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 ...
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.
Whatever happened to getting staples?
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
“a graduate student in poetry”
And they wonder why they can’t find a job.
No difference. In fact, there are no stamps anymore. Its all electronic now, I'm told.
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