Underemployed....can qualify one or one's family for food stamps
http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/applicant_recipients/eligibility.htm#employment
Unemployment is down, but why did America set a record 47.8 million on food stamps?
by moshe 70 Replies latest social current
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wasblind
Hello Moshe,
Jobs that paid good are now gone, wal-mart and Mcdonalds now replace these as income
these low wage jobs don't even schedule the workers to be able to make 40 hours
Monday - Friday. So when they work on the weekends or even 12 hours in a day
they still don't get over time.
And even if they are schedualed to work. That may change if business is slow
Many people would love to not have to jump hoops for assistance
But it's better than not havin' a safety net at all
No one would want to relive the 1930's when there were no safety nets at all
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moshe
Thanks goodness we have this program to make sure children have food- I hope it works that way.-- but we have seen reports that Snap cards are being used to buy an awful lot of junk/snack foods at corner markets.
I agree they are counting all these part time under employed workers as fully employed- and at some point after their unemployment runs out I know a lot of people who don't find jobs just aren't being counted as unemployed by the main labor department unemployment number that the news media likes to use- the true number is more like 14% .
Also, I think we are seeing the beginning wave of baby boomer retirements- and if Social Security is your onLy source of income, i hope the retirees who qualify aren't too proud to sign up for a Snap card- it might be the first time for many to ask for governmental aid. Nutrition is so important to keep the elderly healthy. Go and apply , if you are in need of help- don't assume you don't qualify.
- So to sum it up- our economy is not getting much better (speaking as a working class person)- people are still hurting. Our Synagogue has pledged to provide 1500 food items to our local food pantry in the month of April. Lets see what we all can do to help our deserving neighbors out.
Wasblind and I know what a good job is- We need to ask our congressmen to work towards making better jobs available and to encourage businesses to stay in the USA. A good job is way better than being on welfare.
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moshe
Another history lesson- when i graduated from highschool I was 18 and went to apply for jobs at factories- I had 3 months before college started-
The first place I applied was a GE factory- walked into HR that morning and filled out an application- handed it to the secretary- she looked it over and asked me to have a seat.
A few minutes later I was called into the HR office. He asked me some questions- I could tell he liked that I was a farm boy and knew about that thing called " manual work".- next I was sent to the nurse- a doctor gave me a 10 minute physical- they sent me back to HR down the hall. "have a seat Mr Smith". It was almost lunch time now. I had another visit with the HR man- he asked me- "can you start work at 3:30 pm on 2nd shift tonight?
So went home and changed clothes and my mother packed me my dinner bucket for the nightshift- We were busy and I worked a lot of overtime- my family was happy I could bring home money- and help out them, too.
That is how life used to be in America. That GE factory hired me on the spot, because they knew if they let me walk another factory would hire me first-
Makes me sad just thinking about how life has gone to the dogs for the working families of America.
That GE factory closed up about 30 years later- GE sent the work to Mexico. Many people who worked there didn't even own cars- they walked to work- shopped at the corner grocery and took the bus ( until that was eliminated by the city to save money) downtown to shop at Sears and Montgomery Wards.
Friday night downtown was grand- folks cashed their paychecks (some companies still paid by cash back then(60's)- cash money in a pay envelope)- and strolled the streets- movies were cheap- it was affordable for the whole family to go to movie. The only people who struggled were the real widows and orphans- an able bodied man worked- he didn't hang out on the corner all day with his gang members.
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TotallyADD
Both reason have been mention. (Reason #1) Most of those on food stamps are hard working people. Fullfilling the so called social contract. Sense the 1000 point of lights era wages have been going down and down except for the very wealthy they been going up and up. The wage gap is wider than ever and getting wider. I don't understand why the very rich have to have every dollar there is but we are reaching a point were soon no one will be able to afford anything. (Reason #2) Farm subsidies from the govt. mostly go to corn, wheat and soybeans. With these foods most of it is made into high calorie foods that are cheap to buy. Were the good whole foods fruit, vegtables, milk products are more costly because of lack of subsidies. 50 million people no go hungry in the U.S. Back in 1968 there was a documentary hunger in the U.S.. Sen. Dole had a bill past to help them and Nixson signed it into law. For the most part it worked but in 1980 Regan had that program slashed and stated that chairty groups could help the hungry in U.S. Ever since then more and more are now going hungry even though there are more food banks than ever. The working class better wake up soon take notice and stop the billionaires who are running this country into the ground. That's my 2 cents worth. Totally ADD
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Satanus
The old science fiction books used to predict a future where automated production had become so efficient and cheap and all the basics were basically free. Your obligation was to consume your share. In those stories, the savings were passed on to the consumers. Instead of going that path, the corps have taken controls of most aspects of production, gained virtual monopolies. Instaed, we get the above described environment.
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Sulla
I'm sure there is a certain level of fraud. But focusing on the unemployment rate is probably misleading. If you look at the employment to population ratio, say here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/EMRATIO/
You can get a better idea about the magnitude of the problem. So many people have dropped out of the employment market, that the unemployment rate -- which counts only those people actively looking for work -- is not giving us a picture of where we are. Long story short: we haven't seen rates this low in 30 years. And there isn't much sign of a recovery. This really is the new normal.
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barry
What are food stamps and how does it work?
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moshe
The old science fiction books used to predict a future
that movie last year, Cloud Atlas, really disturbed me- the future has cloned workers who are owned by the Corporation. their memories get erased every night, so they don't go mad working 18 hrs a day- after 12 years they think they are getting freedom and get to move to Hawaii- wrongo- they get turned into high protein shakes instead-
Somehow, It all rings true- companies would love to have healthy workers- with no wages or benefits that they could dispose of before they started getting sick and OLD.
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mrsjones5
What are food stamps and how does it work?
Sorry I cant make the link clickable but it leads to a US government pamphlet that gives an overview of the food stamp program (SNAP):