Posted on 07/26/2016 8:36:44 AM PDT by milton23
Mamaw encouraged me to get a job—she told me that it would be good for me and that I needed to learn the value of a dollar. When her encouragement fell on deaf ears, she then demanded that I get a job, and so I did, as a cashier at Dillman’s, a local grocery store.
Working as a cashier turned me into an amateur sociologist. A frenetic stress animated so many of our customers. One of our neighbors would walk in and yell at me for the smallest of transgressions—not smiling at her, or bagging the groceries too heavy one day or too light the next. Some came into the store in a hurry, pacing between aisles, looking frantically for a particular item. But others waded through the aisles deliberately, carefully marking each item off of their list.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...
The sole purpose of welfare is to put cash in the hands of people who will spend it quickly on sh!t that normal people would never buy themselves.
And covered in tattoos. I can not figure out where they get the money to get all the tattoos.
Well, he was able to confirm his ID techniques...when they pulled out their EBT cards.
I worked as a cashier in college. It got to where I could tell just by looking at someone whether or not they’d be paying with foodstamps, with 98% accuracy.
In some ways, that was the most depressing part of the job.
Two of my daughters worked retail for a couple years so they could help pay for college and their car. It’s now years later I’m still working very hard to eliminate from them their burned in life’s lessons what could be interpreted as having racist inclinations. The stories they told would boil your blood as it obviously did to them. Scarred for life, I’m afraid.
Don’t forget Food Stamps are also corporate welfare. All of those billions of dollars eventually end up in the Food Companies coffers and on their bottom line. If people were not spending food stamps, a lot of that convince and junk food would not be sold.
Food Stamps are also crony capitalism.
momma rolled up in a caddy with about six kids. she sat in the car and sent the kids in one at a time with a $1 food stamp. The kid bought the cheapest thing possible....so they could get change. Real Money.
When the kids had acquired enough money they took it to momma. She waddled into the store and bought her cigs with the change. Not a darn thing I could do about it. She was laughing the whole time.
There was one woman who came in and I felt sorry for her. She had two kids and she was trying to use WIC. The items she were trying to buy weren't covered by WIC. You could see the defeat in her fade. I really think she was ashamed to be using WIC unlike the other momma who was proud to be beating the system.
bkmk
It was different back in the day. You had to whip out actual food STAMPS to pay. Everyone behind you in line could see them. You had to sort out eligible and non-eligible items on the belt, and the cashier had to issue you a credit slip for any change due.
Now it’s all handled online with the swipe of a debit card. Likely the next person does not even know it’s a SNAP purchase unless they are watching closely.
B
Yet the store customers were using cell phones. I wondered about that, too. The earliest date I can find on him is in the Marines in 2003. I'm assuming his grocery job was in high school or shortly after graduation. I know I'm always behind the times but my first pocket carrying sized cell phone wasn't bought until 2005. What year did people start gabbing on the cells at the grocery store?
You seem to be blaming business for the welfare state.
I must say that’s a novel way of thinking.
Oh it was Different for sure. I worked in a pharmacy back in the early 80s . A mom would come in with her welfare card . It was a thin cardboard looking card and on it would be listed her name and the names of her children . Invariably those children have different last names . She would come in for prescription and yell back to the pharmacist that she did not want generic . The pharmacist would tell her that state law said he had to use generic unless it wasn’t available . Then she would stand in line for her lottery ticket and get her cigarettes while yelling at the kids that they could not get their candy . Finally she had to sign a book when the prescription came .
Repeat above scenario as nauseam.
What happens when we can no longer afford to pay for it all?
People on welfare have probably not worked in years and are complete dependents on system. They have no skills, no work history, and probably have never graduated from High School. Worst of all they lack basic skills and a good work ethic. They were probably way overweight and with a myriad of health issues and probably drug dependency. Unfortunately, the system is designed to make them hopeless dependents. This is welfare’s biggest failure.
What happens when their benefits are cut? Or worse, the few people still working, barely making a living, are forced to pay more taxes so that those on welfare can continue to receive their benefits?
It will not end well.
Thanks for the post.
This is from a book called Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis.
This is a passage from the Christianity Today review:
—
Vance is not ashamed of his roots. But he cannot abide the suspicion of institutions and outsiders. Nor can he tolerate his people’s quickness to blame others for their problems and their certainty that the deck is stacked against them. Such perspectives help explain the white working class’s attachment to political leaders who promise good jobs, better lives, and protection from outsiders. When you lose hope that you can better your own circumstances, someone else has to do it for you.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/julaug/where-white-working-class-went-wrong.html
—
Thanks again, Milton, I had not heard of this book.
When I was in college, all my friends and I could afford was a 45 cent can of spaghetti on Saturdays when the lunchroom was closed. Guess that’s why we graduated not owing a student loan.
First, food stamp piglets are almost always obese. And I'm not talking about the low end of the classification.
At this time, the real paper "stamps" or more accurately, "coupons," were used. Odd dollar change was dispense in legal coins, and this feature was capitalized on egregiously. Buy a pack of gum (yes, that qualified for food stamps), repeat, and use the accumulated change to buy cigarettes. This happened frequently.
Food coupons were frequently traded as currency, at a discount, obviously. And the illicit drug industry was the economy. Although cashiers were allowed to request the issued I.D. which came with the food coupon program, we were pressed for time and could not always do this. So the negotiable instruments were essentially "bearer bonds" for whoever possessed them. Fertile ground for fraud.
The types of "food" allowable was appalling, thanks to government ineptness. Loads of fatty meat and snack cakes made up the bulk of the haul. Healthy, economical purchases were not required.
If it were up to me, dry beans, vegetables, and basic fruit would be the limit.
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