[RegulatorCountry]

The issue is buying specialty foods that are costly luxuries on the public dime when prudence calls for cutting back to basics. It’s galling to see subsistence aid used for excess instead of survival. Either the individuals purchasing these items don’t really need the assistance, or the assistance is entirely too generous, in a time when we are facing cutbacks everywhere and potential tremendous tax increases. These people come across as self absorbed pigs, quite honestly. Rice and beans won’t kill them. Being humbled quite possibly would do them some good down the road.

[muawiyah]

Sure, that's always a problem ~ so is the cost of auditing ~ and it's a very real cost. Turning these people lose to buy costly beef or less costly salmon is a risk we take ~ we went through this over lobster a month ago ~ lobster's market was tanking and there was a surplus catch.

Capitalist theory said the price should drop. You wouldn't believe how many Freepers refused to believe a price could ever come down due to oversupply and competition.

Same thing here ~ salmon is not currently a luxury food. Steak is. The price of beans is up. So is wheat. So is corn. So is rice, but if you shop carefully you can nick a buck off here or there.

Some prefer soup kitchens and bread lines.

[A_perfect_lady]

It's also increasingly clear that today's college grads won't accept "just any job." It has to be their calling, don't you know. It has to be fulfilling. It has to have a certain level of dignity, befitting their station. One suspects that someone with his credentials could get a job, just not the perfect job, the dream job. It might be something "below" him.

But now we make sure no one has to sink to the shameful level of doing a job that isn't one's preferred job. Indeed, we have to maintain them in the style to which they have become accustomed.

Welfare changes people, it really does. I'll never forget when one of my former best friends went on welfare. Her attitude gradually went from "I just want a job, any job," to "I'm not driving 20 miles each way. I'm not giving up my benefits for something that pays less than my previous job. I've got six more months of benefits coming, I'm not doing this, or that, or ..."

[sheana]

What you said plus the fact that the people paying the bills, us, are not shopping at Whole Foods, etc. We are out stocking up on cheap sale items. It seems to me that if they are eating better than the people paying the bills they are receiving way too much.

[danielmryan]

I agree. If those people had used their EBT cards for flour, rice, pizza sauce, frozen vegetables, canned soups, tuna, chicken legs, pre-made lasagna, bread, peanut butter, sliced ham and bologna, etc. then almost no-one here would begrudge them the aid. Buying foods that are at least apparently luxury foods has an "in-your-face" quality that grates a lot of people here.

It's not dissimilar to using social assistance money for regular belts of "medicinal" booze.