This discussion reminds me of some of my father’s rather blunt rants... before he moved from a minority & financially distressed town to where he is now, he would complain every time he went to the grocery store... when he would be in line near or behind someone paying with the old-style food stamps - proudly buying a cart full of items he didn’t even purchase for himself (high-end meats and all name-brand canned foods), then watch them load their cart(s)-full of expensive groceries into the trunk of their late-model Cadillac or other expensive automobile that was parked out front in the fire lane...
He would be steaming mad. And then I began noticing not only what he did - but those who would go through the checkout line - pay for a cart full of groceries, then whip out a big roll of cash to pay for the 2nd cart full of beer and cartons of cigarettes...
Growing up, I gained an appreciation for generics, and later, store branded products - as a legitimate means of stretching the $. As an adult, and as a father with a modest income, these lessons continue to pay dividends. Yet many public assistance recipients completely lack such reasoning. They fill carts full of the most expensive, brand-name, foods- along with the more “prime” cuts of meat instead of the less expensive varieties - thus spending more, and feeding less...
And we won’t even go into the movement now to require recipients of social help to undergo drug testing...
The year was 1997. My son was 2 yrs old, my first husband was 30 and dying of lung cancer. He was unable to work and we were financially wrung out and getting by on disability payments from his employer. I was a stay at home mom who took care of the boy, the hubby, and everything else. We needed help and our families could not subsidize our household. I got qualified for WIC vouchers for our son. Great thing, made it a whole lot easier to buy nutritious food for the child. One problem, the vouchers required, seriously REQUIRED, us to purchase the more expensive name brand items. The list of brands was printed right on the voucher. I could have gotten 3 times as much of the same product if I had been allowed to get the generic. I suspect that food stamp programs might impose similar restrictions in some cases. That does not excuse the people who are abusing the system, and it says a lot about the system itself.