General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhere did the "poor folks buying crab legs with food stamps" thing come from?
That has been used several times by poorbashers recently- and I don't know where they got it from.
Wouldn't crab legs be too expensive to purchase in a supermarket, if you were poor and trying to stretch your stamps 'til the end of the month?
Are there actually many stores in poor neighborhoods that would even SELL crab legs or other fresh shellfish?
(I'm guessing that, in some coastal towns, crabbers could have given crabs away to homeless shelters or to poor people they knew, if they hadn't been able to sell the crabs and the crabs were just going to go bad...is THAT how this could have started?)
It's obviously meant to play to middle-class resentment of the poor...but does it have any basis in reality at all, to anybody's knowledge.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
onethatcares
(16,167 posts)to do with the same people purchasing 32 oz porterhouses before getting into their Escalades with 22 inch rims.
but basically, it's just bullshit poorbashing.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)jberryhill
(62,444 posts)The notion that they are buying them for food is the inaccurate part of the story.
Louie Gohmert investigated:
SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)The old "welfare queen" driving a Caddie bullshit?
Seems they just updated for the 21st century.
It's that same old bullshit recycled over and over. 
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)They are too expensive for them to eat also if they are on food stamps. Rice and beans is all they should eat. Veggies and fruit are too expensive too.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)Jenoch
(7,720 posts)Here in the Twin Cities, all of the regular grocery stores have frozen crab legs. There are a lot of people getting aid that are not in inner city areas. Besides that, here in the Twin Cities, the poor have to leave their inner city area to find a decent grocery store.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I'm assuming those would be large-sized packs.
Jenoch
(7,720 posts)I think the snow crab legs sell for around $10 or $12 a pound. There are occasional sales that bring it down to around $8/pound. King crab legs are probably 40% to 50% more.
Edit to add:
There are frozen bags of crab legs, usually around 3 pounds, but they can also be purchased by the pound at the fish counter (or what serves as a fish counter in Minnesota, it's all mostly previously frozen.)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)They'd buy the jumbo packs of low-priced ground-beef, take it home and mix it half and half with breadcrumbs, freeze it and try to stretch it for a month.
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)is anybody to prevent that... I guess that's the crazy thing about the whole meme that bothers me.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The reason something like crab legs gets mentioned is that the poor aren't supposed to ever enjoy anything(if the 'Pugs could figure out how to enforce it, they'd pass a "No Smiling On Welfare" law...and they'd make "Kill A Poor Kid's Puppy For Christ!" bumperstickers, too).
factsarenotfair
(910 posts)It really conveys the wicked insanity.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)have a nice day.
factsarenotfair
(910 posts)Niceguy1
(2,467 posts)Poor choices.. I have ssen on many occassions people on assistance buying expensive food. I think it has more to do with a lack of nutritional knowledge or not wanting to cook from scratch.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The middle-class mom in the 'burbs can bring home a pre-cooked chicken to feed her kids right away...but the woman on food stamps is forced to buy a raw or frozen chicken(and whatever spices she can find at a low price)and spend an extra hour cooking it herself, while her kids are hungrier longer and while she's probably exhausted from being out looking for work all day(or possibly cleaning houses at "under-the-table" pay to meet the ends that food stamps don't ever quite reach.
Niceguy1
(2,467 posts)The person I mentioed managed to fill her cart up with mostly food that only needed to be warmed not cooked. (Ie canned food, hot dogs, etc) Expensive and bad for you. Wic is more selectI've on what you can get. Even fast food places take snap.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Wouldn't it be great if somebody did a street theatre musical about that program and called it "OH, SNAP!"?
Ha ha.
Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)There is a chain of pizza places that locate in gas stations that is pretty big here. They have big signs "EBT Accepted" and what they do is prepare and sell you an uncooked pizza on EBT, then after you pay for it cook it for free- so they didn't buy prepared food.
It not only leads to those who depend on EBT making poor choices buying nutritionally deficient food for way too much money, but "EBT Accepted Here" signs at overpriced gas station pizza joints lead people to assume everybody on the system is wasting money at places like that.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)That's not a change with the rebranding to SNAP. Frozen food's acceptable too. Fast food places generally can not accept SNAP benefits unless the state has opted for this program which is restricted to those without the means to cook (i.e. the homeless,some disabled and senior citizens.) The vast majority of SNAP recipients can not use the benefits for meals that are ready to eat at POP.
Unlike SNAP which is general food assistance the WIC program is a targeted nutrition plan designed to promote healthier early childhood. That's why it has a narrow list of acceptable items to purchase.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)the point being twofold
1. some people getting these benefits are NOT really poor
or
2. some people getting these benefits whiz them away on junk food or luxury items because they ain't got a lick of sense and what the hell, it's free money anyway.
This story, I believe, came from a Republican Congressman in Texas who said his constituents told it to him.
I don't doubt that many people have perhaps seen some waste and abuse with food stamps - I know I have more than once.
But no system will ever be perfect, is how I respond to that, and this system, with some flaws, is still helping many people who need help. It just so happens that at our last Kiwanis meeting they were talking about backpack buddies. http://www.foodshuttle.org/program/backpack-buddies
Our community spends $75,000 a year on that program and I bet it is not perfect either, but most people are happy to help the cause of feeding hungry children. Even children who are already getting food stamps AND free or reduced price lunches at school.
handmade34
(22,756 posts)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And they busted him and he's doing hard time.
Ought to be the end of the story.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)always enough of it around to appear to justify the talking point.
the thing about class is that the rulers have control of the megaphone; thus they can magnify the appearance of workers' cheating and minimize and hide their own -- which is actually how they hold and increase their power, so much more significant than workers' pitiful cheating.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The question then is...how do you take the megaphone away from them?
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)support the storyline.
alc
(1,151 posts)It's the people who gave the poor people pennies on the dollar for the ebt card. But the poor people needed the cash. I'm making an assumption but that's what I assume is often going on when someone uses 5+ cards for a single cart of food and isn't telling the cashier what goes on what card (e.g. buying for multiple families who can't get to the store)
Or it's the people scamming the system who use up their ebt card then pull out a wad of cash to pay for the rest in $100s.
Rather than claiming these people don't exist, "food stamp" advocates should be complaining louder than opponents. It's a small percentage of use, but they give all recipients a bad reputation and risk the system (or at least give repubs an argument).
These people are at the wal-mart near me daily. I haven't seen them buy crab legs even though wal-mart does sell those. But I frequently (every 2 or 3 visits) see them buying much better stuff than I buy.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I'm pretty sure that folks who care about the real poor are trying to.
What would YOU propose as a way of dealing with this?
As to the WalMart types you see...you might want to investigate to see if they are like the guy in Michigan who was buying luxury food with his EBT card for illegal resale. It sounds awfully suspicious that you'd see people "frequently" doing that. Poor people aren't any less intrinsically honorable or moral than anybody else, after all.
Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)When you take a police report for a "lost" EBT card, then look in the history and see that she has "lost" it 5 moths in a row, it is pretty clear something is up. But nobody from the system wanted to investigate, even thought even they knew she was full of it. They just went through the motions, as far as they were concerned as long as she had a police report she got a new EBT card and the "stolen" balance was put back on it. They filled their obligation, so why bother doing more was their attitude.
If every county had a few auditors in the system, and you required stores to keep receipts for all EBT purchases for 30 days as a condition of accepting EBT, you could easily spot the abusers.
Have the auditors do two things- look at spending patterns on EBT cards for suspicious patterns, and do random audits.
If you create a system, people will game and defraud it. Simple human nature, from the richest on Wall Street to the poorest living on the street. And if nobody is making any effort to catch them gaming it, then they will keep on doing it.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)alc
(1,151 posts)I'm not referring to food stamp programs or valid recipients. Only to scumbags who abuse the system.
Even Obama said there is $250 billion in fraud and waste in medicare that can be saved as part of the ACA funding. When there's even perceived fraud of that magnitude it gives opponents an argument. Anyone wanting to cut medicare or food stamps can point to fraud pretty easily. Saying "it doesn't exist" isn't a rebuttal. Saying it's a small percentage would help some. Working to to stop that small percent would do a lot more.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)People like Gohmert think that the poor have (to quote one of our less-humane past Democratic governors when he talked about the elderly) "a duty to die".
madville
(7,408 posts)A woman in my nursing program used to brag about the $1100 a month she got on her EBT card, her husband took off and left her with six girls between 1 and 10 years old.
She said towards the end of every cycle she would still have hundreds of dollars left on it and would stock up family members freezers with steak and other assorted goodies before the balance reset.
Lord help her, single parent in school with six young girls, I just let it slide when she would talk about it. Oddball situations like that are what create those kinds of stories I guess.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)If not, how did she pay rent?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It could have been her idea of a joke.
And even if she did do this, it's the system and how it treats the poor that helped goad her into it. The poor, when they meet with caseworkers and those who determine their benefit eligibility, are subjected to humiliating, soul-destroying treatment-they're all made to feel like they are criminals simply for APPLYING for benefits(even if they are unchallengeably eligible for them)they face intrusive and unjustified home visits from people checking to see if they are miserable enough for the system's satisfaction, and nobody, nobody at all, offers them any REAL pathway out of their conditions.
Even the conservative notion that the poor could all find work"if they just looked hard enough" isn't an answer...in most cases, the jobs aren't where the poor live, they can't afford to get where the jobs are(and there aren't many jobs available even when anybody's hiring)and when they do get the jobs, the bosses treat them like shit and constantly try to fire them for petty offenses like taking too many bathroom breaks(this is done even in they are pregnant women, who need more bathroom breaks than anybody else).
If you want the poor to behave better, work for a system that treats them like goddamn human beings. You can't expect them to be more moral and then MAYBE, if the system feels like it, they get a small, barely existant chance, and are then expected to be pathetically grateful for it, as if even crumbs are more than they deserve.
Most poor people never break a law, never break a rule, never tell a lie, never harm anyone and raise their kids to try to do well in life.
But the system we live in doesn't acknowledge that...and it doesn't recognize the humanity, the intelligence, the creativity, the possibility that lives in the spirit of each of them...as it lives in the spirit of the rest of us("the rest of us" mainly being those lucky enough NOT to have been chewed up and spat out by life).
hay rick
(7,608 posts)7 people (including herself) times 30 days = 210. Divide into $1100 and you get $5.24 a day. If she's feeding children on less than that she's abusing them. I question her honesty.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)She is spending only $5 per day per person.
madville
(7,408 posts)Maybe 3 or 4 of the kids were in elementary school and probably getting free breakfasts and lunches 20 days a month. 6 kids under 10 don't eat a whole lot anyway. It wouldn't be difficult to feed them well for $40 a day if one shops smart.
I recall her mom used to babysit the kids while while we were in evening classes some days. Maybe she took a few hundred bucks of the EBT money and bought her mom a bunch of meat or something as payment for babysitting and feeding the kids in the evening.
I don't know all the details. The point of this thread is where do these types of stories come from? Imagine the cashier at the grocery store seeing this woman come in and buy $300 worth of steaks, hams, shrimp, etc at on time and put it on an EBT card. Then that cashier goes home and relays to everyone how the people getting food assistance eat pretty darn well based on what they saw that day. That's where stories like that come from, people that don't know all the details assuming things.
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)
TheMightyFavog
(13,770 posts)We had a guy the next county over who was defrauding the system by using his EBT card to buy expensive items at one of the local grocery stores, then he would turn around and sell those items to his buddies at the bar below cost, then pocket the cash. When they finally caught him, he was headline news in the local papers and the local blowhards made a big stink about it. So many people around here think that most people on assistance are like this guy and "stealing my hard earned money!," when in reality, he's more of the exception rather than the rule. Not to mention we got a lot people up here who have bought into the whole "welfare = black people/Mexicans" that the right has been broadcasting for decades.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)I've been on food stamps enough times to know that the balance is carried from month to month.
teenagebambam
(1,592 posts)bought lobster or crab legs or something similar (I can't remember exactly) but did so KNOWING that it pretty much blew her food budget for the rest of the month. Which was her choice and her business.
TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)Lobster, crab and shrimp are all good protein sources. She could eat smaller portions of healthy protein and be miles ahead (health wise) of the person who buys prepackaged crap.
TYY
bluestate10
(10,942 posts)have, they have been buying basic foodstuffs, I have not seen anything fancy being bought.
hay rick
(7,608 posts)The poor-bashers are always with us.
killbotfactory
(13,566 posts)It would make it normal for people to use them as they see fit, and it would imply that some people don't deserve to starve. Both of which are unacceptable to the Christian Brotherhood.
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)If you get food stamps, that's money or currency you didn't earn so therefore you have so respect for it or how hard it is to earn it. So while you're getting all this free money you spend it on the most lavish stuff.
I always heard the bit as lobster tails and filet mignon. Not sure when or where it came from. But the above posts about 80's welfare queen seems about right.
SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)Last edited Thu Aug 8, 2013, 08:59 PM - Edit history (1)
Seriously, this and others like it came straight from the Reagan days when there HAD to be a reason to start to undo The Great Society and to continue to undermine the New Deal..
People of "lower classes" just HAD to be turned on each other in order to make them vote for Draconian cuts to social programs..
Welfare Queens with fur coats & food stamps
Unwed mothers with 8 kids (some borrowed) signing up for FREE food and welfare
Welfare cheats with subsidized housing & driving NEW Cadillacs
Food stamps used for Crab Legs..Shrimp..Lobster..Soda Pop..junk food..steaks.. you name it.
EVERYONE has their own definition of what constitutes poverty or need..and what constitutes middle class..but those epithets were aimed squarely at people making $20-50K, who had jobs, homes, and who came to deeply RESENT how THEY were managing just fine and coould not AFFORD those luxuries, and how mad they were when others were cheating & doing it on THEIR taxes..
It's the politics of envy/persecution/shame/blame/hyper-moralization..
It succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations and is still with us, but now it includes many more things..
Lee-Lee
(6,324 posts)In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore — equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird — Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric. After gathering ingredients for that evening’s dinner, they walked to the cash register and awaited their moments of truth.
“I have $80 bucks left!” Magida said. “I’m so happy!”
“I have $12,” Mak said with a frown.
The two friends weren’t tabulating the cash in their wallets but what remained of the monthly allotment on their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit cards, the official new term for what are still known colloquially as food stamps.
Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living until the recession caused arts funding — and her usual gigs — to dry up. She applied for food stamps last summer, and since then she’s used her $150 in monthly benefits for things like fresh produce, raw honey and fresh-squeezed juices from markets near her house in the neighborhood of Hampden, and soy meat alternatives and gourmet ice cream from a Whole Foods a few miles away.
“I’m eating better than I ever have before,” she told me. “Even with food stamps, it’s not like I’m living large, but it helps.”
It has all the elements to make conservatives fume- food stamps being used to buy expensive organic foods by unemployed hipsters with the stereotypical graduate degree in art.
ellenfl
(8,660 posts)
Dawson Leery
(19,348 posts)
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)It might be poor budgeting, but that's their choice.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I was wondering how this particular meme got started.
It makes sense, though, that Gohmert would mix up crabs and lobsters. He probably thinks both of them were created by Gay Muslim Satan while God was taking a coffee break on Day 3.
nyquil_man
(1,443 posts)That explains nearly anything issuing forth from his mouth.
jasond54231
(51 posts)I have known and heard about the old "Welfare Queen Driving a Cadillac/BMW" argument from countless RWers, however. All I have to say in response is, "Should poor people just live like a pauper until they die?"
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)You have one side of the fence saying that there is widespread abuse of the system because they hear tales of folks selling their EBT cards for cash, and others buying Redbull and Marlboros with their benefits.
Then you have the other side of the fence saying that the abuse is not widespread and is being exaggerated because they hear tales of need.
To both I would say you are incorrect in your thinking. This is because there is no data to support either claim. There has been no study whatsoever on what exactly the money is spent on, where it is spent and where abuses are occurring. The privacy of each recipient should be the number 1 priority, however I think a study should be done. Problem is that the USDA is not releasing any data on how the $80 billion a year is spent.
I will say this... I am in retail, and I see abuse and I see need. This still proves nothing.
truebluegreen
(9,033 posts)I'm shocked, Shocked! I tell you...
Generic Brad
(14,274 posts)I lived in Los Angeles close to 30 years ago. They sometimes sold anemic, skinny snow crab legs real cheap at Ralph's with assorted sea food scraps. I used to buy a one pound package for $1 or $2. I did not consider it a luxury. There was practically no meat in those things and they never ever threw in claws either.
Depending on where you live, some kinds of crab may be the cheapest dining option.
Retrograde
(10,134 posts)that's their business. Or steak, or lobster (which I hear is cheap on the East Coast now but still expensive here) or whatever.
Trader Joe's (which accepts EBT in California at least) sells a variety of frozen seafood; I've never looked for crab legs specifically. I keep a bag of their frozen shrimp around so I can throw one or two into some ramen - so it balances out to a fairly low-priced meal. Maybe these crab-leg-buying people are doing something similar.
steve2470
(37,457 posts)The Cadillac might be rusted out and 30 years old, on its last legs. Maybe the car is owned by the person's brother or something. You never get all the details.
It's either made up BS or someone blew their whole month's allotment in one shopping trip.
anneboleyn
(5,611 posts)This must be a right wing talking point right now as on The Five Eric Bolling was proclaiming that (despite studies that show otherwise) he is convinced that AT LEAST 50% of people on food stamps are just gaming the system -- using stamps to buy drugs and alcohol instead of food. Never mind of course that many members of the Fox audience are on some type of government assistance. As with everything else on Fox this only applies to the "other people" on assistance. (sarcasm)
Autumn
(45,064 posts)They just tweak that shit a touch whenever they need it.
Hekate
(90,662 posts)
gulliver
(13,180 posts)That's where it came from.
Initech
(100,068 posts)
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)She would purchase large quantities of crab legs, shrimp or steaks with her stamps, then go to the local food pantries to get her other staples for free. I'm sure this doesn't happen often, but it's not unheard of. In my household those types of items are only an occasional treat.
sorefeet
(1,241 posts)they all got a color TV too.
Decoy of Fenris
(1,954 posts)My fiancee and I both have our respective cards, totaling about $600 a month. We don't have kids or any particular other expenditures, and $600 is enough to last us a year, let alone a month, so we frequently splurge on junk food, snacks, occasionally crab-legs or lobster. We are both of fairly simple taste, so our standard fare is simple and cheap. Occasionally though, when we're craving seafood or other luxuries, we have no qualms about using our cards to purchase whatever we may want. To my knowledge, neither of us have felt any particular shame regarding that fact; we don't see a problem with such purchases.
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)You receive $300 each? Never heard of that much or of anyone who could live on $600 worth of food for a year.
Decoy? Hmmm. The luxury of EBT, ey?
LOL here.
Decoy of Fenris
(1,954 posts)The fiancee and I both fall barely under the poverty line on income, so that may explain the finances behind it. I can't say as I understand it much, as the lady handles most of our finances, being that I'm objectionably bad at paperwork and I generally don't enjoy going shopping for anything, really.
Aye though, got good at conserving money for food when I was out on the streets in Mass. It's a habit that I really haven't been able to kick; I eat on like 50 cents a day, buy most things in bulk, drink mostly water (or coffee) and eat mostly rice/beans with various supplementals (veggies, bacon) for flavoring and nutrition. When I cook, I make enough of a recipe to cover me for two or three weeks eating sparingly, using a few cups of rice and a can of beans as staple, adding further supplementals or spices as taste desires. In that way, I'm a simple man.
I'm failing to see a problem, one way or another. What's the issue with what's been said?
DeschutesRiver
(2,354 posts)foods with stamps and it created a big noise - here is a link to thst article, and then a google page of responses to it. I have seen these kind of articles since at least 2010, and remember one in the NYT that interviewed young people living on seafood, and expensive local artisanal foodie foods with food stamp money, saving their cash for other things. These adticles were picked up, spread around fast via email and kind of went viral in the "not with our money for those kind of people" circles.
The subtitle of the salon article om hipsters using stamps is "they're young, they're broke, and they pay for organic salmon with government subsidies. Got a problem with that?". I dont know if this is where all of this has come from, but it was at least a contributing factor given that it was a from the horses mouth sort of source for some people, ie it was not from Fox or the like, it was salon, the NYT, etc. I cant find the NYT article link at the moment, but i had come across it while researching the local slow foods movements progress in big cities like NYC awhile back.
http://www.google.com/search?q=hipsters+on+food+stamps+salon.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
http://www.google.com/search?q=hipsters+on+food+stamps+salon.com&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari
Vinnie From Indy
(10,820 posts)It is a rare event that is used as a club to bash the whole program. Typical right wing bullshit.
katmondoo
(6,455 posts)also single bars of candy, gum and single refrigerated cokes that are next to checkout counter therefore more expensive.
Blue Owl
(50,355 posts)Why the GOP reality is perfectly sane.
JeffHead
(1,186 posts)jollyreaper2112
(1,941 posts)Republican asshole grandstanding:
Step 1: Go through budget looking for something that sounds absurd like $1 million for bee research
Step 2: Go grandstanding on how stupid, awful and liberal this bullshit is, why I declare!
Step 3: Ignore far larger problems like trillion dollar bailouts of fucking banks
Step 4: Get reelected because his constituents are idiots
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.…
That sounds like commie talk to me!
\
rock
(13,218 posts)You now know what CONservative ass smells like.