure was never my point - healthy Vs. starvation was.
Even by that standard, how did Paltrow “fail” the challenge? She demonstrated what the challenge is supposed to demonstrate.
Society prefers to debate the credibility of such celebrity attempts, while its citizens in growing numbers, who face the reality, don’t have the benefit to just walk way from the experience like a failed experiment. Poor-shaming has become the new blood sport of the middle class. The Republicans criminalize, while the Democrats marginalize the poor and underprivileged. If and when plutocratic power pinches the middle class hard enough, then the real fight and change will occur. For now many are indifferent to the realities as an “experiment”. Right now, the rich are simply doing to the middle class what the middle class already did to the poor.
Get ready to welcome the rest of the middle class…the ones that didn’t make it to Brokesville already. No giggling, it isn’t polite….
I was born with a disability that keeps me from working, our inefficient Congess decided that I was getting to much for food stamps and brought it down from $200 a month to $78 a month. Now I don’t know what fantasy some of the conservatives live in where they have the nerve to feel like I’m the freeloader when the actual ppl the voted and put in Congress are the ones who are sticking it to them every day. But it really irritates me to hear ppl accuse me of taking advantage of a system I need desperately right now. I guess it’s easy to make assumptions when you have everything figured out so all I can say to that is a favorite quote, “Assumptions are the Mother of All F*ck Ups.”
Why is this story slanted as Paltrow trying to show poor people how to eat healthy on $29 a week rather than how she was trying to show everyone else how it is NOT possible to eat healthy on $29/week?
My disabled mother who is only 53, only gets $27 a month. Therefore I am always doing what I can for her and my sister.
my mom is on this cause she has RA and she cant move that well and we get seen as users of people who pays taxes and what I always say is, if you got a problem about it do something about it then. We can really only afford what we need but she knows how to budget like a how a mother on SNAPS should. she tried like you can’t get mad at her she has a silver spoon in her mouth and when you are given a budget that isn’t your normal one you get confused or you get frustrated. I give her props for trying cause not most celebrities would try this and take on the embarrassment that she has received
You’re talking about the issue. So thank Ms. Paltrow.
And what children will eat any of those items?? You can never understand what a challenge it is to be poor until you live it. I went from Driving a Benz with a great job in Chicago to food stamps in Georgia due to CANCER and a leaky brain aneurysm. I have spent up to 40 hours on hold (yes 5 8 hour days) just to reapply for my children’s medicaid. There is nothing easy about living on welfare as many people choose to believe. We give more “welfare” to our corporations then to struggling American Families!
If you have raised your children eating garbage it’s possible they might not like healthy food. Whose fault is that? There are kids in Africa literally dying for an avacado or beans. I bet they would eat it right up. Your kid’s picky eating habits is the result of poor parenting.
Do you have children, Eirinn?
Yes. They just had lunch. PB and celery, mango, v8 splash that I dilute with 100 percent water.
I pray to God someone takes them from you, you are hateful and your kids need a better role model
Hateful? Lol I am advocating eating a healthy diet.
Really Eirinn??? You have never been poor I take it when avacado are expensive compared to ramen and beans have to either soak or be cooked an hour and set until rehydrated…where do you get your holier than thou attitude when you’re poor you eat cheap to fill the belly not be a picky fuc&, my KIDS are hungry and ned to eat but let me boil these beans an hour and then let it sit for about an another hour…Meanwhile you have WORKED a double and are tired and the kids need their homework checked all the while moaning they are hungry…YOU have never had it bad from the bs you are spouting…
Boiling beans does not take hard work lol, come on now.
It takes 2 hour if you get hoime at 4 pm or 6 pm then WAIT two hour yeah it’s too much to sit and wait when you need to check homework and get their baths and go to bed when are they supposed to eat at 9??????
Have a crock pot? Put them on in the morning.
After working 50 to 60 hours a week??? Really, Well Eirinn some of us LIVE in the real world and working 50-60 hours a week you don’t come home for 13-16 hours but leave a crock pot on??? Hopefully your kids are being watched then you get home and what dried up beans??? Some of us didn’t have the chance to come home after an 8 hour shift I worked 3 jobs because my ex didn’t have to pay child support (SSI) so my kids ate ramen noodles, hot dogs, spaghetti, pancakes, anything I had in the house on thosae rare days I FROZE soups to heat up, as well as make dinner ahead I COULDN’T AFFORD a F-in crockpot…I couldn’t take the chance when I left the house at 5 am and didn’t get home until 11pm that my kids would remember…I did it for most of their lives asking family members to look in on them each night so I could work and get food stamps as well…That is real life not some bs you seem to live in
Maybe you could teach them to switch off the crock pot? Lol I mean, you have a lot of reasons why you can’t do simple things. Have your kids check the book I can’t said the ant out from their school library and read it with them
Eirinn some of us have medical needs I am a diabetic (200 at the time no insurance at the time (in the 80)) also arthritis and congenitial heart defect ( about 30 each back then ) to control my bp pressure since the valve to my heart was defective from birth had to see a gp (60 a pop) every month to check glucose (45 a bottle) as well as heart I had to stop working at 46 when I collapsed from my heart so who has trouble with money now Eirinn????
Yeah, I have a spinal cord injury. So you stopped working. Now you have plenty of time to operate the crock pot, right?
I was talking about WHEN my kids were little why are you so full of yourself and yeah I have spondylitis arthritis of the spine and my cord collapsed as well and had to have surgery and now wait for heart valve surgery as well as Parkinsons I was recently diagnosed…I don’t see you asking where my money went any more either…you really are a piece of work (I would say something else but I would be thrown off this board) why are you so hateful and realize no one but you seems to think it’s a fairy tale to live off of fs
Why am I full of myself? I am also not hateful. What I am saying is that when you have a limited budget, you can still eat healthy foods but you have to change the way you think about your diet. I haven’t been talking about myself. We have been discussing healthy diets and how a person can eat good food on food stamps.
Yeah you are heartless too and no one can eat healthy on food stamps and budget I had too many bills and not enough money to pay like my meds, rent, electric, bus fare yeah I busted my hump but I got no child support for 3 kids so I worked 3 jobs and yeah you did when you asked me about my finances I had nothing left I worked to live it’s a shame you have to work to live to get the meds to keep you alive back in the 80’s sucked, the kids didn’t have medical assistance either since no child left behind wasn’t enacted until my kids were almost grown you made it personal by asking where did my money go and retorting about my poor financial skills…so yes you are a heartless person and you are def. full of yourself, you have no compassion to see a fellow human busting their behind off and resort to saying I have poor finanical skills REALLY??? When I had to work to get my insulin so I didn’t die right now insulin is about 300-400 hundred on what I used back then…But I am sure a decent Christan woman such as yourself would understand when someone tells you it is impossible to eat healthy when you have to bust your butt……
Eirinn and no addiction unless you count wanting to live to see my kids grown, you are something ADDICTION???? really Add it up 200 for insulin 30 ea for 2 bp meds that’s 260, then 45 for glucose strips that’s 305, then 60 for a dr that’s365.00 a month to live back in the 80’s it;s not rocket science to see where my money went to not on booze or drugs you really are ignorant I have told you 3 times now where my money went to but you seem to think I bs well add it up for yourself because I used 2 different insulins on long acting and one short to control my diabetes I WAS ADDICTED TO LIVING YOU MORON!!!!!!!
If you worked 3 jobs and had all those medical expenses and they were verifiable, recurring expenses, and you still had so little money left over after bills that you could not afford to purchase food, you would have qualified for enough food stamps to eat. You have tons of excuses and reasons you are a victim. I am poor too but I don’t make excuses, instead, I am forced to make smart decisions about my family’s diet and the groceries we purchase. I haven called you a single name during this thread, all I have suggested is there are things you can do to make things better. Yet all you offer is excuses and insults. It seems you want to impart some sort of narrative of victimhood and I frankly do not believe you.
Back then 200 was enough to eat you idiot…I have never been a victim I put the amounts down and broke it down so your mind could somehow understand it but I see aren’t smart at all…I had no time to cook for my kids and hot dogs and ramen noodles are cheap, I don’t believe you have a problem at all except no heart or common sense and you called me an addict and I had finaancial issues because of poor money handling or I was an addict which I am neither one, so you did call me something horrible to me and you haven’t suggested anything but act like you are Lady of the Manor with your insulting ways of making me seem like I lied which I didn’t PROVED that I didn’t have all this money floating around but you seem to like to call me an addict or spendthrift LMAO I didn’t have a winter coat for yrs but my kids got and to me that is all that matters YOU took us down this path with your insistance I was some kinda addict when I proved I wasn’t a spendthrift and even broke it down for you, you still act holie than thou so kiss my as$ if I am going to be nice to you, you CALLED ME AN ADDICT I can’t even begin to to tell you I never did that shi* I don’t even drink because of family history, you my dear are a bitc& and that’s it cold hearted, mealy mouthed ignorant uninformed on the daily life of what it is to be HUMAN!!!!
A crock pot costs 15 dollars. If you can’t afford a crock pot and work 60 hrs per week, you have a problem managing your money or some sort of addiction.
Avacados arent expensive in comparison to nutritional value. I would spend 5 dollars on 5 avacados before I would buy all the ingredients to have spaghetti.
you should just quit replying to that Eirinn Person she will keep on saying mean and hateful things to you, she needs help the poor woman sounds demented!!!
Christine yes and trying to go there is even worse I have Mobility pick me up and drop me off and it takes HOURS just to deal with it, I know you can apply on line but you have to SHOW up sometime to sign and show documentation on top of going to my rhumatologist, neurologist, cardiologist, regular doctors….
*nods* Yep. I feel for you, Christine, and understand completely. My husband and I used to be small business owners, drove a BMW and a Camaro, were able to go out every weekend if we wanted to, the kids had what they needed, and our family ate well. We were riding with my husband’s grandfather in his small sedan when he ran a red light and just stopped in the middle of the intersection. We were T-boned by an SUV going in excess of the speed limit of 45mph. It hit right where I was sitting; there was an 11″ intrusion. My pelvis was broken in two places, my right knee punctured. My teenage daughter’s hip was dislocated by 3″. They said my husband had “soft tissue damage” and he would be better in 6 weeks, but he never got better. There was insufficient insurance on the vehicle, and 7 people in the SUV who all claimed injury. The insurance settlement was not enough for any of us to get proper treatment and we did not have health insurance as we had just moved to the area and were still getting settled in. We had literally moved into our house the day before the accident.
My husband was declared permanently disabled at the age of 31, crippled with multi-level degenerative disc disease. His spine is riddled through with arthritis and is literally disintegrating. Nerves are strangled and dying. He just turned 37 and walks with a cane. The doctors estimate he will need a walker within 5 years and will be in a wheelchair within 10-15 years, no longer able to use his legs.
My daughter was diag’ed with lymphoma a few months after graduating high school, right before my husband was declared disabled. He was unable to work at the time and he took a LOT of flak from his family and our daughter’s friend’s families about not being a man, and how everyone’s back hurt and he needed to “man up and take care of your family.” When she lost the fight 7 months later, her so-called best friend and the girl’s mother went around telling people what a loser my husband was and how it was his fault we lost our beloved child because he wouldn’t get a job and get insurance for her.
His grandfather’s second wife told him he was faking and was “the lowest of the low.” To this day we get filthy looks and are considered trash because we are poor and use SNAP. Some of my husband’s friends have told him how “lucky” he is to get to stay home and still get paid for doing nothing, and how nice that must be. It’s not lucky. It’s not nice. It’s harsh and horrible and we’re treated like pariahs because we can no longer be “productive citizens” and are doing nothing but “leeching off the government.” The Right does nothing to help this but perpetuates the stereotypes that lead to this sort of treatment of people who are doing no more than trying to survive.
I believe that for a Hollywood “it” girl, such as Gwenny, to think about others’, in and of itself, is nothing short of a miracle.
I’m genuinely curious where this 29$ is coming from? Where I lived when my daughter was first born, for the two of us, we received 378$/mo. I have friends still on SNAP that receive comparable amounts to this day. Is there an actual movement to reduce SNAP? or is this just people being sensational?
SNAP benefits are determined by the state.
Dear Gwyneth:
Want to stretch your food budget?
1- Learn how to cook staples, not pre cooked, frozen, packaged meals at the supermarket.
2- NO take outs!
3- Go for frozen vegetables, they get picked, washed, frozen, and packaged in the field, therefore are fresher and more nutritious than the “Fresh” veggies you get at the store.
4- Patronize several supermarkets, not just 1 or 2 for daily/weekly specials
5- Buy in quantities when items are on special. $3.49 pasta sauce jars at $1.69? Buy 10 of them instead of 1 or 2.
6- Some “Dollar” stores carry all kinds of quality foodstuff for the cheapest prices and some accept food stamps
I think this writer is a bit and grew and resntful and aiming it at the wrong person. I believe that Gweneth Paltrow did want to bring attention to this. Maybe she was more confident than need be, but now maybe she realizes our plight a little better and may be more suited to fight for our cause. Do you think with all this bashing, she will be eager to do something to help us? (yes, I am poor)
I’m sure she learned an interesting lesson: She’s fortunate that she doesn’t have to deal with poverty. Lucky her. I’ve been in this situation and had to feed 2 kids on food stamps. I bought veges at the local fruit stand - where they were much cheaper - and lots of rice and noodles. My kids hated nonfat-dry milk (so did I) but that was often all we had because food stamps paid for it and real milk was expensive. Kraft mac and cheese when it was on sale for 25 cents a box. Potato soup when we ran out of food stamps at the end of the month. Very little meat of any kind. I remember a cashier who, after seeing that I was paying with food stamps, took my loaf of bread and squashed it while she was ringing it up. On purpose.
Surely you didn’t take that squashed loaf home!
How much less embarrassing for her had she tried the experiment BEFORE advertising her ignorance and arrogance THEN learning how wrong she was.
I just noticed that she (or her personaly shopper) obviously went to multiple stores, a luxury that many don’t have. The beans and rice are from Safeway, but Pantry Essentials is a Target brand.
Good eye. Really, this is probably some stuff they pulled out of her pantry.
Not HER pantry. Mine, maybe, but not her’s. Seriously, store brand rice and beans?
I call BS. I’m in a position where I actually SEE how much money the average food stamp recipient gets. And it’s not a paltry $29, it’s quite a bit more. And YES, they do buy junk food, sodas, meat, and even lobster. You are clueless, or trying to push your agenda which is worse.
I’m a disabled single dad with a teenage daughter. I was getting $16 a month but lost it when she got a part time job.
My female adult friend in New Mexico is permanently disabled; she gets around $39 a month in SNAP assistance. About $10 a week. Wow. What I could do with that.
I think that she, as people who can buy and eat what they want, did find herself out of touch with what the poor don’t get to buy-She may have learned that, and what we all see from the experiment, which is no, people can’t eat that healthily on food stamps-while going on cruises!!! It says that thises programs need increase, not decrease.
She illustrated that it can’t be done. Perhaps that was her intention.
So now it boils down to what will she do with the information she has gained from her experiment? She could take that information and become more active in getting better help for those on assistance. She could support raising minimum wages to something that would enable working families to afford food and get off of assistance. We will see, but I bet she simply does nothing…
At least Bif Naked made a better attempt
She knew that going into it. She wanted to demonstrate how absurd and difficult it would be to live on that meager amount.
She was willing to try. Sure, she may not have had any idea what would last a week on $29, but there are few folks who have never been below middle class who actually would. We’ve had legislators in CA who have tried that, too, and the last time the challenge was discussed was a couple of years or so back-and only one tried it. Frankly, I’d like to see all of those in Congress who are on the committees who are responsible for any part in the Farm Bill or other assistance finding-if I’m correct, that would be all of the Ways And Means Committee, to start-to spend six months with their families using whatever their states provide for low-income families to live on, and freeze their assets for that period, just so they understand before they vote, what they are expecting their constituents to live like every day of the year.
I get SNAP. I get $198 a month as a single person. I’m one of those frozen entrees folks, but I generally have to spend an extra $100 or so extra. Every two weeks I splurge and go to a lunch buffet that costs no more than $8, and load up until I pop, so I won’t feel like eating until the next afternoon. It’s junk food too, greasy and coated in MSG. I am trying a new experiment. For the last 5 weeks I have been diligently saving $10 a week to go toward a case of 12 vegetarian chili mixes ($50 for it), so that I might have some fresh fruit and salad. I have bought the chili before and know that it takes me about 4 days to eat a crockpot full of it, sometimes longer. Hopefully my next month will have some sort of health to it and I will be able to push the cost down to $50 a week.
I disagree with the statement that everyone has paid their taxes and when help is needed..it’s. not there. My experience HAS BEEN TTHE PEOPLE I know getting food stamps have work very little or not at all thus has paid little to no federal taxes….
I’m on snap. I buy steak maybe once or twice a year, and eat raman to save up for it. It’s so expensive though.
The easiest solution is to give our elected officials the same benefits their constituents get. They don’t need a paycheck. They can get the same housing, Medicaid, food stamps instead of pay that the people that they represent get. And when they are no longer in office benefits are cut off. It would save the tax payers millions. And make it retroactive, one day they can see a future the next they are wondering how to make ends mmeet, just like the common man who puts in 30 years to a company retires then had all the retirement benefits he paid into dissapear when the corporation decided they want more profits,
Maybe next week, Gwyneth can teach folks in Kansas how to use your SNAP benefits on a cruise around their boring backwater state.
When you are low income, and you buy food, they must have multiple uses for them, like eggs.
If you have a freezer, you can freeze bread, milk and of course meat. Some fruits and veggies too. Bags of oranges or grapefruit for vitamin C, and frozen fruit lasts a whole month. Potatoes can be fried, baked, put in soups, etc… Pasta is versatile. Tuna can last a whole month, is cheap, and can be used for many things. Peanut butter is cheap and lasts a while. For greens, lettuce can be used in breakfast burritos, sandwiches,salads, etc… Green peppers can be stuffed, used in breakfast burritos, salads, etc… You get the point.
What did you do, oppose the Vietnam War, support busing to desegregate our schools and the decriminalization of marijuana? Was that a problem? Was that why you would not be hired at the state university, by the county or by the city? Or are you Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender/Queer or something. Good God, you don’t follow one of those CULTS do you? Maybe you still smoke pot and listen to rock and roll and live with your boy or girlfriend without the blessing of a marriage certificate. None of which are good reasons to keep you from a job, especially if you are a college graduate.
no one works harder to be disliked than Paltrow
I live on food stamps, having to try to work around two deadly diseases, type II diabetes an gastroparisis. I’m disabled and am stuck with whatever the government decides I deserve. It sucks and to all those dingbats who think we eat like kings…live our lives and then we’ll talk.
Its hard enough with a food budget of $100 a week, honestly.
$29/week is not the maximum EBT limit for one person; that amount, while still qualifying for EBT assistance, is reflective of an income a bit higher that assumes only partial assistance is needed. As someone who has been on food stamps I say that.
It’s a great reflective piece, but where did this $29 come from? I feel like that’s tarnishing what is really an important issue.
Isn’t that the exact purpose of this though? To show people that $29 a week for food is not enough? So by not being able to live off $29, isn’t she proving the point? How is she failing?
Why did she buy from Safeway? Safeway is the MOST overpriced grocery store. Most people on SNAP purchase from employee-owned stores like Winco and FoodMaxx. Why that might knock down the price from $29 to about $23, that amount of food is what most people use for ONE DINNER.
I give her credit for trying at least. Now she knows how hard it really is to eat healthy while poor. Maybe it’s changed her perspective on things.
nine limes? what nutrition is that?
“If you buy one of those tubes of ground beef at the beginning of the month, costing you about 1/5th of your benefit, you may have enough to eat Hamburger Helper once a week. If you don’t mind the risk of E. coli that is.” E.Coli? What? You know you’re supposed to COOK meat, right?
Also, Was GP actually trying to show the poors what to eat on that budget or is her point to say that $29/week/person is *not* enough to actually live on?
Some birds cannot live on $29. Most dogs eat better. A good steak can cost $29.
Good for you Gwyneth for trying, for even trying to see how a lot of us have had to learn to get by from time to time, but I’m not an expert by any means, but I think mothers and grandmothers tell you how to save from when your little and it stays with u, so u remember when you fall on hard times. I dnt think someone who’s come from a blessed life can really understand tht. No disrespect by any means.
Are You serious? Really? Check your history.
Seriously? Really? Check your history.
Conservatives want us to live on our animal instincts, which can end up with us eating each other
Poor is not an economic term really (im not attacking you over semantics). Rich and poor are descriptions of the soul. I’ve known multimillionaires who were as poor as the ocean is wide. It’s unfortunate that those are the actual poor people who expect a free ride on the backs of the rest.
Perhaps they should make a law prohibiting them from buying caviar and truffles?
pot calling the kettle black
I work full time, my husband is disabled and NOT on SSD or SSI yet. We are trying. But we are a family of 4. We get SNAP. There’s a serious lack of logic and understanding of the working poor:
Republican logic:
Poor person: I’m poor, can you help me?
Republican: Get job!!
Poor person: Ok, I got a job. I work 40 hours a week, but it’s minimum wage, and I can’t afford to live… Can you help me?
Republican: Go to school, get a better job!!
Poor person: I can’t afford school, you raised interest rates on student loans. I can’t even afford rent…
Republican: So get a second job!!
Poor person: Ok, I got a second job, now. But I work 70 hours a week, there’s no time for school…
Republican: Pull yourself up by the boot straps!
Poor person: I’m exhausted, I think I need to see a doctor, but my employers don’t provide insurance, and insurance is so expensive.
Republican: Well too bad I voted against the affordable care act!
Poor person: remind me again why I should vote for you?
Republican: Because I care about poor people!
I eat on $39 a week by choice and have some left over.
Although she’s really not that far off.. ditch the limes and parsley in favor of some protein, legumes and tofu are fairly inexpensive… and you’ve got eggs for breakfast, salad lunch, and beans and rice or burritos for dinner… it’s not glamorous, but it’s inexpensive and nutritious.
Yes. SNAP was cut substantially in the most recent farm bill passed by Republicans.
The ACA expanded Medicare.
Ok? You and everyone else on the planet… well almost everyone, some people were born with silver spoons.
Many Jews try very hard to be sympathetic to the needs of the poor. Charity towards others is a strong faith trait, but this actress soon found this to be too difficult. That is very telling about the difficult plight of the American poor…
The ridiculous stories about gambling and cruises almost certainly comes down to a benefits card being used at an ATM on a boat or at a casino. Now, that doesn’t tell anyone anything about how the money was actually used, or how the person came about being at that ATM (for instance, if you work part-time at the casino, that ATM makes sense, doesn’t it?), but dog forbid that common sense come into the equation.
You *do* realize that when people lose their jobs or apply for SNAP, they don’t have all their possessions taken away from them? Oddly enough, if they bought jewelry when they were employed, they just might still own it later (and just because someone is wearing jewelry doesn’t mean that it’s worth anything to pawn). Just because some idiot wants to blather claims about welfare queens living large on their TANF check doesn’t make it so.
Which is the absolutely *maximum* benefit, not the typical benefit. Only a family with zero income is going to qualify for that amount - and if you have no income, then SNAP really isn’t ‘supplementing’, is it?
Know what the average income is of an elderly SNAP recipient? It’s their $900/month Social Security check. Know what their SNAP benefit is with that income? $16.
The conservative Heritage Foundation has tried to claim that if you have a refrigerator you are not poor though.
Apparently when you fall on hard times and have to apply for assistance you are supposed to go get your tattoos you paid for in better times laser-ed off.
I wish people would lay off her. Yes her initial choices were poor, but so is everyone who’s had to rely on SNAP for the first time. It takes a little time to learn budgeting skills.