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Record 44.7 Million People Celebrate Geithner's Departure And The End Of QE2 Through Foodstamps
The one and only clearest indication of just how effective the recovery and QE2 in general has been, comes courtesy of the USDA, whose just released update of April participation in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as "foodstamps", shows yet another record, this time 44.647 million people, an increase from May's 44.587 million. And after rising modestly in the last month, the average monthly benefit per household dropped again to a post April 2009 revision low of $282.38/month.
h/t John Lohman
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that is a whole lotta people eating a whole lotta nothing on $282 a month. no wonder Walmart isn't pleased with per store sales.
is WalMart lobbying for increased SNAP bennies?
Why not take corporatism to the next level. Walmarts should open Welfare offices in them. They already have banks, fast food, etc. Putting in the welfare office only makes sense!
A very good idea. True one-stop shopping. I can pick up my my SNAP card, SS check, Medicaid card, and go into the Obamacare Clinic for mandatory vaccinations and valiums and spend the rest on mac and cheese and Ding Dongs.
Obama-dama-ding-dong livin'
If Greece had food stamp program, everybody would be on it because nobody
in Greece claims to make over $10,000.
Timmay's SNAP Kids! : a new large American demographic
What a catchy phrase pointing to Timmay's new career as a Pop Singer!
It works....the look! the high profile!
Also, isn't anyone else a little shocked at the numbers? Seriously, participation going from 26 million to 44 million in 4 years SHOULD be outrageous. Nothing is wrong though. Everything is OK. Move along citizen...
$282.38/month. Wow. 282.38/30 = $9.41 a day.
$9.41 a day/3 meals = $3.13
And the word is average per household, not per person.
Okay industrious Hedgers, how would you, lets be generous, feed yourself and a kid on this budget?
I'm thinking beans and rice and steal condiments from a restaurant. Grow some of my own veggies somewhere (if I have a space to grow in). Dumpster diving. What else?
No one raises a family on a part time McDonalds job ! SNAP is "Supplemental"......it's for the luxuries like prime beef, imported cheese and sea food ! No booze and cigarettes !
Shame on your MsCreant to inject logic and reason into this thread. How dare you stop the howling self righteous orgy with facts and figures.
/sarc
Being industrious ZH'ers it's unlikely we'd be needing, or wanting, food stamps, but what the hell - can buy a lot of generic goods and low price high calorie stuff with that. Not saying it would be healthy, but probably stave off starvation.
First, move to where the cost of living is cheap (e.g. many southern states).
Second, hit the flea markets/goodwill/thrift stores for a vacuum sealer, bread pan, tupperware, smoker, and an old chest freezer.
Third, buy meats in bulk... stocking up on turkeys at thanksgiving is a good idea (throw em in the smoker).
Fourth, plant a garden (this can be as simple as a few potted plants)...
Fifth, for day to day things, bulk rice, beans, chicken, cereal, flour, frozen vegetables and fruits (bananas are pretty cheap)...
Sixth, coupons are your buddy
Seventh, hunting and fishing are necessary supplements.
With that much money, it would be difficult, but not impossible... I can easily do it for two adults... depending on the age of the children, they either won't eat much, or eat at least 1 meal a day at school... cook at home and bring it to work.
If cooking through the week is too time consuming, then cook in bulk. Also, you have to watch all the local specials at fast food places/restaurants... sometimes it's actually cheaper to eat out... but, you also have to understand the health risks often times involved...
Good post Macho. I like how you think. There are some problems, I suspect you know this.
1. The cost of moving has many people trapped where they are.
2. Stalking the flea markets/thirft places is a gradual thing, the start up costs suppose you have the cash to do this. But over time, yeah, you can get the right equipment. You can smoke meat outside, but it is time consuming and maybe not legal (I am thinking of the open fire thing in the wrong place).
3. Buying in bulk, which I do, assumes again that you have the money up front. I wonder if you have to empty the snap card every month or lose the funds. Would be cool if you could "save" a couple dollars every month so that you could be ready for that turkey sale.
4. Agree, you can compost, get dirt from around some yards, and you can container garden in all kinds of containers you could get from the trash. Hopefully you live in a neighborhood where they won't steal your plants (I had 2 tomato plants stolen from me two years ago if you can believe it. One guy behind the wheel, another drives up, grabs them, throw them into the small red pick up, and they drive off. I was so stunned).
5. 6. Good points. Does take some time, but if you don't have work, good way to spend the time.
7. Hunting and fishing are not options for everyone.
Cooking in bulk is also great. I always over cook a big meal, pack them in glass bowls with rubber covers, put some in the fridge for next day left overs, put the rest in the freezer. Many a busy day my family has been bailed out by my freezer. And it is stuff they all like.
hunt in the skids, get arrested, enjoy the caffeteria
vegetarian is quite a bit cheaper
and your health care costs go down
which saves more money for cigarettes
I was vegetarian for almost 2 years, I was very ill most of the time. Ate some salmon at a party and started to feel better imeadiately. I think some folks need meat and I am one of them. Even some of the buddhist monks take in meat against the teachings of their religion because they just can't follow the diet they are supposed to.
thought this was kinda interesting... not my bag, but interesting... http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CFoQFjAJ&url=http%3...
Trippy. That is my kind of ill, actually. Depressed, aggressive, nausea. Keep me fed and I'm pretty good!
Obviously there isn't a one size fits all approach... but, the seed money to get this bad boy rocking is less than $1,000 easily... train ticket, all items, + down payment on place to stay + enough money to last until the benefits can be transferred to your new address... sell everything not absolutely necessary to live (including sperm/plasma) and time it right for when you get the EIC credit, et al... if you have to leave debts at your former location, then so be it... you won't miss them and they'll probably be too small to hassle you across state lines... and, if they do, then you don't have shit to garnish and you can file for bankruptcy. The important thing is to get yourself to a location that has a chance of sustaining you and rebuilding you to some semblance of a modern/accustomed lifestyle (the zenith of which perished with the credit peak).
The problem with all of this is that even to live a very humble lifestyle takes a certain degree of sophistication... and, if not, then a lot of determination to compensate... maybe even a little luck. If you can get good at these things on the front end, you'll be invaluable on the back end.
Myself and a kid? Lets take a stab at 2,000 calories per day RDI. So we need 4,000 calories. That's being pretty generous, depends on the size of the kid and how active you both are, but we'll overestimate.
2 cups (uncooked) rice - 1200 calories
2 cups (uncooked) beans - 1200 calories
Hey presto, More than enough food (2400) for a day for me and the kid.
20lb bag of rice - 40 cups - $15
20lb bag of kidney beans - 40 cups - $30
So 2 bags of each would give us more than enough for a month... So that's $90.
So now we've got adequate food to survive for a month, with $190 left to spend.
20 boxes of cereal - $70 (don't even have to buy the cheap shit)
Toss in $30 worth of milk
Still got $90 left to spend
Spend $15 on some spices, $20 on a few pounds of ground beef. Spend the majority of the rest on enough vegetables to mix it up. Shit, you've even got money left over to but a few loaves of bread and a couple of steaks if you want to.
In other words, it's plenty of money to feed yourself pretty damn well. If it were up to me, 'food stamps' would consist of being given a ration of rice and beans per month. You want to eat better than rice and beans? Get a non goverment subsidized job (ie any minimum wage job is essentially government subsidised)
I feed my horse rice and beans,since I lost my pension from the Royal Marines. My breakfast consists of beans and pears and I poot,poot,poot,as I come down the stairs.
20 boxes of cereal for $70? Not where I live. The bigger boxes (which are the cheapest) are close to $10 now. Smaller boxes are now lighter than before (due to food inflation).
And why are carbohydrates and protein (beef) so cheap in the USA?
Massive subsidies, that's why...
Per person SNAP assistance breaks down thusly:
http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/18SNAPavg$PP.htm
At say $130/person/month (a typical figure in many states) that's ~ $4.33/person/day.
It doesn't sound like much, but yeah: beans, rice, other staples, frozen fruit and veggies prepared in bulk - it wouldn't even be a challenge to stay alive and healthy assuming you know how and are able to boil water. It would probably even be a step up nutritionally for many people.
You'd spend more of your time on food prep though.
It SHOULDN'T sound like much! It's a free government handout for crying out loud. It's free food that someone else is paying for. Wtf do people expect, delmonica steaks and shrimp cocktail?
Food stamps should be enough for someone to get adequate nutrition. That's it. Period.
You raise a good point. One has to consider that an advantage SNAP recipients may have over their middle class counterparts is that they will be better suited to rationing when TSHTF. They are forced to feed themselves and their families on less than $300/mos. Please also remember that the average middle class American probably doesn't read ZH and will not be prepared when the inevitable collapse begins.
This thought occurred to me when someone above used the word "rationing". I believe that unless you are forced to provide with limited resources, you will struggle to adapt in a time of crisis/panic to take care of you and yours. Is my line of thinking way off base?
I have spent some time on this. I think this is a mental excercise EVERYONE should go through with themselves, based on the resources available to them in their locations. I have read about folks losing their jobs and going through $100s of thousands in savings AND NOT CHANGING THEIR LIFESTYLE AT ALL. Shoot, give me that money and we would stay healthy and out of debt for years. The idea, as far as I am concerned, is to not stay invested in a lifestyle.
I have been up and down financially all my life. As a kid my parents were mentally ill and could not support me. I was on food stamps and aid from time to time, other times we were homeless, hitchhiking. Anything I have done since then has been a step up from that. And when I am underemployed, I move to a tiny place (and it is okay, I don't gripe, it is just how it is). When I have stability for a while, I can move up. I currently make very good money and have some really good savings. I had a husband who went bankrupt. For me it was a game, how do we downsize. For him, he resented everything we gave up. I did not understand that at all (I was proud of my downsizing choices and they saved our ass I might add, sold big furniture, got money to move to a smaller place, bought smaller furniture, this stuff can be a challenge and fun if you get into it like Macho did above). The thing is, if you stay attached to your lifestyle and stuff, you bleed into poverty faster. If you are poor all of a sudden, try to have fun with it and stop the bleeding as soon as you realize it is happening. And I believe mental fire drills have helped me in the past.
We are the best adapters on the planet if we just flow with it.
solid. nothing makes me more grateful and relieved to have stayed in a humble home with a little land around good neighbors and decent schools. Everyone I know who has bought up is backwards. I can trust at least twenty to fifty households around me and have organized social events and gardens so people get to know and trust and learn from each other. I am seeing more and more people approach to learn about growing their own food and making a greenhouse. I think I said before, this isn't just survival, it's a way to fight the corrupt and dangerous system. Have a few mormon neighbors and their temple has a commercial canning system and they will bring an outsider in to share. Beats Monsanto
Think I'd like your neighborhood and you'd be a great neighbor.
On the flipside, it gets to be a pretty sad exercise if your goal is to impoverish yourself before the system does... it's like putting the blindfold on and painting the bullseye on your chest. The only reason you do this should be to better sustain yourself for the stagflationary environment and to tuck away enough real assets to provide for your children if need be (including an education). [transfer what wealth you can from one currency regime to the next].
While the board is often doom and gloom, these troubled times also will present incredible opportunity. If you are overleveraged and lead a lifestyle that requires an obscene amount of maintenance, then these opportunities will pass you by. If you keep your nose clean, keep your ear to the ground, and nose to the grind stone, you may hit a multigenerational homerun as deleveraging takes hold. (this pursuit generally has the added benefit of inhibiting the enablers of our ailments).
You can't buy happiness, but you can, in large part, buy autonomy.
(and, even if I'm wrong, we'll still learn some useful life skills and it will help us all in serfdom, whether it be living off the land or teaching others to).
I am trying to front run this thing, not impoverish myself. Many things people think of as needs, I never have. No ipad, ipod, or izod. Small old car, paid for. No debt. I think the opportunites will be both material and spiritual in nature. And yeah, I want to be there for it.
I was lucky enough to learn early that the real currency is time and my control of my own, so I "buy" the autonomy thing and will work for more.
"The idea, as far as I am concerned, is to not stay invested in a lifestyle."
Great advice. Unfortunately, it would be totally lost on the millions of sheeple in America. God forbid they give up their iPads!!!
its a bubble
what is the short?
What bothers the hell out of me are the price supports for food and the granting of tax dollars to leave good farmland fallow in an attempt to purposely keep prices higher.
Then we have the food stamp program that is used to gouge tax payers that is purchasing the same higher priced food. The tax payers get raped twice!
No person should be paid for being idle!
It would make more sense to put food grown on the previosuly idle land into a savings bank if a program like food stamps existed. Then there is the fraud in the food stamp system on top of that.
The nation that feeds the world - controls the world!
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/william-engdahl/2011/06/29/ge...
"The nation that feeds the world - controls the world!"
Has anybody told delusional asshole Bernanke about this?
You only get raped twice? Some people have all the luck. : (
We spent our Ponzi Fiat poorly ! Wars and welfare ! An average Jew would now own the world with all the money our Democrats (and some Republicans) blew !
Imagine if all that money, heaven forbid, had been spent on cancer research and finding efficient ways to use alternative energy sources like wind and/or thorium based rnuclear reactors.
There you would get the biggest bang for the buck, also called ROI.
But hell, what do I know ?
I only played Sid Meier's "Civilization" back in the day, managing a society.
In Civ, whenever there was too much pollution or the taxes were too high, you'd get uprisiings and riots, and then you'd have to employ more entertainers.
But entertainers only gave you transitory relief, in the end you would have to tackle the root causes (sound familiar?) and put more money into research to invent clean technologies.
And then you would lower taxes again and remove the pollution by moving a settler onto it and pressing 'P'.
LOL !
Cancer research, another scam. Read on for the kind of cure big Pharma is looking for, follow the money.
http://nutritiondietnews.com/canadian-researchers-obtain-a-simple-cure-for-cancer-but-major-pharmaceutical-corporations-arent-interested/853757/
We could have increased the National Hoard of PMs to the point we could have single handedly returned to a Gold Standard ! We pissed our National Treasure away defending the Fiat Ponzi scheme ! We could have stimulated the National Economy by eliminating taxes and running essential (oxy-moron) gov services with Fiat ! This is what you get when the dimmest bulbs elect their pied piper populist pornographers like Carter, Clinton, Frank, Obama ! This is the democratic version of "dictatorship of the proletariat" ! Democracy of the dimmest amongst Us ! Reward stupidity ! Monedas 2011 Punishing Hoarder talent is a moral hazard !
+666
Too bad we have taste buds. You can buy a whole hella lot of rice and hot dogs for $282.00 a month. Better learn how to use spices, lmao.
Here's the trick.....if you use cheap cold cuts, use less and the bread covers it ! If you have prime pastrami......pile it high ! Monedas 2011 Lessons learned in my hoarder's pilgrimage !
PS, nothing beats standing in the front yard with nothing on except your underwear and your wifes pink crocks scratching your nutsake when the neighbor drives by. At least they honked.
You are talking serious cultural dilution !
but, Obama's golf game is getting wicked now after all the practice
Don't worry, trickle down economics takes a few decades to work. Just be patient. Let's check back in 2035.
trickle down: always wondered why the analogy reads like piss
is this 44 million how many people APPLIED for food stamps (not counting their family members) or how many people are ON food stamps (everyone in a household whose provider is on food stamps)
We've spent billions to stop aids but haven't arrived at Monedas' conclusions......which cost exactly two, dollar menu cheeseburgers ! Aids is propagated by gay and bi-sexual men engaging in unprotected anal sex : 90% ! 5% is spread by transfusions of infected blood ! 5% by shared needles, intimacy, hygiene and all the rest ! Is that where prevention dollars have been focused ? No ! Monedas 2011 My educated guess.....prove me wrong ! PS This also applies to Hepatitis and other viral infectious diseases ! Butt fuckin' feels good.....but it is lethal !
Your guess is ignorant, homophobic and pointless, but it isn't educated.
I'm not dumping on gay and bisexual men ! The rectum is the ideal environment for passing infected bodily fluids into the blood stream ! I'm dumping on the Leftist establishment for trying to not stigmatize the gay and bi-sexual community......who were the principal victims of this mis-information ! Monedas 2011 Don't doubt my humanity and infinite tenderness for the truth !
After reading this I decided to take a look at the full history of the Food Stamp program and what I found was not good. We are at all time highs for both the participation rate and the benefit per person per month (even adjusting for the 13.6% increase in 2009). So, worse than the late 70's and early 80's, worse than the 1991 recession and the 2001 recession, by far. Feel free to take a look http://libertarian-neocon.blogspot.com/2011/07/obama-food-stamp-presiden...
I agree with the folks here who say you can get by on $260/month, and you will be eating better food.
During these difficult times <snark> While earning my PhD in Economics from cnbc</snark> I got tired of eating ramen. So I figured out how to make americanized take out chinese food.
pretty much every dish has a base of garlic, onions, ginger, soy sauce, in various amounts. After that is just cheap veggies, and small amounts of protien, and rice. I can make the typical 16 oz. + rice carryout meal for $3. The retail price is $10+.
I think they need to give every single man woman and child in america a SNAP card. Many will be be too proud to use it. But for the many of us who are irate at the image of people using snap then driving away in a $50k vehicle, it would be a way to eliminate the fraud and lower alot of peoples blood pressure.
I learned a trick from my local Chinese restauranteur ! If you try to make the fried rice that appetizing brown color with Soy Sauce....it will end up too salty ! Use Soy Sauce with Black Mushroom ! The black mushroom acts like food coloring ! Monedas 2011 Hoarders have more humanity.....that's why they go the extra mile to protect their lifestyle options !
Thank you. That is a great mystery solved. But for me, I don't do the fried rice thing. I typically have enough of the gravy mentioned above with white rice. Also figured out how to make the hot chili sauce to mix with Chinese mustard and soy for dipping if there is not enough gravy.
The tip i can offer in return is that just a hint of fresh cilantro in dipppng sauces (yeah I know overused recently in culinatry circles) along with some citrus, (cheap ass lemon or lime juice) can give a great S.E. asian flavor to the base stuff above.
Its funny. The Chinese are starting to eat more KFC and McDonald's. I am learning how to eat like their peasantry. Its really not that bad.
Thanks for the tip ! Monedas 2011 Tit for twat is my motto !
It's all good ! I think the variety and freshness and quick cooking makes Chinese food the most nutritious and best tasting there is ! Sorry, Frogs ! The Colonel's broasted chicken is a watershed moment in human nutrition ! Fast food is dependable....it doesn't surprise you....you get what you remembered ! That consistency in meeting the quality and dependability of your expectations is comforting, reassuring and is simple genius ! Monedas 2011 Give 'em exactly what they expect and you won't disappoint ! Genius is always the complex made simple !
Sorry folks, food stamps are not the problem. They are a symptom.
Don't bother Bill. The self righteous are feeding and are not to be disturbed. So much easier to beat upon their fellow (weaker) slaves than to attack the source of the problem.
I love my bank. I love my masters. I love my job. I love my cage. I love my own impotence. I hate those fellow slaves who help me divert my attention from my own miserable existence.
The divide is almost ripe.
their existence and their method are at all times a symptom, a pacifier, and an obstructor. If people could see fifteen percent of the population hungry, politics would take a different face and your government knows this.
Just like they fly in the dead soldiers bodies into Andrews or elsewhere at 3 AM with no cameras allowed nor media.
Out of sight, out of mind. Don't worry, be happy.
Food stamps don't benefit the recipeints, or at least they are not the primary benefciciary... they keep consumer where they are doing the same thing. It's another example of how incredibly mindlessly conservative (small 'c') the Federal government is now. Borrowing from tomorrow to invest in yesterday.
If it wasn't for food stamps and Social Security we'd have revolution in the us of a.
Well not a revolution to create a better gov - I think it'd be more like Detroit after one of their sports teams wins a championship.
Kickin' the can down da road will make the revolution much uglier !
The Teleprompter said just this week, and I quote, "it wasn't long ago that 1 in 7 Americans were on foodstamps." The tacit implication, which I'm sure fooled the average listener, was that the number is now far lower. I expect soon he'll be talking about how not long ago unemployment was at 6%.
ask the checker , there is a 50-50 chance she is on "welfare".
Better yet, walk around in back or on the side of your fav wallyworld slum
and talk to the workers for an hour or so.
Amazing what you will hear.
That's if human interaction "in the wild" is not too traumatic for you sweethearts.
hahhahaha
44.7 Million people on FOODSTAMP.
Note that in honor of the existence of EBONICS
and racial stereotypes of black recipients of FOODSTAMP
that FOODSTAMP is never pluralized, being inherently
plural or singular in the first place.
1 in 7 people in America are on FOODSTAMP. That's funny, I
remember when the number was 1 in 8.
FOODSTAMP as well as unemployment is a Federally funded
program administered by the state on a state level.
not quite.... Employers pay an unemployment insurance tax that is called the FUTA tax so in essence unemployment is funded by the employers.
http://www.policyalmanac.org/social_welfare/archive/unemployment_compens...
Stupid little asshole Geithner could care less about all the poor souls on food stamps. He's a panjandra.
Suspended voting rights for people receiving entitlements?
What if we'd stop allowing people to vote themselves to live off their neighbors?
(If you "paid in", that's a different tune. I'm talking the "live for free of everyone else" crowd.)
And anyone who works or contracts for the gov ! It's called reclusing oneself for conflict of interest ! Also, how about proportional representation......the more taxes you pay - the more voting shares you should have in the enterprize ! We have to do sometime to get better quality people to represent us ! More term limits too ..... therefore no retirement and life long benefits for ex office holders ! If you never have managed to support a family working in the private economy.....you don't even get to throw your hat in the ring ! Monedas 2011 The present one sided populist oligarchy is not working !!!
How about this? Corporations pay a livable wage to their hourly workers rather then $8-10 an hour so they can support a family and not be eligible for Food Stamps.....oh sorry.... you mean the CFO and CEO and their cronies can't afford to take a pay cut so they can pay a fairer wage? Making a profit is important and I believe in that, but sharing in a fair manner with those who help you make a profit is important as well.
Upper management gtting 10-20% bonus while giving 2% pay increases to their hourly help just doesn't cut it.
All of this social unfairness has occured under 80 years of Democrat hegemony ! The Republicans are a permanent minority !
more offshoring?
To say women can propagate AIDS with their continuously flushing vaginas is like saying roasted turkeys are good for sharpening carving knives ! Monedas 2011 Food stamps for the mind !
John Lennon didn't qualify for SNAP but he did admire Reagan.....a best kept secret for Market Demographics ! Prior to his murder, he bought the Serrano (sp?) Estate in Palm Beach ! Monedas 2011 Thanks for the tip, Rush !
$4 gets you...... a watermelon. Hope you can live on a watermelon a day.
On the positive side, US healthcare costs will decrease due to poor losing some weight from their new watermelon diet.
More nutritious and better fibre rendition if you swallow the seeds......ball bearings for the rectum ! Monedas 2011 The cutting edge of Proctology ! PS You can pickle the rind ! http://trololololololololololo.com/
It's a SNAP ¡ A watermelon a day....keeps the Proctologist away ! (You have to eat the whole thing....seeds, rind and all !) Monedas 2011 Leaves his water mark !