Posted on 11/12/2012 12:47:47 PM PST by mojito
In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore — equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird — Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric....
“I have $80 bucks left!” Magida said. “I’m so happy!”
“I have $12,” Mak said with a frown.
The two friends weren’t tabulating the cash in their wallets but what remained of the monthly allotment on their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit cards, the official new term for...food stamps.
Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living until the recession caused arts funding...to dry up. She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she’s used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house...and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away....
Mak, 31, grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else. About half of his friends in Baltimore have been getting food stamps since the economy toppled, so he decided to give it a try; to his delight, he qualified for $200 a month.
“I’m sort of a foodie, and I’m not going to do the ‘living off ramen’ thing,” he said, fondly remembering a recent meal he’d prepared of roasted rabbit with butter, tarragon and sweet potatoes. “I used to think that you could only get processed food and government cheese on food stamps, but it’s great that you can get anything.”
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
h/t Vanderluen.
everyone should apply for food stamps, lets break this government so we can end it and start fresh.
I think this is part of the problem...
Yeah, It’s a great lifestyle... until it isn’t.
Just wait until the ‘necessary’ pullbacks on food stamps occur. Fifty bucks here, (Ohio), fifty bucks there and then you’re doing dumpster diving and raiding other people’s gardens for food.
In light of what I did during my twenties, I just want to smack the spoiled brats. Two jobs, school, and ramen were my life.
...then starve, loser. Or go with basics like beans, rice, and potatoes.
(I'm referring to the quoted speaker, not you, grimalkin.)
So, Magida got a useless degree in college. Mak left a real job (albeit one that could have been in trouble) for an incredibly low-paying job with no actual future.
I’m with you guys—smacks for both of them.
I didn’t get to read the entire article—going to salon.com will cause my IQ to drop.
They start raiding gardens and they’re going to get either a buckshot enema or a canine ankle bracelet.
Shame is underrated.
SnakeDoc
I don’t object to people buying good ingredients with food stamps. It’s often cheaper to cook gourmet stuff from scratch than to buy junky boxed, precooked, or frozen dinners with little nutritional value. In fact, I occasionally teach a class for low-income mothers and try to convince them to do just that.
The issue is not what people use food stamps for, it’s who uses them.
That article is from March 15, 2010!!! WHEN there were ONLY 38 millions people on food stamps. NOW there are 47.1 million!!
same here. 2 jobs... Kraft macaroni and cheese and canned green beans (generic) every night of the week except weekends, when I allowed myself to grill hamburger. this was my way of life and I didn’t think to go on the dole.
Wow. Only $350 between the two of them? We saw a lady at a grocery store yesterday that had that much in two carts and paid for it all with the SNAP/grifter card. Nary a hint of shame either.
Powered off-brand Mac-n-cheese here. During college, it was all I could afford.
When I had a few extra dollars, I’d add canned chili to the mix and have “gourmet chilimac”
This is the New Normal, people. No disincentive to get off the dole. “You can buy anything with food stamps now”. If I gave you free stuff, would you turn it down???
Wait until austerity comes. The public leeches will go nuts because their EBT cards wonk work for Brie, Endive, or imported Spanish olives.
Public Assistance used to be an embarrassment. Now it’s an expected public allowance.
Powered off-brand Mac-n-cheese here. During college, it was all I could afford.
When I had a few extra dollars, I’d add canned chili to the mix and have “gourmet chilimac”
This is the New Normal, people. No disincentive to get off the dole. “You can buy anything with food stamps now”. If I gave you free stuff, would you turn it down???
Wait until austerity comes. The public leeches will go nuts because their EBT cards wonk work for Brie, Endive, or imported Spanish olives.
Public Assistance used to be an embarrassment. Now it’s an expected public allowance.
Powered off-brand Mac-n-cheese here. During college, it was all I could afford.
When I had a few extra dollars, I’d add canned chili to the mix and have “gourmet chilimac”
This is the New Normal, people. No disincentive to get off the dole. “You can buy anything with food stamps now”. If I gave you free stuff, would you turn it down???
Wait until austerity comes. The public leeches will go nuts because their EBT cards wonk work for Brie, Endive, or imported Spanish olives.
Public Assistance used to be an embarrassment. Now it’s an expected public allowance.
Powered off-brand Mac-n-cheese here. During college, it was all I could afford.
When I had a few extra dollars, I’d add canned chili to the mix and have “gourmet chilimac”
This is the New Normal, people. No disincentive to get off the dole. “You can buy anything with food stamps now”. If I gave you free stuff, would you turn it down???
Wait until austerity comes. The public leeches will go nuts because their EBT cards wonk work for Brie, Endive, or imported Spanish olives.
Public Assistance used to be an embarrassment. Now it’s an expected public allowance.
Ramen was a luxury. I lived on oatmeal.
Agreed. A Cloward-Piven scenario will actually benefit conservatives. Bankruptcy and/or hyperinflation seems to be unavoidable anyway, so we may as well make it work to the benefit of the producers of society, not the losers featured in this article.
Heck, we ate Hamburger Helper without the Hamburger.
“but it’s great that you can get anything.”
Self respect?
In Baltimordor?
They might be raiding people's gardens for weed ... not so sure about food.
We used to call ground beef Hamburger Helper Helper.
ugh
living large on YOUR dime
Yup, get everything you can. Lets ram that iceberg at flank speed.
I’m now convinced there is no saving the od Republic.
You want a quick education in the conscience of a young nation? Read the comments that accompany the article.
You would think that people would be outraged and calling for an end to this. They’re not. They’re just chatting about how it is and how to get it.
Mooching is now a virtue. Up is down.
Yeah it's great that this U of Chicago grad (how much did that education cost? Apparently he never took any econ classes...) is just living large off the fat of the land, and proud to be featured in Salon.
LOL! That's rough!
The only way “out” is “through”.
We can’t go back - this last election showed that.
The “taker” vote outnumbered the “maker” vote.
Sounds like Orwell in `Down and Out in Paris and London,’ before he went to Spain and got a good look at the Soviets in action and eventually wrote `Nineteen Eightyfour’.
They’re both taking Vitamin S(tupid): “Useless eaters,” as the fascists phrased it. A person who won’t work should not eat (2 Thes. 3:10) Even Lenin agreed with that thought.
It’s like these moochers are the new “mobsters”. The takers stealing from the makers while bragging about it. I keep thinking of the line in the movie “A Bronx Tale” where “C” (Lorenzo) tells his dad, “Sonny was right, the working man’s the sucka”.
We saw a lady at a grocery store yesterday that had that much in two carts and paid for it all with the SNAP/grifter card. Nary a hint of shame either.
Did you see any shame in the (Obama phone lady) during the election??? This is the “go get yours, they owe it to you” attitude
“The working man’s the sucka”
True now more than ever.
If they are truly eligible I see nothing wrong with them deciding to spend their allotment on more expensive food provided it is healthful food and they understand that once the allotment is gone it is gone. Better than buying junk like potato chips and snack cakes.
Lazy bums. Cut em off.
I once worked with a guy who ran a gold mining operation in Arizona. One day he hired a drifter (great welder) who was living in his car. He let him sleep in an old trailer used to store parts. The next day the guy asked for a few bucks for groceries to tide him over.
He came back with some boxes of Kraft Mac 'n Cheese - and a couple of cans of Alpo. Said they made a GREAT casserole and offered some to the owner. He declined.
And now I read of these slackers dining on gourmet rabbit.
go back to giving them actual stamps for food
Is there a difference between food stamps and the access card?
Go back to giving them a sack of rice, a sack of eans and some Gubmint cheese...
When you make people comfortable in their poverty they will never get out of it. Why should they? They have a roof over their head, heat in the winter, AC in the summer and plenty to eat.
No. They get the benefit put onto their card each month. Get this:http://www.kansascity.com/2012/11/12/3912822/missouri-to-audit-food-stamp-program.html
Using them in foreign countries ...
There is a grocery (chain) store on the way to my seasonal home and I would stop there before of got to the house.
I stopped going in there, as I would pay in cash and the register never had enough money in it to make the proper change for the bills that I tendered. It was nerve wracking in that I actually had cash and they would have to get a manager to bring change. Everyone would look to see the guy paying in cash.
Everyone in the store used EBT cards to pay for their bottled water, strip steaks and Edy’s ice cream.
Have started packing a cooler with perishables purchased at the grocery store near my primary residence and would buy milk, eggs and frozen stuff from the old lady who runs a small bodega type of country store nearby.
The two POS’s should be exposed for the leeches they are. College degrees in basket-weaving and they are surprised that they can’t get jobs.
Same here and would suppliment it with a can of cheap spaghetti. Was on the meal plan during the week and it was rare that I ate off campus. Tonight, just put a bought on sale chicken in the oven. Cut off the wings to add to the bag in the freezer for hot wings when there's enough. Also, mustard greens and a salad with chopped onion tops, bell pepper and banana pepper from the garden (which is going to get hit with freezing weather tonight). Which it's a pretty decent dinner, once in a while I'd like to be able to add imported Spanish olives to that salad, switch out the chicken with steak and lobster and finish it off with some gourmet ice cream with fresh berries drizzled with raw honey but I'm not Moochelle nor do I have an EBT card.
I feel like applying for the hell of it.
With SO MANY BUMS on food stamps we need to lower the poverty rate average!!!! Rock their worlds.
When I was off work for 3 weeks on Unemployment Comp. in the 80’s, I lived in Houston, TX. After an afternoon run I’d go to happy hours that fed you well!!! For $3 you could get two drinks and whatever they were dishing for happy hour!! A guy in the next apartment had a list of the places near and what they served on what day!! LOL!!
I was too embarrassed to go to the unemployment office for 2 weeks to apply as I did not understand then that I paid for this. I think benefits were only for 6 weeks then so you had to keep looking and didn’t have time for your brain to numb. We’ve lost Christianity in the ole USA...always just one generation away and we are almost there.
Oh, those hipsters- they are so cool. (not) I have started to openly mock these people, in public.
Just stand behind them at the store and roll my eyes. Talk about how stupid obama voters are when I see Obama stickers on their car, squish my nose up at them like they smell, and let them know I don’t think they are so hep.
No more Mrs. Nice guy.
I was thinking of doing that. going back and forth.. on the idea. I would get $700/month.
The weakest generation.
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