Posted on 05/16/2008 1:19:15 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Food stamp recipients pinched by high food prices
By DON BABWIN, Associated Press Writer 9 minutes ago
Danielle Brown stands outside a South Side market at midnight, braving the spring chill for her first chance to buy groceries since her food stamps ran out nearly two weeks ago.
For days, Brown said, she has been turning cans of "whatever we got in the cabinet" into breakfast, lunch and dinner for her children, ages 1 and 3.
"Ain't got no food left, the kids are probably hungry," said Brown, a 23-year-old single mother who relies heavily on her $312 monthly allotment of food stamps a ration adjusted just once a year, in October.
This is what the skyrocketing cost of food looks like at street level: Poor people whose food stamps don't buy as much as they once did rushing into a store in the dead of night, filling shopping carts with cereal, eggs and milk so their kids can wake up on the first day of the month to a decent meal.
"People with incomes below the poverty threshold are in dire straits because not only are food prices increasing but the food stamps they are receiving have not increased," said Dr. John Cook, an associate professor at Boston University's medical school who has studied the food stamp program, particularly how it affects children.
On the South Side of Chicago, people like Brown wait for the stroke of midnight, when one month gives way to another and brings a new allotment of food stamps.
Dennis Kladis began opening his family owned One Stop Food & Liquors once a month at midnight nine months ago to give desperate families a chance to buy food as soon as possible.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Maybe if she sold her son’s iPod....
$312.00 a month...she should be on her knees thanking God for such a generous society.
They may have to start spending their beer, cigarette and lottery ticket money on food.
It’s true, food prices have gone up. Two years ago I was spending $75 dollars a week, now we’re up to almost $150.
Plus I spent $100 at the gas station yesterday and only got 27 gallons of gas...That’s just over half a tank.
It’s getting ridiculous.
Well, something more that we’re supposed to be liberal and sympathetic about. I’m sure it can be blamed on George W. Bush and McCain. They aren’t sensitive enough to the poor, I’m sure.
Comment: This is the same district of Reverend Wright, Reverend Jackson, Messiah Obama, Father Pfleger, William Ayres and the rest of the Karl Marx brigade who, after 40 years since the civil rights era, are shown to have failed miserably in bringing relief to the south side underclass.
Ramen noodles!
That’s just the food stamp alotment.
The way the leftists portray the rich and the poor in this country is criminal.
They DON’T include all the subsidies that “the poor” receive in the form of cash, rent subsidies, utility subsidies, EITC, and food stamps in “the poor”’s income stats,
and they also neglect to subtract taxes from “the rich”’s income stats.
This person on welfare, bitching about $315 a month to feed herself - a 23 year old “single mother” and two infants!!!!!
CLEARLY, all her food stamps are NOT going for food — or she is making equally poor decisions in her shopping as she has in her personal life.
Frankly — I fear we are simply getting more of what we subsidize...
We feed the irresponsible and their bastard offspring..and we get more.
This seems to have become a “career decision” for some folks.....
She’s got a child that is 1 year old. She should still have a good handle on the whereabouts of “daddy.” Maybe HE could help out with feeding HIS kids.
The poor are entitled to steaks and lobsters for their foodstamps.
Well, they’re entitled AT LEAST to already prepared foods, so they won’t have to prepare them themselves.
I have zero sympathy.
She obviously doesn’t know how to spend her money.
Example, for about 30 dollars she can buy a month’s worth of bread, milk and eggs.
That leaves her with 280. If she buys junk like chips and ice cream well yes, she will run out of money.
Ramen Noodles lady!
$312 a month to feed herself and two babies and she doesn’t have enough? I feed myself for less than half that, and I ain’t exactly frugal.
>>soda pop, bags of cookies and chips much of it cheaper than healthier food are doing what they can to stretch their shrinking buying power.
Say what?
How could this NOT be true? It's just a simple matter of economic incentives.
I know, it's "heartless" to say we shouldn't subsidize poor decisions, but WTH do they think is going to happen when there is no "downside" to making poor decisions?
Considering that the government would subsidize her day care for the kids, maybe if she doesn’t want to worry about food stamps running out, she should do what the rest of us do to put food on the table.
It’s called a J-O-B.
Maybe she shouldn’t be having babies she can’t afford to feed
Well, I’d comment, but it would probably be yanked from this thread... :-0
Never fear!
The Farm Bill is here!
Wow, I’m surprised I missed that one. It’s time to make home ec classes for welfare recipients mandatory.
“Women, minorities, AND children hardest hit.”
and another thing Notice in the picture pretty good meat cuts and charcoal.
There are many families which do need the assistance but using this mama as a poster child is pretty clueless if you want to show how the program is falling short...
I remember right out of Air Force and in Chicago in the early 80’s watching mamas in jordace jeans buying wine, cigarettes and cheeze doodles with food stamps
Eggs are currently going for over $3 a dozen, milk $3.89 a gallon. I have no sympathy for this breeding machine, but you obviously don't shop.
Oh boo fricking hoo. My groceries have gone up too and so has everything else, but I pay for my food. My daugher was working at a grocery store part time and said the people using their Lone Star Card were some of the rudest and were always saying she rang up something wrong.
Get a job and try to feed your kids like the rest of us lady.
“Ain’t got no money,
Can’t buy no grub;
Backbone and navel,
Doin’ the belly rub!
After all my hard travellin’,
Things ‘bout goin’ my way..”
And then there is this golden oldie:
Got lots of forks...
Lots of knives...
... Gotta cut somethin’
Yeah riiiight! The dollar for food goes far at that place.
“>>soda pop, bags of cookies and chips much of it cheaper than healthier food are doing what they can to stretch their shrinking buying power.”
Probably bought from the most expensive C-Store in town too. I worked at a C-Store through college and I can assure you MANY welfare people like her blew their food stamps on expensive convienience store junk and whatever silver change they got often went to cigs and beer.
Kid 1 comes in with a food stamp and buys a nickel candy, takes change and goes to car.
Kid 2 comes in and does the same.
Kid 3 does it again.
Mom then walks in and pays for a tallboy and a half pack of Newports with change.
I saw it every week.
Yes I do.
Around here milk is about 3.19. A dozen eggs are 1.55.
Boy, you are mean spirited and likely racist.<>
$312/mo and she ran out 2 weeks before her next payout?????
So she spends about $600/mo on FOOD at taxpayer expense?????
Did she forget to mention the WIC handouts she gets for the two kids and probably for herself? Being on food stamps automatically qualifies them for WIC, which provides a generous quantity of free milk, cheese, cereal, juice, and I forget what else. I used to work for WIC. Had to quit because I couldn’t stomach it.
Well, since most liberals are anti creationists and lean toward Darwinist theory.....
I find it conflicting theory/practice for Leftists/Liberals to be the champions of supporting folks who SHOULD be supporting themselves.
Why not let the Darwinist NATURAL selection process proceed and allow folks to fail survival (Die out for you folks in Rio Linda) in an environment they are ill equipped to survive????
Just asking....
But I feel they can't have it both ways, can they????
Now....I like grilling out as much as the next guy. But there are more cost-effective ways of preparing a meal.
Also, I would doubt that a bag of charcoal is covered by Food Stamps. But I could be wrong.
That's funny.
Take a step back and look at their goal - destruction of our culture.
Both of your assertions, though seemingly contradictory, work toward the same goal.
Destroying people’s initiative and keeping them on public assistance for generations destroys our society.
Promoting a Godless ideology that denies moral absolutes also works towards the same goal.
This is a case that deserves our sympathy, not scorn. Given the above quote, it's likely that she just doesn't have the skills needed to learn how to boil water or safely use a sharp knife.
Duh. They probably buy sugar cakes and chips and soda.
Beans, rice, seasonings, potatoes, OJ, bananas, lentils (a bean but almost a separate food), and a few more and those children would be as healthy as elephants. Instead, duh, “Buy me those Twinkies mom” “Duh, OK”
And here lies the crux of the issue. I just got groceries last night. Couple of trays of Chips Ahoy were $8, regular price. Flour, Eggs, Milk, Sugar, etc to make the same cookies, along with a ton of other, more nutritious food? More than $8...but not much more.
I'll be glad when the MSM stops spoonfeeding us this crap.
Actually, in my neck of the woods large AA’s are $1.45 and a gallon of 2% is $2.99, and that’s shopping at the expensive shops - bargains can be found if you try....
That’s what I had for lunch..........and yesterday.........and the day before........
Those are NOT Chicagoland prices.
The other day I was in Whole Foods in Willowbrook, IL (not exactly a down-and-out neighborhood) and the people in front of me were using their Link Card (what we have in IL instead of food stamps, it’s like a credit card instead of actual food stamps) by buy ice cream and junk food. Even Whole Foods store brand is expensive.
About a year ago I was in the regular grocery store behind some teenage girls using their Link Card to buy chips and ice cream. They were thowing a fit because their card wouldn’t work. We saw them drive away in their fairly new Cadillac.
Pure and simple, it's all about the votes.
Notice the freeloader in the article has spent her FREE $312 "nearly two weeks ago"......
and not ONE WHINE re: her "babies daddies" feeding his (their) kids.
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.