Day 17 of the Food Stamp
Challenge - When you are on a tight budget all your
decisions have consequences and trade-offs. Last night in a fit of hunger
I ate two pieces of bread that were supposed to be this morning's breakfast
toast. No toast for me this morning. So I started the day a little hungry
(and I have to say, since I am not a huge breakfast eater, usually skipping
breakfast is not a big deal for me, so it was a surprise)
And a great dinner: three black bean tacos. A little more salsa tonight, and I skimped on the beans. I have two corn tortillas left, and think I will have black been quesadillas on Thursday or Friday for breakfast (yeah, I know, not normally a breakfast food, but I like breakfast foods for lunch, and dinner foods for breakfast occasionally).
And I am drink a lot more water.
My friend Allison who has embarked on this same challenge wrote that she is reading a great book (and I have to recommend it, as it is really very good) "Nickled and Dimed". Allison wrote: A very interesting read. Some of the critiques of the book have been slamming, because they hated that this woman was so shocked about discoveries on this practice. I am experiencing some of the same surprises and, though slightly embarrassed that it took this practice to get me to feel so passionately about the topic, I feel compelled to do something about the hunger/poverty/food stamp crisis in this country.
Allison is right--the book is good. I read it a few years ago, and after re-reading Allison's email, I pulled it back off the shelf. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the book writes:
When I watch TV over my dinner at night, I see a world in which almost everyone makes $15 an hour or more, and I'm not just thinking of the anchor folks. The sitcoms and dramas are about fashion designers or schoolteachers or lawyers, so it's easy for a fast-food worker or nurse's aide to conclude that she is an anomaly — the only one, or almost the only one, who hasn't been invited to the party. And in a sense she would be right: the poor have disappeared from the culture at large, from its political rhetoric and intellectual endeavors as well as from its daily entertainment. Even religion seems to have little to say about the plight of the poor, if that tent revival was a fair sample. The moneylenders have finally gotten Jesus out of the temple.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (1998)
The poor have disappeared from view--while growing in numbers over the past decade. Even before the Great Recession started, the income gap--the difference between the rich and the poor--was growing. The middle class was shrinking, as people slid backward economically. And that trend will not reverse itself easily or overnight.
For starters, there are not enough jobs out there for everyone who is ready and able to work; in four days there will be fewer jobs, as the federal government kills jobs with a single inaction.
Let's start with the good news: You may have heard that congress, in it's infinite wisdom, has done nothing to prevent the sequester. So starting Friday, many government programs could seem some pretty big cuts. SNAP Benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), also known as food stamps are NOT going to be part of the sequester.
The bad news--a lot of other programs that help the poor will be cut, at least temporarily. Student loans, vocational rehab programs (and by the way, these programs have many vets making use of them) are two of the programs that will see cuts. If congress doesn't get its act together in the first few weeks, they will inflict new damage on a fragile economy.
In 2010, the most recent year I could find statistics for, over 16% of women and children in this country were living in poverty.
Ehrenreich spoke at a symposium on poverty in January 2012. She said "The theory for a long time--coming not only from the right, but coming from some Democrats--is that poverty means that there's something wrong with your character, that you've got bad habits, you've got a bad lifestyle, you've made the wrong choices. I would like to present an alternative theory . . . poverty is a shortage of money. And the biggest reason for a shortage of money is that most working people are not paid enough for their work, and then we don't have work."
Being poor isn't something to be ashamed of, yet many people are. I can distinctly remember when I was on food stamps 23 years ago--back when food stamps were paper coupons and everyone in line knew you were using them. My first trip to the grocery store was late in the evening, at a store where I didn't normally shop. I wanted to minimize the chances of anyone I knew running into me while I was shopping. I had my 6 month old in her baby seat in the cart, and moved through the grocery store as quickly as I could, relieved when it was done. After a few weeks, shopping with food stamps became my new normal--but it was never something I became comfortable with. I made every effort to shop as economically as possible, remembering all the tales I heard of people buying steak with food stamps.
Are there problems in the
program? Yep. And we should talk about them. But I am
currently grateful that congress, which has been so foolish about so much for
the past several years, was wise enough to exempt food stamps from the sequester.
Of course, if the
sequester puts people out of work, there will be more people using food stamps,
so the savings in other programs will be negated by the increase in food stamp
use. I don't know if that is the kind of trade off we need.
Another great book by Ehrenreich is "Bait and Switch" (2006) about the struggle for those who have done everything right--gotten the college degree, been careful with their money, built the great resume--to stay financially solvent.
Both books were written
before the Great Recession. Both have a lot to say about what we have
been living through for the past few years.
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