What I Learned from a Week on Food Stamps: Paul Ryan Couldn’t Be Any More Wrong

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/food/what-i-learned-week-food-stamps-paul-ryan-couldnt-be-any-more-wrong

“Can I help you with something?” said a pleasant English-accented voice. It was 4:46 p.m. on a Saturday and I’d been staring — face contorted with confusion — at the buzzer directory of 12 East 14th St. None of the names on the fourth floor suggested I was in the right place.

It was then that I spun around to see a tall man in his mid- to late 30s leading a baby-bearing stroller into what it was now clear to me was an apartment building.

“I think I have the wrong address,” I stammered.

“Sometimes people…” the English dad started to say before trailing off. Recalibrating, he got to the point: “The welfare center is West 14th Street.”

I felt the blood rush to my face; I could no longer meet his eyes. I mumbled something quick about being on assignment, then thanked him before scurrying across Fifth Avenue.

What I didn’t explain to that English dad was that, as part of the story I was writing, I had decided to experience for myself what it’s like to survive on money from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistant Program (SNAP), better known to most as “food stamps.” To apply, one must go to one of 16 food-stamp centers for an application and interview. I wondered how many of the 1.8 million people in the city who are on SNAP — including a full third of Brooklynites — felt as sheepish as I did at being pegged needing what that dad had called “welfare.”

[BeyondGeography]

1. 41 bucks for 21 meals

And they want to cut it. How Christian.

[Glitterati]

2. No, they DID cut it. Now they want to cut some more

I lived for a year on $106.00/month for 2 when my daughter was in school. Now that she's 18, I would qualify for $16.00/per month if I bothered to apply for them.

Every month, I would spend my $106.00 worth of food stamps on meats (trust me honey, not lobster which I can't eat because of my Graves disease!) and pay cash from my social security for the rest of the food.

You learn how to stretch a food budget and cook EVERY meal at home. Fast food? We don't eat fast food! And, given my disease, I MUST eat properly or it's likely to kill me.

[marmar]

3. k/r

[LWolf]

4. This is well worth reading the whole thing.

I'm tearing up a bit, remembering what it was like to budget like that, to make sure I didn't run out of food before the end of the week and the next paycheck, to make sure that my kids would have 3 meals every day.

It's sometimes like that now, but not because I don't make a good wage. The economy crash left me holding more expenses than my now lower wage covers, so I'm always scraping at the end of the month. It can be tense and uncomfortable, but it's not, like one person quoted in the article said, "undoable." It keeps me constantly thinking about the way too many people worse off.

I don't know how people can be so callous; can have such little empathy for the suffering of those around them.