Posted on 08/22/2011 10:16:25 AM PDT by markomalley
Genna Saucedo supervises cashiers at a Wal-Mart in Pico Rivera, California, but her wages aren't enough to feed herself and her 12-year-old son.
Saucedo, who earns $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours a week and lives with her mother, is one of the many Americans who survive because of government handouts in what has rapidly become a food stamp nation.
Altogether, there are now almost 46 million people in the United States on food stamps, roughly 15 percent of the population. That's an increase of 74 percent since 2007, just before the financial crisis and a deep recession led to mass job losses.
At the same time, the cost doubled to reach $68 billion in 2010 -- more than a third of the amount the U.S. government received in corporate income tax last year -- which means the program has started to attract the attention of some Republican lawmakers looking for ways to cut the nation's budget deficit.
While there are clearly some cases of abuse by people who claim food stamps but don't really need them, for many Americans like Saucedo there is little current alternative if they are to put food on the table while paying rent and utility bills.
"It's kind of sad that even though I'm working that I need to have government assistance. I have asked them to please put me on full-time so I can have benefits," said the 32-year-old.
She's worked at Wal-Mart for nine months, and applied for food stamps as soon as her probation ended. She said plenty of her colleagues are in the same situation.
(Excerpt) Read more at old.news.yahoo.com ...
I hope this doesn’t sound heartless, but I often see people with food stamps dressed very nicely, with fancy cell phones, and jewelry.
If we ended all government subsidies for illegal aliens in our country, millions of them would go home. That significant reduction in the labor pool would make it much easier for Genna Saucedo to find full-time work, and might increase her hourly wage as well.
Not remotely heartless.
Maybe if some of those jobs picking the produce Americans don't want to pick were left over from our undocumented visitors from elsewhere, the food stamp set could pick their own.
Or not...might mess up their custom nails.
And big SUVs, $200 manicures. One of the problems I have with this is that many, many of the schools are feeding children at least 2 meals a day, year-round, but this has not caused a decrease in the food stamps that the family gets. Around here, they fed the whole family this summer, for 2 meals a day. So we are paying twice to feed many of the same people. If we are providing full meals, the food stamps need to be reduced.
And where's the boy's father?
****but I often see people with food stamps dressed very nicely, with fancy cell phones, and jewelry.****
Thirty five years ago there was a nice scandal about auto dealers accepting food stamps for down payments on new autos. Food stamps had become a secondary currency in the US.
In Washington, D.C. The government is the father to a lot of children.
i don’t care how they dress
stealing money from one person and giving it to another is just wrong
all of this welfare craziness should be eliminated completely
Rewarding irresponsibility is never sustainable. That’s my biggest concern regarding welfare. If someone has a run of misfortune and needs assistantance, I’m ok with that but when you have millions of people using welfare as a permanent survival solution, I have to protest. I definitely have a problem with the taxpayers being forced to subsidize irresponsible reproductive behaviors. This is unsustainable and needs to come to an end.
You often see fat people on food stamps too..its kind of hard to believe they are starving.
“USA becomes Food Stamp Nation but is it sustainable?”
####
The fact that this abominable scenario is posed as a question, qualifies this no talent journalist for an immediate F- in Macroeconomics 101.
Of course it is, silly. The government explained it to me. Food stamps (and unemployment) allows people to buy FOOD! And where does the food come from? The STORE! And how does it get to the store? TRUCKS! So without food stamps, all the truckers would be out of business, there would be no workers stocking food in stores, and we would all starve! /s
Sustainable? Hardly, Food Stamps are a MUST in the path to economic progress and a booming economy. The program now only encompasses 45 million Americans. To get the economy going, we MUST get it up, Up and UP.... to 300,000,000 or more!
This is because we now know from Ag Sec Tom Vilsack that a dollar investment in food stamps yields $1.84 in GDP due to the multiplier effect.
“If we ended all government subsidies for illegal aliens in our country, millions of them would go home.”
Great idea, and who could argue with that? God knows the Mexicans don’t pay us any subsidies when we’re in Mexico, legally or not.
What subsidies are we paying to illegal aliens anyway? Let me know so I can start lobbying my congressman about them.
For years our government has pursued policies that reduced the wages of the lowest paid Americans, while also instituting programs such as food stamps and medicaid to provide things they can’t afford on low wages.
Welfare and programs that provide benefits to lower wage earners now total $930 billion per year and climbing.
We will never even make a dent in our huge budget deficits and mushrooming national debt until there are decent paying jobs that enable the lower paid workers to provide for their own needs.
But all those imports are so “cheap” and that illegal alien labor is also “cheap”.
Food Stamps are a MUST in the path to economic progress and a booming economy.
And they now come with their own built-in lobbying committee.
WalMart
PigglyWiggly
Publix
Kroger
Safeway
A&P
Meijers
etc. etc. etc. etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.