500K+ to lose SNAP benefits as 22 states bring back work requirements

[youngohioan216]

I work at a grocery store as a cashier and I can tell you that there are WAY too many people on food stamps who don't need them.  I had one customer recently who bought $200 worth of porterhouse steaks and crab legs all on an EBT card.  That's an extreme example but almost every day I get someone paying EBT for a $20 steak, or a $15 sushi platter, or a $5 pint of Ben & Jerry's, and of course they have cash for beer, wine, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.  And this is in a middle class area, I can't imagine the kind of fraud that goes on at stores in poor neighborhoods.

[youngohioan216]

I work at a grocery store as a cashier and I can tell you that there are WAY too many people on food stamps who don't need them.  I had one customer recently who bought $200 worth of porterhouse steaks and crab legs all on an EBT card.  That's an extreme example but almost every day I get someone paying EBT for a $20 steak, or a $15 sushi platter, or a $5 pint of Ben & Jerry's, and of course they have cash for beer, wine, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.  And this is in a middle class area, I can't imagine the kind of fraud that goes on at stores in poor neighborhoods.

When I was growing up, my grandfather was the first person to complain about that sort of thing anecdotally (of course 10% of the time it was him actually witnessing what you describe and 90% was "Oh I heard about...") and my grandmother would always say you can't judge someone if you don't know their whole story and if you briefly encounter someone in a store you're getting maybe 5% of their story.

"This person is on unemployment and drives a Cadillac!"
They probably bought the Cadillac when they had a job and didn't need unemployment benefits.

"This person bought ice cream with food stamps!"
Because that's the closest she comes to anything resembling "escape" from her unemployed, impoverished, isolated life. But yes, a $5 pint of cookie dough ice cream is the source of the problem here.

"This woman was already a single mom with a kid and now she's pregnant again. Didn't she learn her lesson the first time?"
What if you knew the first pregnancy only happened because she was raped by her mom's boyfriend?

I get what you're saying--you can't judge someone based on what they're buying.  But I see it often enough that it makes you wonder what's going on. It's not that I have a problem with people on food stamps eating well, but when you see them purchase several expensive items it makes you suspect that the money they get would be better off going to someone who really needs it.

[youngohioan216]

I work at a grocery store as a cashier and I can tell you that there are WAY too many people on food stamps who don't need them.  I had one customer recently who bought $200 worth of porterhouse steaks and crab legs all on an EBT card.  That's an extreme example but almost every day I get someone paying EBT for a $20 steak, or a $15 sushi platter, or a $5 pint of Ben & Jerry's, and of course they have cash for beer, wine, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.  And this is in a middle class area, I can't imagine the kind of fraud that goes on at stores in poor neighborhoods.

Just trying to parse what you mean in that last sentence there- because you see what you perceive to be fraud in an area where people are comparatively better off, there must be more fraud in an area where people are, from your perspective, "really" struggling?

What I meant was in an area where more people are on food stamps, there will be more fraud relating to food stamps.

[youngohioan216]

and of course they have cash for beer, wine, cigarettes, and lottery tickets.  

Now that I think about it I shouldn't be so hard on people who buy cigarettes.  My grandparents were almost lifelong smokers and it took them several tries before they were able to kick the habit.  It's not like people who smoke can just quit when they're low on money.