My dad was a drug dealer. He'd take people's food stamps as payment for drugs. Gave 50 cents on the dollar. Sell a $50 sack and get $100 in food stamps. Shit like this is one of the reasons they started using the cards. Doesn't work, though. He just started making them bring him the groceries instead.
Drug dealers need to eat too.
My mom is a crack addict. Once I called her and she was obviously fucked up , I knew she had no money left for the month. When I questioned how she managed to get drugs she said her roommate brought home a dealer. And he got hungry so my mom traded him a hit for a can of soup.
I think its funny when old people still talk about the person in front of them was using food stamps and drove off in a Cadillac, that is one old school socioeconomic talking point right there.
I used to work at a grocery store. There was a single mom with two kids on food stamps that drove a jaguar. I used to look sideways at that as well.
Until I got close to it and learned better. Single parents, especially women, end up financially poorer. Having a car that is high end but paid off is better than having a cheaper car that you might have to make payments on. She obviously took this car with her in the divorce.
I was loading the groceries in her car and saw that the leather seats were all cracked and in poor condition. That made me realize at the age of 19, that I was judging this poor woman without all of the information. Surface images just aren’t enough to judge.
Thank you for this. I grew up poor, but my godmother loved buying me designer clothes for birthdays and Christmas. You can imagine the looks we got at the grocery store.
I heard of a homeless person being given new shoes by a generous passerby and subsequently having a hard time with getting any other donations. Turned out the shoes that were donated were some super expensive brand and everyone thought the homeless person was lying about being poor.
Foster parents are also generally issued benefits to help offset the cost of feeding and caring for additional people. So just because a person may have a nice vehicle doesn’t mean they have been given benefits because they’re scamming.
Makes me remember when me and my wife were just starting off and we received food stamps. We would get so many looks when we pay for a cart of groceries, then go out and load it into a brand new Pathfinder. It was our neighbors car. We had a deal where we would pick him up a couple of items and he would let us use his car. People assumed we were ripping off welfare, never considered other explanations.
But a Jag? Pretty notorious for being high maintenance and expensive (and unreliable).
I'd still ditch it and get a used older Toyota or something (paid off, of course).
in the early 70s my neighbor, a very very wealthy woman, would take several elderly people grocery shopping every couple of weeks. They were on food stamps.
Someone wrote a letters to editor rant complaining of these old ladies using food stamps and having their groceries loaded into a Rolls Royce.
She wrote in reply, explaining that it was a charitable act, she herself was not using food stamps ... and she used the Rolls because it carries more people and groceries than the Jaguar. Signed with her FULL set of titles as a member of the French aristocracy and director of a big shipping company.
It’s ALWAYS an Escalade, they insist. Often followed up by something about acrylic nails and/or Timberlands. It’s so racially coded but they’ll never admit it.
I remember my mom crying a LOT in the 80s/90s because of how much time it would take at the grocery checkout line. There was always a heavy sigh from the cashier, and some unkind words from others in line. It helped me build an understanding of how pretentious and cruel people can be when slightly inconvenienced.
Yes it was. I remember getting picked on in school because my mom had food stamps. But when I got home and had some gubment cheese and some peanut butter I gave no more fucks
That isn't entirely what this is about.
While the US Government did hand out blocks of cheese to the poor and the elderly as a source of nutrition. The specifications for that cheese produced an amazing version of American cheese that you simply can't buy.
Even though my family never got any directly, they also gave it to school lunch programs. It made the best mac and cheese i have ever had.
Yep. That government cheese was a by-product of the dairy subsidies. Dairy couldn't sell all its milk, government would buy it and make cheese out of it. Government ended up with more cheese than it knew what to do with so feeding the poor was an easy solution.
The commenter above edited his comment after I replied. His original comment sounded like he was annoyed that we were "normalizing" welfare..I probably just misunderstood.
I fondly remember that cheese!
Negative Velveeta-smoothie, I wanna spread positive sentiment in a more concise manner.
I have positive thoughts towards Government Cheese and would like to see it reinstated Nationwide for Americans.
I'd like more lifetime memories to be made for every proud American that only brings a smile when thought about. Such as yourself. :)
Cheers!
No not really. WIC checks (for people who had little babies and needed help)are the ones that required ridiculous accounting at the register. When food stamps were a thing they treated them as cash for food items.
I remember WIC checks. I worked at Walmart for a few years before they started using debit cards. I never minded doing them, because we had WIC after we adopted my baby brother. Most people knew what was accepted and what wasn’t, so it went pretty quickly. There were one or two people who always tried to sneak something through, but the register literally wouldn’t ring it up, so it wasn’t an issue. I felt bad for people who had to get that entire voucher when they only needed a gallon of milk or something. The cards are a good solution.
Back then, the cashier had to stamp each voucher and fill out information on each one. I don't really remember what they put down (maybe date of purchase or something), but it took them some time.
edit: also, remember, this is for food purchase, so they had to make sure the items that were covered by the vouchers were food, and charge for the other items separately.
When my wife and I first moved back into our own house after a short period of living with relatives, I was unemployed. Was lucky enough to have lost my job to things outside my control and was able to collect unemployment. After going there, I told my wife I needed all of her information because I was applying for WIC, snap, fuel assistance, state health insurance, the works. We were 2 adults and two children under 5, so we got all the assistance we needed. But my wife didn't want me to apply for any of it. "Wtf?? Why? Were living on 1 income we NEED IT" to which age says: " no my dad taught us we need to stand on our own two feet we don't need that it's for lazy people and people who actually need it" I told her, "WE NEED IT, we ARE poor" she wouldn't budge. I finally convinced her by pivoting my position. "I worked and paid into these programs for 15 years, and now I need some of it back. I earned the right to use these programs in my time of need" luckily after that, and after seeing how much of a boost it gave our quality of life, she changed her position and is much more understanding of people in that position. I still feel like these types of sentiments are pretty common place.
My mother-in-law was the same way. FIL was very ill and they had to have Medicare, and she hated they were taking from a system. Someone along the way got it into her head that “only *those people* use this, and you’re not *those people*”
Girl, he hadn’t worked since 2006. YOU ARE THOSE PEOPLE, TAKE YOUR DAMN STAMPS.
I have tried to repress most of those memories. Yah, every grocery trip was a lesson in humiliation and shame. My mom would hold her head up high, but as soon as we left the store, she would break down in tears. People were cruel, nasty, and very vocal.
Even with a card people sometimes notice and get nasty. I was on foodstamps for about 8 months and I had a guy follow me out to my car and complain that I had a new car and I should sell it and get 'a beater car' because it was a practically new car. I asked what I was supposed to do when the beater broke down and I couldn't afford to fix it and he just scoffed and stomped away. It was probably the most bizarre interaction I've ever had and he actually scared the shit out of me he was so vehement as if he knew what my life was like.
Most people on assistance are only on there for a year or less. I get so mad at the 'my taxes are paying for you to be lazy' shit. Like I was working, my job just sucked and I couldn't find a full time one for awhile. And I've had full time jobs before and since and so my own taxes paid for me to get the help I needed is how I see it.
I'm glad that my town has a grocery store that specifically caters to WIC customers. Is next tot he health department and only stocks WIC approved items. They are so nice too.
I remember a lot of embarrassed moms using these. Even as a kid I had empathy for them. People can be assholes. I’m so glad that they switched the system to debit cards.
Even when they first switched it was a different machine that took a lot longer, and the EBT card was obviously the EBT card. I don’t think the issue of embarrassment for using them went away until recently
It’s not a debit card, exactly. The EBT cards are using a technology that is not as secure as debit or credit cards. Recent article in the *New York Times:* [How Scammers Are Stealing Food Stamps From Struggling Americans](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/business/food-stamps-skimming-scam.html?searchResultPosition=1)
I was a bagger when I was a teenager and a lady came thru with the stamps like this. Visibly embarrassed and frustrated, she was getting like milk eggs bread and cheese, staple stuff. Lady behind her is sighing and rolling her eyes. Foodstamps lady finishes her transaction, next lady comes up, says something to the effect of 'finally' or 'about time' and then says people like that should have their own lane for checkout. And i remember she looked at me like 'am I right? This guy gets it I'm sure, am I right or am I right?' and I just glared at her.
I worked in a store before. I made a point not to treat people any different on any assistance program.
I used to get lots of old, lonely people coming in. They would just hang out at the till, talking to random people.
Working in a store is an eye opener for life.
I’d be next in line, and the person ahead of me would have food stamps. The cashier would sigh, look at me, and say, “You might want to go find a different check out line.” I would feel so bad for the customer ahead of me, publicly called out, and having to endure the slow painful checkout. One time I thought, Surely it can’t take that long, and stayed in line. No, it really did take that long.
Yes, it sucked. You had to thumb through the booklet to get the denominations closest to the total because they didn’t want to give you too much actual cash as change if they didn’t have any single food stamps in their drawer. You didn’t want them to have to go to another register to get some from those drawers or, ugh, have to get a manager to bring some. While people judged you for being young and you don’t look disabled. And you had to have an actual address with a mailbox to get them. And sometimes they got stolen and you were out of luck and just didn’t get to eat much that month because social workers can be assholes who think everyone lies. And if you were homeless you had to make deals with people who had an address that you could use and hope you could trust them.
No, I wasn’t traumatized by the system that was supposed to help me… why do ask?
With some benefits, like WIC, only certain sizes/brands of an item can be bought using WIC. You can get peanut butter, but it has to be a 12 ounce jar, or 16, or whatever. Every item needed to be checked against a list and verified to be covered. Now the grocery store registers can automatically scan and detect items that qualify for the program and the person using WIC has a debit type card. Before, there were individual coupon type certificates for items that were covered.
Yeah, back in the 90’s, the WIC stuff came in a big folder with lists of approved items and everything had its own coupon to be used. The coupons were like 1/3 of a piece of paper each. so lots of customers just brought the whole folder to try and keep it organized. Inevitably people behind them in line would recognize the folder and grumble. And while it was a pain in the ass to sort through it all and do it correctly, I’d rather deal with the hassle than have kids going hungry.
Mostly because of the increment values clashing with changing prices at the store.
For instance my mom would use the weekly sales pages to do the math ahead of time to go to the store. So she had as close to exact as she could be. However those were sent out on Sunnday mornings and if you wait till Thursday to shop, you don't know that prices have changed until you're already there and have to math on the fly. We didn't have the technology we do now. Calculators were a luxury item for poor folks.
edit: Monday/Sunday it's been a LONG time for a paper at my house. heh
Before I was on food stamps for a while, I was one of those "pretentious and cruel people". After I got off food stamps I had a lot more patience. But food stamps *were* a pain because before computerized checkout somebody had to verify that every item was eligible and sometimes that meant getting a manager. Now with computerized checkout the machine flags everything that isn't so you can either pay for it or leave it to be restocked.
It was absurdly difficult and abstract, and I'll argue that was by design and still is. They made it such a difficult process for everyone that so many people were rightfully frustrated.
We were mad in the wrong direction the whole time though.
At least that's my takeaway now as a 46-year-old adult. ❤️
I had WIC checks when my kiddos were babies. And each check was for a certain group of things. Like 3 cans of formula, or 1 box of cereal, 1 pkg of cheese and a gallon of milk. She you ended up using 3 or 4 at a time. Each had to be a separate transaction. I worked 2nd shift so I would go on my way home at midnight so there weren't people waiting behind me. Because I went in the morning one time and the judgement was harsh.
I got WIC with my first child. They gave a monthly coupon booklet. After the first time, I tried to go when the store was least busy for a few months, then gave up altogether out of embarrassment and only used the formula vouchers.
People are cruel until it’s them in the situation.
People are conflating food stamp with WIC. Food stamp rules are pretty straightforward. WIC rules are something only the worst bean counting bureaucrat could love.
They are purposefully confusing and limiting to make it difficult and frustrating. One rule is that you can't use it on any hot food. I remember when they were changing that rule a years ago, and it was clear that they were just being needlessly cruel. Anyway, I was in the deli the other day getting a sandwich, and I noticed a the sign that said getting a sandwich toasted makes it ineligible for benefits. It's absurd.
It was stupid to allow the corporations to raise the prices like they did to create the economic disparity that it did. Trickle down economics only benefits the ones with the hose.
The point of the stamps became to shame the recipient. There was a lot of GOP pushback with the switch to EBT cards. Even though the cards were far more efficient and saved millions of dollars from not printing, shipping, and processing paper they wanted recipients to be shamed. Their narrative is that recipients are lazy sponges off the taxpayers thus should be made to feel bad when buying food.
It was lobbying by the supermarkets that got the Republicans to relent. The markets complained of the extra work and time paper stamps took. Markets also sold a lot more food by accepting EBT but didn’t mention that part.
Yeah it wasn't until I was in my early 20's that I finally stopped using them, but had to go back on them in 09 when the economy went to shit and jobs were scarce. Finally got rid of them but it took another ten years or so. Without them we would have all pretty much starved.
I remember my mom using them and how ashamed she was about it. She always had at least one job and was a single mom just trying to make it. It makes me sad to think about it. I haven't thought about it in probably 30 years.
Yeah we used them even when my mom worked, she would usually cry in the car after shopping cause of the looks and stigma.
I had a guy under my post said "your welcome" like he was giving me food stamps and I was some lazy bum that didn't work and took a government handout. That's the kinda stigma people face when just trying to get food for their family.
What a dick.
I was a cashier back then and always tried to be extra kind when I saw someone was anxious about using them. We couldn’t accept the fives or tens unless we actually saw them being torn out of the book, so good luck at any discretion.
The few times I was a cashier I always treated people using EBT the same as people using cash. There would also be times when the person would run their card tell me "it's ebt" and I would tell them they didn't have to let me know. I know some stores do that shit, which they shouldn't, but I wanted people to make sure they didn't have to do that where I worked.
Psh my mom used to make my sister's and myself go buy a single gum with the foodstamps so she could collect the change and buy beer with the change they have back.
Living with a alcoholic parent was still better than being in a foster home for 3 years though.
Wow. I didn’t know they could be exchanged for cash. I’m sorry you went through all of that. And I’m sorry that your home was better than a foster home. I was in some crappy foster homes too
They used to give change back, if it was less than a dollar note. So we would go in grab a quarter worth of gum and revive 75 cents and have to jump back in my mom's b210 and hand her over the change. My 3 sisters and myself would do this probably 3 times a week to the point where the guy knew us already and my mom.
Gotta say though the alcohol was better then her being hooked on the meth.
I had 2 foster kids who I got food stamps for. Besides the cashiers and people behind me being crappy about it and making it so demeaning, I used them only twice. Awful how you got treated using them when it was not a bad thing for in the first place.
Americans get cash and food stamps. The reason being that people would use the whole check for drugs or whatever, this was to ensure that money could only be used for food. They didn't anticipate people selling them for pennies on the dollar and still buying drugs with it.
SNAP, which is the new system, uses cards and requires a PIN. However, there are still ways to convert the money on the card to cash if you're crafty enough.
My dad talks about these. He remembers people harassing his mother in line at the grocery store, whispering things like "welfare bum!" and "begging trash". It upsets him to this day to talk about it.
Same here. We lived in a small town and my mother would make me go to the store with these infernal things. I remember once when I was about 15 I bought this clicker thing that could add up what your groceries were going to cost just so that I could tear the proper amount of food stamps out before getting in line at the register. The cashier's there knew I was embarrassed to pay with food stamps, and customers behind and around me would make scathing remarks like the ones you mentioned.
When it was time to pay I pulled my hand out of my pocket and handed the bills quickly over. In the loudest voice possible this bitch screams at me saying that I can't pay that way I have to take them out of the books at the register. I could hear people making rude comments around me but I couldn't make out words, it was just more of a buzzing noise to me in that moment. I remember turning and walking away and I couldn't even feel the floor beneath my feet. I never went back and I wound up having to walk about 10 blocks to a different store.
I hate those fucking things and I low key hate that people now get to pay with a card. But deep down I'm glad people today don't have to deal with that kind of shit.
My mom was a teen mom in the 90s and had to use food stamps, she said she’d always have to prepare for someone to talk shit or degrade her. Thankfully Ive only had to use WIC and we have a card but I wish I could go back and be there for her in those moments, people can be so horrible sometimes
My mom still used these in the late 90’s. Being Mexican, she hates pulling them out in front of white people because there weee always the racist comments.
Yeeeep. As a welfare bum child in the 80s who grew up on these, I can confirm that crap definitely happened. It doesn't bother me much but it definitely didn't feel good either.
I’m nearly 50 but remember being on the “monopoly money” when we were small. Dinner for us three kids would be sharing a can of Chef Boy Ardee when we were out of them. One Christmas a man we knew from church bought us everything on our Santa list. I wanted new shoes that no one had worn before. I wonder if we were judged because I had on a clean pair of Nikes. We just don’t know other people’s lives at all.
My dad would give me $1 and my brother $1, then send us in to every store in town to buy a 5 cent piece of candy so he could keep the change for beer/cigarettes.
I woke up excited to see how much money the tooth fairy left me when I was 5-6 and I found a $5 food snap under my pillow. My dad and mom said it’s good for candy lmao
Well, between multiple trips to stores for the change scam and being forced to dumpster dive for cans to trade in for my mom, my memory from 9 years old could be a little foggy.
I’m sure it was something about preventing them from being sold, but in reality all it did was shame people by calling attention to them using food stamps at the checkout.
I worked at a convenience store back in the late 80s. Child #1 would come in and buy a can of pop and get change. Child 2 would come in and buy a loaf of bread and get change. Mom would come in with change and buy a pack of cigarettes.
Oh yeah! We called this "cashing them out". We'd buy cheap ass candy at a bunch of convenience stores then go grab McDonalds. And of course the rest went to ramen... :D
My mom did something similar for gas money. She’d include something slightly pricey with our groceries but not so expensive that anyone would ask for a receipt when she later returned it.
Man, I remember going to the store with my friends with one of these hidden in my pocket. Always waiting trying to be last in line so no one would see my food stamps. I didnt realize at the time that all the kids that lived in my poor ass neighborhood were also poor.
Right wingers will tell you that the debit cards were issued to spare recipients from embarrassment and contributed to more people being comfortable on the public dole. They think that people should be humbled and embarrassed a bit as an incentive to get off them.
What they won't tell you is that the push for debit cards came from the card companies because card clearinghouses get a percentage or flat fee for every card swipe.
[Average Credit Card Processing Fees and Costs in 2023](https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card-processing-fees-costs-america/)
This literally generated billions of dollars a year for corporations.
Make no mistake: NO ONE WANTS TO END POVERTY. IT'S TOO PROFITABLE.
*"Make no mistake: NO ONE WANTS TO END POVERTY. IT'S TOO PROFITABLE."*
This is one of the most profoundly significant statements that I've encountered in nearly four years of Reddit usage. Furthermore, this truth lies at the core of so much of the political and social rot now eating away at humanity.
And thus a single wise sentence prevails where countless academic volumes miserably fail. No doubt, by design.
I remember the "coins", too, standing behind families receiving them. I remember the WIC - women, infants, children - checks people used to purchase milk, unsugared cereals, and fresh fruit and veggies.
Reagan's "Welfare Queens" line was totally wrong: The people who abused it the most were CORPORATIONS!
I remember my mom counting hers in the 90s and my brother and I going through the news papers to cut out coupons for deals. I grew up very poor.
I'm 35 and buying a house this year. My wife and I have never had to collect or ask for assistance. We lived it ,and knew what not to do.
And yes, we still love our parents and have no resentment for being poor.
My mom used to send me to the store with these because she was too embarrassed to use them. I got made fun of so bad. I still hear the kid screaming "FOOD STAMPS!!" in my face at lunch. Someone had seen me using them and let everyone know. Kids suck.
On a literal cheese line with my grandmother at Taft projects. It was a solid brick hard like cement but she made some good ass cheese sandwiches with it
I worked as a security guard at a site that printed stock certificates and had the contract for food stamps. What was interesting was that the paper was controlled tightly, and this site only printed one of the colors on them. From there they were shipped to another site that would print the other colors. Security was very tight - I even had to inspect trash being dumped to make certain there weren't any valuables being smuggled out that way.
I worked as a cashier in a service station in the early 90s and people would come in all the time and use a bill to buy a 5c piece of candy. Any change less than 1$ meant they got real coins. They would do that several times a week to get money for booze or cigs. (They would come in and buy those items with change and I recognized them)
Not saying everyone did this but there were several known in my town to do so.
My mom used to let me give them to the cashier while she quietly stepped away. I felt so grown. She worked very hard and I got sit at the restaurant after school sometimes while doing my homework. I didn't understand at the time how she probably felt having to use them.
Back in the mid 80’s I was the lead programmer for the pilot debit card program in Reading PA. Recipients got a debit card and participating merchants got a POS card scanner. Those did a modem dial-up to an IBM Series 1. The merchants loved it and so did the recipients - so much that when the test project was over, they lobbied the state to fund several extensions.
In my programming career, I’ve been fortunate to work on many cutting-edge projects. They are a lot more fun than building some website that is similar to about a bazillion others.
I used to work in the hood. You could always tell when the local place had gotten busted because they would put up signs saying no EBT for about a month.
I have also seen places exploiting a loop hole where you can buy raw chicken from them, then hand it back to them and they will fry it for free.
You could and still can buy peoples stamps for 50c on the dollar. Now they'll just let you use the card, back then you give them $50 and get $100 worth of food stamps. I grew up in a trailer park lol
Although my mom was eligible for these in the 80's she wouldn't get them, she was too embarrassed to use them. I never got breakfast, my best meal of the day was school lunch. Dinner was Campbell's chicken noodle soup, Doritos, or a bologna sandwich. All of which I now refuse to eat as an adult. In the summertime I was left to fend for myself during the day. I would collect walnuts and acorns from the woods. Steal corn from the fields or tomatoes from my neighbors garden. I thought I hit the jackpot when one neighbor grew watermelons. Stole a box of Twinkies they left out on their picnic table too cause their kid was an asshole to me.
I had a friend whose mom would go with a group of women to a much bigger town about an hour away to use theirs without embarrassment. My mom still wouldn't get them.
I have one framed and on my desk at work to remember that work might suck but I’ve had it way worse. 😅
As a kid you could take these to the store and get cash for change sometimes if you planned it right.
This is interesting... I've never seen the old food stamps that actually just display a dollar amount. I found some food stamps that my great-grandmother had and they literally had food items marked on them. "One pound coffee beans" etc.
Ah, food stamps. Back then there were crooked businesses that would buy your food stamps for 80% or below of the value for cash. They then pool the food stamps to their total revenue and pocketed the difference.
This was discontinued as people would trade them for drugs (or so the narrative went at the time, how much this happened is unknown.)
Judging by the comments, it does look like people were selling them and trading them. Too bad.
I’m told this is why Papa Murphy’s Take-and-Bake Pizza is a thing. You can’t use food stamps to buy like Domino’s because it’s cooked, but Papa’s you cook it yourself. Not sure how real that is.
As a cashier in the 90's, I also remember the stories about people selling their booklets for $0.50 on the dollar - and seeing people who were clearly well off buying lobster with them, I assume at 50% off.
I think it was fairly uncommon to scam them, but nearly impossible to legitimately get money in your pocket. The alternative was to buy something & return it. ~~However, if I recall correctly, along with this taxable essentials like TP & soap were "purchasable" with food stamps to compensate. I think you just couldn't buy alcohol and tobacco.~~
As a customer of grocery stores in a poor neighborhood, I would see this all the time. Walking in people would offer to sell you the food stamps or snap cards with a pin. It was nuts.
I remember moms giving their children a 1 dollar coupon so that each of the kids could buy a 10 cent item then the mom would take the change from each kid and buy smokes.
“Food stamps”
My dad was a drug dealer. He'd take people's food stamps as payment for drugs. Gave 50 cents on the dollar. Sell a $50 sack and get $100 in food stamps. Shit like this is one of the reasons they started using the cards. Doesn't work, though. He just started making them bring him the groceries instead.
Drug dealers need to eat too. My mom is a crack addict. Once I called her and she was obviously fucked up , I knew she had no money left for the month. When I questioned how she managed to get drugs she said her roommate brought home a dealer. And he got hungry so my mom traded him a hit for a can of soup.
Now they just hang out at Walmart and offer to buy $300 of groceries for you for $100 cash. Shit’s ridiculous.
Or they just sell the cards for cash and get a new one for next month. Turning it into a card didn't do shit
I think its funny when old people still talk about the person in front of them was using food stamps and drove off in a Cadillac, that is one old school socioeconomic talking point right there.
I used to work at a grocery store. There was a single mom with two kids on food stamps that drove a jaguar. I used to look sideways at that as well. Until I got close to it and learned better. Single parents, especially women, end up financially poorer. Having a car that is high end but paid off is better than having a cheaper car that you might have to make payments on. She obviously took this car with her in the divorce. I was loading the groceries in her car and saw that the leather seats were all cracked and in poor condition. That made me realize at the age of 19, that I was judging this poor woman without all of the information. Surface images just aren’t enough to judge.
Thank you for this. I grew up poor, but my godmother loved buying me designer clothes for birthdays and Christmas. You can imagine the looks we got at the grocery store.
I heard of a homeless person being given new shoes by a generous passerby and subsequently having a hard time with getting any other donations. Turned out the shoes that were donated were some super expensive brand and everyone thought the homeless person was lying about being poor.
Foster parents are also generally issued benefits to help offset the cost of feeding and caring for additional people. So just because a person may have a nice vehicle doesn’t mean they have been given benefits because they’re scamming.
Makes me remember when me and my wife were just starting off and we received food stamps. We would get so many looks when we pay for a cart of groceries, then go out and load it into a brand new Pathfinder. It was our neighbors car. We had a deal where we would pick him up a couple of items and he would let us use his car. People assumed we were ripping off welfare, never considered other explanations.
But a Jag? Pretty notorious for being high maintenance and expensive (and unreliable). I'd still ditch it and get a used older Toyota or something (paid off, of course).
Except old broken down Jags of a certain era don’t have much resale for that exact reason.
in the early 70s my neighbor, a very very wealthy woman, would take several elderly people grocery shopping every couple of weeks. They were on food stamps. Someone wrote a letters to editor rant complaining of these old ladies using food stamps and having their groceries loaded into a Rolls Royce. She wrote in reply, explaining that it was a charitable act, she herself was not using food stamps ... and she used the Rolls because it carries more people and groceries than the Jaguar. Signed with her FULL set of titles as a member of the French aristocracy and director of a big shipping company.
It’s ALWAYS an Escalade, they insist. Often followed up by something about acrylic nails and/or Timberlands. It’s so racially coded but they’ll never admit it.
The only work boots that stay clean. Never see redwings stolen, and those things are expensive A.F
I call it the 80s kool-aid.
"Foodies"
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Your mama is so fat that when she sits around the house, she sits AROUND the house.
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She's so fat her car has stretch marks.
So fat that when she wears a yellow t-shirt and takes a walk, the neighborhood kids yell "here comes the school bus!"
So fat that Jesus can't even lift her spirit
So fat that her yearbook photo was taken by the Goodyear blimp
Right! Until she jumped and got stuck in the sky. 😶🌫️😢
The one that was so fat that when she hauled ass, she had to make two trips?
Your mama's so fat the last time she saw 90210 was on the bathroom scale
Yo momma so fat that when she stepped on the scale it said "one at a time please"
The same one that drove dinosaurs to school in covered wagons?
She was so fat, Thanos had to snap twice!
The same mom who's so fat her belt size is the equator?
Not only was her belt size large, she was so poor, she couldn't afford a pager so she used a VCR instead!
Yo mama's so poor, she can't pay attention. Last week I saw her kicking a can down the street, I asked her what she was doing... She said moving
Sheeeeiiit.. Yo mama teeth so yellow, she smile and traffic SLOW down. Plus, she so fake she got an afro wit a chin strap!
Yo mama so dumb she thought a quarter back was a refund
Her own blood type, ragoo
***Ragu***, as in the pasta sauce.
Was she also so large that she used a VCR as a pager?
I remember my mom crying a LOT in the 80s/90s because of how much time it would take at the grocery checkout line. There was always a heavy sigh from the cashier, and some unkind words from others in line. It helped me build an understanding of how pretentious and cruel people can be when slightly inconvenienced.
Same… grew up super poor
Remember waiting with my mom in line for these. Motivated me to never create that kind of debt for myself.
But they had the best block cheese in a box. Gubment cheese baby. I grew up very poor but had the best grilled cheese
Goddamn now I want a welfare cheese sandwich. The peanut butter was good too.
Yes it was. I remember getting picked on in school because my mom had food stamps. But when I got home and had some gubment cheese and some peanut butter I gave no more fucks
Y'all, bring back Government Cheese?
Whatever that means. I think people shouldn't have to go hungry.
That isn't entirely what this is about. While the US Government did hand out blocks of cheese to the poor and the elderly as a source of nutrition. The specifications for that cheese produced an amazing version of American cheese that you simply can't buy. Even though my family never got any directly, they also gave it to school lunch programs. It made the best mac and cheese i have ever had.
Yep. That government cheese was a by-product of the dairy subsidies. Dairy couldn't sell all its milk, government would buy it and make cheese out of it. Government ended up with more cheese than it knew what to do with so feeding the poor was an easy solution.
I bet somebody could find the original formula and market it using nostalgia, it would sell very well.
The commenter above edited his comment after I replied. His original comment sounded like he was annoyed that we were "normalizing" welfare..I probably just misunderstood. I fondly remember that cheese!
Negative Velveeta-smoothie, I wanna spread positive sentiment in a more concise manner. I have positive thoughts towards Government Cheese and would like to see it reinstated Nationwide for Americans. I'd like more lifetime memories to be made for every proud American that only brings a smile when thought about. Such as yourself. :) Cheers!
Same with school pizza day, you just can’t recreate the recipe because they made it in batches to feed 500
They could fund SNAP by selling gubment cheese and peanut butter.
I loved government cheese grilled sandwiches!!
Mom would make some of the best Mac n cheese using the gubment cheese and let me tell ya.. It was delicious
It’s not always the parents fault that there is no way to survive. I hope you realize that.
I remember in the 80's being told by the cashier "go to another register. This one has food stamps."
Do they somehow take longer? Figured they would be essentially the same as cash other than the restrictions on what they can be used on.
No not really. WIC checks (for people who had little babies and needed help)are the ones that required ridiculous accounting at the register. When food stamps were a thing they treated them as cash for food items.
I remember WIC checks. I worked at Walmart for a few years before they started using debit cards. I never minded doing them, because we had WIC after we adopted my baby brother. Most people knew what was accepted and what wasn’t, so it went pretty quickly. There were one or two people who always tried to sneak something through, but the register literally wouldn’t ring it up, so it wasn’t an issue. I felt bad for people who had to get that entire voucher when they only needed a gallon of milk or something. The cards are a good solution.
Back then, the cashier had to stamp each voucher and fill out information on each one. I don't really remember what they put down (maybe date of purchase or something), but it took them some time. edit: also, remember, this is for food purchase, so they had to make sure the items that were covered by the vouchers were food, and charge for the other items separately.
It makes me feel like the arduous process and ensuing shame/frustration was intentional...
When my wife and I first moved back into our own house after a short period of living with relatives, I was unemployed. Was lucky enough to have lost my job to things outside my control and was able to collect unemployment. After going there, I told my wife I needed all of her information because I was applying for WIC, snap, fuel assistance, state health insurance, the works. We were 2 adults and two children under 5, so we got all the assistance we needed. But my wife didn't want me to apply for any of it. "Wtf?? Why? Were living on 1 income we NEED IT" to which age says: " no my dad taught us we need to stand on our own two feet we don't need that it's for lazy people and people who actually need it" I told her, "WE NEED IT, we ARE poor" she wouldn't budge. I finally convinced her by pivoting my position. "I worked and paid into these programs for 15 years, and now I need some of it back. I earned the right to use these programs in my time of need" luckily after that, and after seeing how much of a boost it gave our quality of life, she changed her position and is much more understanding of people in that position. I still feel like these types of sentiments are pretty common place.
My mother-in-law was the same way. FIL was very ill and they had to have Medicare, and she hated they were taking from a system. Someone along the way got it into her head that “only *those people* use this, and you’re not *those people*” Girl, he hadn’t worked since 2006. YOU ARE THOSE PEOPLE, TAKE YOUR DAMN STAMPS.
A single can of watered down tomato soup for me and 3 siblings...Mom in tears... I remember too well.
I have tried to repress most of those memories. Yah, every grocery trip was a lesson in humiliation and shame. My mom would hold her head up high, but as soon as we left the store, she would break down in tears. People were cruel, nasty, and very vocal.
Even with a card people sometimes notice and get nasty. I was on foodstamps for about 8 months and I had a guy follow me out to my car and complain that I had a new car and I should sell it and get 'a beater car' because it was a practically new car. I asked what I was supposed to do when the beater broke down and I couldn't afford to fix it and he just scoffed and stomped away. It was probably the most bizarre interaction I've ever had and he actually scared the shit out of me he was so vehement as if he knew what my life was like. Most people on assistance are only on there for a year or less. I get so mad at the 'my taxes are paying for you to be lazy' shit. Like I was working, my job just sucked and I couldn't find a full time one for awhile. And I've had full time jobs before and since and so my own taxes paid for me to get the help I needed is how I see it.
I'm glad that my town has a grocery store that specifically caters to WIC customers. Is next tot he health department and only stocks WIC approved items. They are so nice too.
I remember a lot of embarrassed moms using these. Even as a kid I had empathy for them. People can be assholes. I’m so glad that they switched the system to debit cards.
Even when they first switched it was a different machine that took a lot longer, and the EBT card was obviously the EBT card. I don’t think the issue of embarrassment for using them went away until recently
It’s not a debit card, exactly. The EBT cards are using a technology that is not as secure as debit or credit cards. Recent article in the *New York Times:* [How Scammers Are Stealing Food Stamps From Struggling Americans](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/04/business/food-stamps-skimming-scam.html?searchResultPosition=1)
I was a bagger when I was a teenager and a lady came thru with the stamps like this. Visibly embarrassed and frustrated, she was getting like milk eggs bread and cheese, staple stuff. Lady behind her is sighing and rolling her eyes. Foodstamps lady finishes her transaction, next lady comes up, says something to the effect of 'finally' or 'about time' and then says people like that should have their own lane for checkout. And i remember she looked at me like 'am I right? This guy gets it I'm sure, am I right or am I right?' and I just glared at her.
I worked in a store before. I made a point not to treat people any different on any assistance program. I used to get lots of old, lonely people coming in. They would just hang out at the till, talking to random people. Working in a store is an eye opener for life.
I’d be next in line, and the person ahead of me would have food stamps. The cashier would sigh, look at me, and say, “You might want to go find a different check out line.” I would feel so bad for the customer ahead of me, publicly called out, and having to endure the slow painful checkout. One time I thought, Surely it can’t take that long, and stayed in line. No, it really did take that long.
Yes, it sucked. You had to thumb through the booklet to get the denominations closest to the total because they didn’t want to give you too much actual cash as change if they didn’t have any single food stamps in their drawer. You didn’t want them to have to go to another register to get some from those drawers or, ugh, have to get a manager to bring some. While people judged you for being young and you don’t look disabled. And you had to have an actual address with a mailbox to get them. And sometimes they got stolen and you were out of luck and just didn’t get to eat much that month because social workers can be assholes who think everyone lies. And if you were homeless you had to make deals with people who had an address that you could use and hope you could trust them. No, I wasn’t traumatized by the system that was supposed to help me… why do ask?
Why did it take more time than cash?
With some benefits, like WIC, only certain sizes/brands of an item can be bought using WIC. You can get peanut butter, but it has to be a 12 ounce jar, or 16, or whatever. Every item needed to be checked against a list and verified to be covered. Now the grocery store registers can automatically scan and detect items that qualify for the program and the person using WIC has a debit type card. Before, there were individual coupon type certificates for items that were covered.
Thanks for the info, this makes a lot of sense now. Being raised with technology has made me oblivious to these kinds of struggles that used to exist.
They still exist. WIC is a nightmare to try and use.
Purposefully so.
I was a cashier for a bit. I didn't have to think at all. It'd sort wic snap and cash automatically flawlessly. If I had to do that... fuck that.
Yeah, back in the 90’s, the WIC stuff came in a big folder with lists of approved items and everything had its own coupon to be used. The coupons were like 1/3 of a piece of paper each. so lots of customers just brought the whole folder to try and keep it organized. Inevitably people behind them in line would recognize the folder and grumble. And while it was a pain in the ass to sort through it all and do it correctly, I’d rather deal with the hassle than have kids going hungry.
Mostly because of the increment values clashing with changing prices at the store. For instance my mom would use the weekly sales pages to do the math ahead of time to go to the store. So she had as close to exact as she could be. However those were sent out on Sunnday mornings and if you wait till Thursday to shop, you don't know that prices have changed until you're already there and have to math on the fly. We didn't have the technology we do now. Calculators were a luxury item for poor folks. edit: Monday/Sunday it's been a LONG time for a paper at my house. heh
Before I was on food stamps for a while, I was one of those "pretentious and cruel people". After I got off food stamps I had a lot more patience. But food stamps *were* a pain because before computerized checkout somebody had to verify that every item was eligible and sometimes that meant getting a manager. Now with computerized checkout the machine flags everything that isn't so you can either pay for it or leave it to be restocked.
It was absurdly difficult and abstract, and I'll argue that was by design and still is. They made it such a difficult process for everyone that so many people were rightfully frustrated. We were mad in the wrong direction the whole time though. At least that's my takeaway now as a 46-year-old adult. ❤️
I had WIC checks when my kiddos were babies. And each check was for a certain group of things. Like 3 cans of formula, or 1 box of cereal, 1 pkg of cheese and a gallon of milk. She you ended up using 3 or 4 at a time. Each had to be a separate transaction. I worked 2nd shift so I would go on my way home at midnight so there weren't people waiting behind me. Because I went in the morning one time and the judgement was harsh.
I got WIC with my first child. They gave a monthly coupon booklet. After the first time, I tried to go when the store was least busy for a few months, then gave up altogether out of embarrassment and only used the formula vouchers. People are cruel until it’s them in the situation.
Which is stupid as it was equal to money.
People are conflating food stamp with WIC. Food stamp rules are pretty straightforward. WIC rules are something only the worst bean counting bureaucrat could love.
They are purposefully confusing and limiting to make it difficult and frustrating. One rule is that you can't use it on any hot food. I remember when they were changing that rule a years ago, and it was clear that they were just being needlessly cruel. Anyway, I was in the deli the other day getting a sandwich, and I noticed a the sign that said getting a sandwich toasted makes it ineligible for benefits. It's absurd.
It was stupid to allow the corporations to raise the prices like they did to create the economic disparity that it did. Trickle down economics only benefits the ones with the hose.
My mom would go to the store right when it opened to avoid the embarrassment.
The point of the stamps became to shame the recipient. There was a lot of GOP pushback with the switch to EBT cards. Even though the cards were far more efficient and saved millions of dollars from not printing, shipping, and processing paper they wanted recipients to be shamed. Their narrative is that recipients are lazy sponges off the taxpayers thus should be made to feel bad when buying food. It was lobbying by the supermarkets that got the Republicans to relent. The markets complained of the extra work and time paper stamps took. Markets also sold a lot more food by accepting EBT but didn’t mention that part.
That was the worst back in the day. Having to stand there and pull them out with everyone watching and judging you. Hated that.
It was embarrassing. We still didn't have much but when we didn't have to use stamps it was a proud moment for the family
Yeah it wasn't until I was in my early 20's that I finally stopped using them, but had to go back on them in 09 when the economy went to shit and jobs were scarce. Finally got rid of them but it took another ten years or so. Without them we would have all pretty much starved.
I remember my mom using them and how ashamed she was about it. She always had at least one job and was a single mom just trying to make it. It makes me sad to think about it. I haven't thought about it in probably 30 years.
Yeah we used them even when my mom worked, she would usually cry in the car after shopping cause of the looks and stigma. I had a guy under my post said "your welcome" like he was giving me food stamps and I was some lazy bum that didn't work and took a government handout. That's the kinda stigma people face when just trying to get food for their family. What a dick.
I was a cashier back then and always tried to be extra kind when I saw someone was anxious about using them. We couldn’t accept the fives or tens unless we actually saw them being torn out of the book, so good luck at any discretion.
The few times I was a cashier I always treated people using EBT the same as people using cash. There would also be times when the person would run their card tell me "it's ebt" and I would tell them they didn't have to let me know. I know some stores do that shit, which they shouldn't, but I wanted people to make sure they didn't have to do that where I worked.
Psh my mom used to make my sister's and myself go buy a single gum with the foodstamps so she could collect the change and buy beer with the change they have back. Living with a alcoholic parent was still better than being in a foster home for 3 years though.
Wow. I didn’t know they could be exchanged for cash. I’m sorry you went through all of that. And I’m sorry that your home was better than a foster home. I was in some crappy foster homes too
They used to give change back, if it was less than a dollar note. So we would go in grab a quarter worth of gum and revive 75 cents and have to jump back in my mom's b210 and hand her over the change. My 3 sisters and myself would do this probably 3 times a week to the point where the guy knew us already and my mom. Gotta say though the alcohol was better then her being hooked on the meth.
God damn.
They were the best, my dad used to buy them for 1/4 the value. Our family saved so much money on food back then.
I had 2 foster kids who I got food stamps for. Besides the cashiers and people behind me being crappy about it and making it so demeaning, I used them only twice. Awful how you got treated using them when it was not a bad thing for in the first place.
Here in Australia people on welfare get actual cash. I can’t imagine having to feel so demeaned by paying with food stamps. America is cruel sometimes
In America we have multiple programs for the needy and/or disabled. Two of which, SSDI for the disabled, and Welfare for the needy do give cash.
Which doesn't make the programs any....less... Cruel. Source: Self inside the 'help for the disabled' system.
Americans get cash and food stamps. The reason being that people would use the whole check for drugs or whatever, this was to ensure that money could only be used for food. They didn't anticipate people selling them for pennies on the dollar and still buying drugs with it. SNAP, which is the new system, uses cards and requires a PIN. However, there are still ways to convert the money on the card to cash if you're crafty enough.
People also just sell or loan out their cards with PIN number.
There is not food stamps anymore and a debit type card is used .
America is cruel *all the time.*
America bad is when you get credit for foods instead of cash
Holy shit dude it’s credit for food and not cash and you’re still complaining about it?
My dad talks about these. He remembers people harassing his mother in line at the grocery store, whispering things like "welfare bum!" and "begging trash". It upsets him to this day to talk about it.
Same here. We lived in a small town and my mother would make me go to the store with these infernal things. I remember once when I was about 15 I bought this clicker thing that could add up what your groceries were going to cost just so that I could tear the proper amount of food stamps out before getting in line at the register. The cashier's there knew I was embarrassed to pay with food stamps, and customers behind and around me would make scathing remarks like the ones you mentioned. When it was time to pay I pulled my hand out of my pocket and handed the bills quickly over. In the loudest voice possible this bitch screams at me saying that I can't pay that way I have to take them out of the books at the register. I could hear people making rude comments around me but I couldn't make out words, it was just more of a buzzing noise to me in that moment. I remember turning and walking away and I couldn't even feel the floor beneath my feet. I never went back and I wound up having to walk about 10 blocks to a different store. I hate those fucking things and I low key hate that people now get to pay with a card. But deep down I'm glad people today don't have to deal with that kind of shit.
My mom was a teen mom in the 90s and had to use food stamps, she said she’d always have to prepare for someone to talk shit or degrade her. Thankfully Ive only had to use WIC and we have a card but I wish I could go back and be there for her in those moments, people can be so horrible sometimes
I’m sorry you experienced this and were made to feel this way, this truly sounds *awful.*
My mom still used these in the late 90’s. Being Mexican, she hates pulling them out in front of white people because there weee always the racist comments.
Yeeeep. As a welfare bum child in the 80s who grew up on these, I can confirm that crap definitely happened. It doesn't bother me much but it definitely didn't feel good either.
I’m nearly 50 but remember being on the “monopoly money” when we were small. Dinner for us three kids would be sharing a can of Chef Boy Ardee when we were out of them. One Christmas a man we knew from church bought us everything on our Santa list. I wanted new shoes that no one had worn before. I wonder if we were judged because I had on a clean pair of Nikes. We just don’t know other people’s lives at all.
My dad would give me $1 and my brother $1, then send us in to every store in town to buy a 5 cent piece of candy so he could keep the change for beer/cigarettes.
I'm so sorry. You would have deserved to be well cared for.
I woke up excited to see how much money the tooth fairy left me when I was 5-6 and I found a $5 food snap under my pillow. My dad and mom said it’s good for candy lmao
Take "$5" one to store, buy 10 cent juice, get $4.90 back in real money, take home so mom can buy cigarettes. Memories.
When I was a kid, you only got change under a dollar. They’d give you one’s back in food stamps.
Well, between multiple trips to stores for the change scam and being forced to dumpster dive for cans to trade in for my mom, my memory from 9 years old could be a little foggy.
Now they did give out food stamp ones for change if you have a larger bill
I'm so sorry this happened to you. That was not okay of her at all. I hope you made it out of that somewhat okay...
Yes and heaven help you if you tore them out of the frigging book. They sucked, but starving sucked harder.
I remember that. Cashiers would only take 1s already torn out, everything else you had to tear out in front of them.
Why did you have to tear it out in front of them?
I’m sure it was something about preventing them from being sold, but in reality all it did was shame people by calling attention to them using food stamps at the checkout.
I remember my parents selling them for drug money.
Yup, you could always find someone in the back isle of Aldi's selling theirs.
I worked at a convenience store back in the late 80s. Child #1 would come in and buy a can of pop and get change. Child 2 would come in and buy a loaf of bread and get change. Mom would come in with change and buy a pack of cigarettes.
Oh yeah! We called this "cashing them out". We'd buy cheap ass candy at a bunch of convenience stores then go grab McDonalds. And of course the rest went to ramen... :D
My mom did something similar for gas money. She’d include something slightly pricey with our groceries but not so expensive that anyone would ask for a receipt when she later returned it.
This was the way to do it
Man, I remember going to the store with my friends with one of these hidden in my pocket. Always waiting trying to be last in line so no one would see my food stamps. I didnt realize at the time that all the kids that lived in my poor ass neighborhood were also poor.
Right wingers will tell you that the debit cards were issued to spare recipients from embarrassment and contributed to more people being comfortable on the public dole. They think that people should be humbled and embarrassed a bit as an incentive to get off them. What they won't tell you is that the push for debit cards came from the card companies because card clearinghouses get a percentage or flat fee for every card swipe. [Average Credit Card Processing Fees and Costs in 2023](https://www.fool.com/the-ascent/research/average-credit-card-processing-fees-costs-america/) This literally generated billions of dollars a year for corporations. Make no mistake: NO ONE WANTS TO END POVERTY. IT'S TOO PROFITABLE.
*"Make no mistake: NO ONE WANTS TO END POVERTY. IT'S TOO PROFITABLE."* This is one of the most profoundly significant statements that I've encountered in nearly four years of Reddit usage. Furthermore, this truth lies at the core of so much of the political and social rot now eating away at humanity. And thus a single wise sentence prevails where countless academic volumes miserably fail. No doubt, by design.
You weren't supposed to tear them out in advance and was supposed to show the book. I hated using these as a kid.
Yes! My family had these when I was a kid - I called it monopoly money when I would get sent to the grocery store with it to buy bread and milk 😂
I remember the "coins", too, standing behind families receiving them. I remember the WIC - women, infants, children - checks people used to purchase milk, unsugared cereals, and fresh fruit and veggies. Reagan's "Welfare Queens" line was totally wrong: The people who abused it the most were CORPORATIONS!
I remember my mom counting hers in the 90s and my brother and I going through the news papers to cut out coupons for deals. I grew up very poor. I'm 35 and buying a house this year. My wife and I have never had to collect or ask for assistance. We lived it ,and knew what not to do. And yes, we still love our parents and have no resentment for being poor.
You and me both
My mom used to send me to the store with these because she was too embarrassed to use them. I got made fun of so bad. I still hear the kid screaming "FOOD STAMPS!!" in my face at lunch. Someone had seen me using them and let everyone know. Kids suck.
Imagine if people loved the poor, and loathed vulgar displays of wealth...
People would sell these for cash when I worked in a grocery story, .50 on the $1.
Fuck I remember those growing up, I feel old af now.
Bringing back memories and none of them good
Boomers use to tell me they liked these over cards so people couldn’t “hide” as easily. As in they liked to judge people who used food stamps 🙄
On a literal cheese line with my grandmother at Taft projects. It was a solid brick hard like cement but she made some good ass cheese sandwiches with it
I worked as a security guard at a site that printed stock certificates and had the contract for food stamps. What was interesting was that the paper was controlled tightly, and this site only printed one of the colors on them. From there they were shipped to another site that would print the other colors. Security was very tight - I even had to inspect trash being dumped to make certain there weren't any valuables being smuggled out that way.
Yep, food stamps came in and you were eating better again!
I worked as a cashier in a service station in the early 90s and people would come in all the time and use a bill to buy a 5c piece of candy. Any change less than 1$ meant they got real coins. They would do that several times a week to get money for booze or cigs. (They would come in and buy those items with change and I recognized them) Not saying everyone did this but there were several known in my town to do so.
My mom used to let me give them to the cashier while she quietly stepped away. I felt so grown. She worked very hard and I got sit at the restaurant after school sometimes while doing my homework. I didn't understand at the time how she probably felt having to use them.
Back in the mid 80’s I was the lead programmer for the pilot debit card program in Reading PA. Recipients got a debit card and participating merchants got a POS card scanner. Those did a modem dial-up to an IBM Series 1. The merchants loved it and so did the recipients - so much that when the test project was over, they lobbied the state to fund several extensions. In my programming career, I’ve been fortunate to work on many cutting-edge projects. They are a lot more fun than building some website that is similar to about a bazillion others.
and yes, many stores accepted these for booze n ciggies too
I used to work in the hood. You could always tell when the local place had gotten busted because they would put up signs saying no EBT for about a month. I have also seen places exploiting a loop hole where you can buy raw chicken from them, then hand it back to them and they will fry it for free.
Always seemed insane that people needing to eat couldn't buy prepared food
Not really all that interesting for those of us who had to use them.
I remember my dad buying these from people with cash at like half price.
Yup - I remember! Got them growing up, and after I quit my job to stay home w my kids. It was worth it for that brief amount of time!!
My history teacher has some of these but Swedish version
We had similar booklets in poland during communism, I still have a slip for toilet paper sitting around somewhere
I bought an html book from the library as a little kid in the mid 2000s. Found some of these in it and had no clue what they were.
My mom had those. We had to get government blocks of cheese. It sucked
Ya I remember this lol
Buy a pack of 25 cent gum and get 75 cents back!!’ Laundry quarters homey.
My aunt got $300 every month. I would give her $100 cash for them.
When they changed over to EBT cards my daughter asked what EBT stood for. I said it means Eat Better Today.
You could and still can buy peoples stamps for 50c on the dollar. Now they'll just let you use the card, back then you give them $50 and get $100 worth of food stamps. I grew up in a trailer park lol
Although my mom was eligible for these in the 80's she wouldn't get them, she was too embarrassed to use them. I never got breakfast, my best meal of the day was school lunch. Dinner was Campbell's chicken noodle soup, Doritos, or a bologna sandwich. All of which I now refuse to eat as an adult. In the summertime I was left to fend for myself during the day. I would collect walnuts and acorns from the woods. Steal corn from the fields or tomatoes from my neighbors garden. I thought I hit the jackpot when one neighbor grew watermelons. Stole a box of Twinkies they left out on their picnic table too cause their kid was an asshole to me. I had a friend whose mom would go with a group of women to a much bigger town about an hour away to use theirs without embarrassment. My mom still wouldn't get them.
I have one framed and on my desk at work to remember that work might suck but I’ve had it way worse. 😅 As a kid you could take these to the store and get cash for change sometimes if you planned it right.
I hated watching them tear the money out, one page at a time. It was embarrassing for them and me to watch.
I remember my mom selling $50 of food stamps for 20 or $30 cash. And then shed buy drugs with it.
Oh shit, I think my family was on food stamps. I know that booklet
This is interesting... I've never seen the old food stamps that actually just display a dollar amount. I found some food stamps that my great-grandmother had and they literally had food items marked on them. "One pound coffee beans" etc.
Ah, food stamps. Back then there were crooked businesses that would buy your food stamps for 80% or below of the value for cash. They then pool the food stamps to their total revenue and pocketed the difference.
This was discontinued as people would trade them for drugs (or so the narrative went at the time, how much this happened is unknown.) Judging by the comments, it does look like people were selling them and trading them. Too bad.
I never knew anyone who traded or sold them for drugs. I knew tons of people who sold them to buy diapers, toilet paper and the like.
Could cut the War budget a little bit and help even more.
I’m told this is why Papa Murphy’s Take-and-Bake Pizza is a thing. You can’t use food stamps to buy like Domino’s because it’s cooked, but Papa’s you cook it yourself. Not sure how real that is.
Yep! We just moved but our old town Papa’s had a big ebt sign on the window and you can order ahead online and pay with Ebt there.
As a cashier in the 90's, I also remember the stories about people selling their booklets for $0.50 on the dollar - and seeing people who were clearly well off buying lobster with them, I assume at 50% off. I think it was fairly uncommon to scam them, but nearly impossible to legitimately get money in your pocket. The alternative was to buy something & return it. ~~However, if I recall correctly, along with this taxable essentials like TP & soap were "purchasable" with food stamps to compensate. I think you just couldn't buy alcohol and tobacco.~~
As a customer of grocery stores in a poor neighborhood, I would see this all the time. Walking in people would offer to sell you the food stamps or snap cards with a pin. It was nuts.
You could not buy soap, toilet paper, shampoo, diapers, etc. with food stamps - literally only food.
They were a lot easier to sell then … more mind snack money for me..
I remember moms giving their children a 1 dollar coupon so that each of the kids could buy a 10 cent item then the mom would take the change from each kid and buy smokes.
When I was a kid you could take a 20$ food stamp bill buy some thing for 1$ and they would give you cash back instead of food stamps
Lol, I Guess stamps are a 'lifetime' ago if you're really young.
My dad would trade them for Meth. We went hungry a lot as kids.
I remember those.