Iām somebody who has food stamps. Itās like a debit card that the government will load with money monthly. You can only use it to purchase food items. If your total bill at the store is $40, $20 of food and $20 of other household goods, then paying with the food stamps card will pay for the $20 of food. Youāll still have to pay the $20 of other goods with your own money.
But on a serious note, that sounds like a decent idea, though I suppose you might as well just give people the money. Idk why they would only allow it to be soent on food.
Well, they also believe that the poor are all idiot layabouts, and if anyone is poor in the most amazing awesome doublemost mcbestest country on earth, it must be their own fault. So, a lot of aid is engineered to be uncomfortable to get and uncomfortable to be on, like financial homeless spikes.
One of the worst aspects of this for me is how brutal the means testing is for many assistance programs. They often turn eligibility into a sheer cliff face where the second you make even a dollar more than the cutoff you lose the whole benefit. But even if they donāt and thereās a more gradual reduction youāre often on multiple assistance programs if youāre poor and the reduction to all of them often puts you in a worse place than you stated in.
My partner is fully disabled, sheās got neurological issues where sheāll be pretty much fine one minute but with maybe like an hour at most of warning she could be fully incapacitated from a migraine brought on by pseudotumor. Not even because of the pain, she starts having trouble walking, standing up straight, remembering what she was doing. Sometimes she temporarily loses access to years of her life like the Cosmic Dungeon Master said āRoll 2d20, thatās how old you think you are for the next 2d4 hoursā
So obviously that makes having me work right now basically impossible. Very few jobs are cool with your availability being subject to that kind of rapid change. So I stay home to take care of her and our kids. But back when her symptoms werenāt so severe and I could work I had to be very careful what kind of jobs I found because depending on how much I made we actually ended up losing more in assistance than what I made that caused us to go over.
Fantastic example, our oldest just got approved for SSI because they relaxed some of the asset/income restrictions and now my wifeās disability benefit isnāt too much money for him to qualify. We get Section 8 so our portion of rent is based on our income so our rent went up when he got SSI. Our SNAP amount also went down because our income went up. He got approved for like 200 something in SSI and between the rent going up and SNAP going down at the end of the day we get like $10 dollars more a month than we did prior to him getting it. This shit happens everywhere with these kinds of programs and is one of the many reasons people get trapped in poverty.
I think a unified UBI is a lot more efficient than segmenting aid between housing assistance, bill assistance, and food stamps, and I think if somebody really wants to waste their small monthly UBI stipend on drugs and booze, they should be allowed to. Itāll be a pretty small fraction of a percentage of the program participants that would do such a thing, and in a morbid sense itās a problem that sorts itself out.
Keep in mind business vendors ring up non-food and alcoholic beverages under food stamps all the time. Thereās always a gas station or food mart ringing up beer as gatorade and such anyway.
Our lawmakers just tend to refuse to regulate or punish business overall and displace everything onto consumers as means testing for resources.
Restricting it to food is probably what allowed it to get passed in the first place in this country. And likewise, it is way easier to get food stamps than any kind of ācash assistanceā welfare.
Like in my case, I have a good job and my previous good job got eliminated during the first year of COVID. When temporarily having no income, we could easily sign up for food stamps to help while looking for the next job. Itās nice to help stretch any money you might still have in the bank, or be able to feed your family day to day if you donāt really have anything in the bank. Like others said itās a debit card that works at the grocery store.
But if you want medical coverage or cash assistance to bridge the gap? Not until you have lost everything substantial that you own except for a place to live and a vehicle if itās necessary to get to work.
Have a family with two parents and a couple of kids, in a typical US neighborhood where leaving your house to go any real distance away is via car and nothing else? I hope your cars werenāt made in the past 15 years or else youāll probably have to lose one of them.
And if youāve been trying to save for a purchase or just be financially responsible? Nah weāre going to need you broke and penniless first. You donāt have to be literally at $0, but in my state I think the asset limit is $2000 and that includes any cash, your second vehicle, your first vehicle if itās not ānecessaryā to get to work, and I think even retirement accounts.
Iām somebody who has food stamps. Itās like a debit card that the government will load with money monthly. You can only use it to purchase food items. If your total bill at the store is $40, $20 of food and $20 of other household goods, then paying with the food stamps card will pay for the $20 of food. Youāll still have to pay the $20 of other goods with your own money.
Richest country in the world!
But on a serious note, that sounds like a decent idea, though I suppose you might as well just give people the money. Idk why they would only allow it to be soent on food.
Because they think poors will use cash money on drugs and booze.
No, seriously. Thatās the reasoning of those that limit aid. They think anyone in poverty is there because of drug addiction.
Coincidentally, they also believe that drug addicts donāt deserve help. Itās all awfully convenient (for those who donāt want to help others.)
Well, they also believe that the poor are all idiot layabouts, and if anyone is poor in the most amazing awesome doublemost mcbestest country on earth, it must be their own fault. So, a lot of aid is engineered to be uncomfortable to get and uncomfortable to be on, like financial homeless spikes.
One of the worst aspects of this for me is how brutal the means testing is for many assistance programs. They often turn eligibility into a sheer cliff face where the second you make even a dollar more than the cutoff you lose the whole benefit. But even if they donāt and thereās a more gradual reduction youāre often on multiple assistance programs if youāre poor and the reduction to all of them often puts you in a worse place than you stated in.
My partner is fully disabled, sheās got neurological issues where sheāll be pretty much fine one minute but with maybe like an hour at most of warning she could be fully incapacitated from a migraine brought on by pseudotumor. Not even because of the pain, she starts having trouble walking, standing up straight, remembering what she was doing. Sometimes she temporarily loses access to years of her life like the Cosmic Dungeon Master said āRoll 2d20, thatās how old you think you are for the next 2d4 hoursā
So obviously that makes having me work right now basically impossible. Very few jobs are cool with your availability being subject to that kind of rapid change. So I stay home to take care of her and our kids. But back when her symptoms werenāt so severe and I could work I had to be very careful what kind of jobs I found because depending on how much I made we actually ended up losing more in assistance than what I made that caused us to go over.
Fantastic example, our oldest just got approved for SSI because they relaxed some of the asset/income restrictions and now my wifeās disability benefit isnāt too much money for him to qualify. We get Section 8 so our portion of rent is based on our income so our rent went up when he got SSI. Our SNAP amount also went down because our income went up. He got approved for like 200 something in SSI and between the rent going up and SNAP going down at the end of the day we get like $10 dollars more a month than we did prior to him getting it. This shit happens everywhere with these kinds of programs and is one of the many reasons people get trapped in poverty.
Do you think you should be able to buy drugs and booze with food stamps though?
I think a unified UBI is a lot more efficient than segmenting aid between housing assistance, bill assistance, and food stamps, and I think if somebody really wants to waste their small monthly UBI stipend on drugs and booze, they should be allowed to. Itāll be a pretty small fraction of a percentage of the program participants that would do such a thing, and in a morbid sense itās a problem that sorts itself out.
Keep in mind business vendors ring up non-food and alcoholic beverages under food stamps all the time. Thereās always a gas station or food mart ringing up beer as gatorade and such anyway.
Our lawmakers just tend to refuse to regulate or punish business overall and displace everything onto consumers as means testing for resources.
Restricting it to food is probably what allowed it to get passed in the first place in this country. And likewise, it is way easier to get food stamps than any kind of ācash assistanceā welfare.
Like in my case, I have a good job and my previous good job got eliminated during the first year of COVID. When temporarily having no income, we could easily sign up for food stamps to help while looking for the next job. Itās nice to help stretch any money you might still have in the bank, or be able to feed your family day to day if you donāt really have anything in the bank. Like others said itās a debit card that works at the grocery store.
But if you want medical coverage or cash assistance to bridge the gap? Not until you have lost everything substantial that you own except for a place to live and a vehicle if itās necessary to get to work.
Have a family with two parents and a couple of kids, in a typical US neighborhood where leaving your house to go any real distance away is via car and nothing else? I hope your cars werenāt made in the past 15 years or else youāll probably have to lose one of them.
And if youāve been trying to save for a purchase or just be financially responsible? Nah weāre going to need you broke and penniless first. You donāt have to be literally at $0, but in my state I think the asset limit is $2000 and that includes any cash, your second vehicle, your first vehicle if itās not ānecessaryā to get to work, and I think even retirement accounts.