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Comment by _chu1 | Hacker News Reader

Awkward program that makes no sense, food stamps actively encourage you to not get a job. My sister and her husband had a 1 year old and were given food stamps, but were revoked after her husband had got a job and they told them this beforehand. People who can afford food get food stamps to buy junk food because anything but alcoholic beverages at a grocery store can be bought on food stamps, so you can quite literally get candy and energy drinks with food stamps.

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> My sister and her husband had a 1 year old and were given food stamps, but were revoked after her husband had got a job and they told them this beforehand.

The average family on food stamps gets $350 or so a month. (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/19/what-the-...) No one's turning down a job over that.

> anything but alcoholic beverages at a grocery store can be bought on food stamps

This is similarly untrue. SNAP forbids hot prepared food, which means that super-cheap $5 Costco chicken isn't an option, and folks in shelters without cooking facilities may struggle to find useful choices.

WIC is substantially more painful; only certain approved products can be purchased, and it's very specific; an 8oz container of something might be covered, but when the manufacturer cuts it down to 7.6oz it's no longer purchasable.

My family received this benefit when my father broke his leg and was unable to work. It was amazing and me and little sisters didn't starve for the several months when we had no money.

An acquaintance of our family is on the program and sells her card to buy heroin. She begs for food from shelters for her kids because 'the government isn't helping her'

It's the same program. Feel free to cherry pick which story above fits your narrative, they are both true.

Used for good and used for bad. I never said food stamps should be taken away and people should starve, I said the program should be modified to handle abuse better. You shouldn't be able to buy candy and soda with food stamps, you should be able to get premade food like those chickens from Costco. Disappoined? Get a job.

> My family received this benefit when my father broke his leg and was unable to work. It was amazing and me and little sisters didn't starve for the several months when we had no money.

This is tackling the problem from the wrong side. Breaking a leg and being unable to work should not keep youe employer (or your medical insurance) from paying your salary. You know, like in most developed countries (except the US). People should be able to afford being sick, even for extended periods, with full salary (okay, it drops to around 70% after 12 weeks or so)

Given the fact that "food stamps", as posted in another comment, is a colloquial term, this is absolutely not true. WIC, for instance, gives you a slip of paper with a specific list of the foods and amounts of those foods that you can buy. This is often limited to things like milk, cereal, eggs, baby formula, etc.

WIC and friends are funded by the feds but implemented by the states, and those on the programs know what can be bought where.

Ask any grocery clerk; it’s very common to see someone use SNAP to buy the listed items and then immediately afterwards spend their cash on the other things. Funds are fungible, after all.

All of which isn’t really a big deal, tbh. However the program is so large and the hoverment abandoning the purchasing power they could have if they dictated more the “buyables” is a regret. They could have “WIC” stamps on foods that are not only healthy but actively good, low in sugars, etc.

> Ask any grocery clerk; it’s very common to see someone use SNAP to buy the listed items and then immediately afterwards spend their cash on the other things. Funds are fungible, after all.

Why is this at all surprising? SNAP doesn't cover anything non-food, like cleaning supplies; people still need toilet paper and soap.

It's called "Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program". "Supplemental" seems to perfectly describe that behavior.

The "stereotypical" is someone buying food with SNAP and then spending their own money on liquor and junk food.

But that's an acceptable price, imo. You will always have scofflaws and people who just want to be fat, but that's part of the price of a society.

Right - I was that grocery clerk at another point in my life. The cashier processing the WIC purchases, specifically. That's why I take issue with such generalizations about abuse of the program. Yes, your own funds are used to purchase the foods not listed on your WIC check, but I saw many people come through who used it to make "good" purchases. Sure, maybe they weren't the pinnacle of health, but at least it looked like they were trying, as opposed to the stereotype of wasting it on junk food and alcohol.

I was mostly talking about SNAP/EBT

Food stamps and SNAP should just be blanket available to anyone who bothers asking, even bill gates. Or at least make it a “once on, can’t lose for X years” type of thing, and when lost it peters out instead of a hard cutoff.

The ease of losing the bennies and the annoyance of handling it is bunk.

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