• thantik@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    AND if you manage to scratch and claw your way INTO getting Food stamps, they’ll give you $200/month for a household of 5 and call you a burden on society; even though your wife and you both work full time jobs.

    • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Food stamps are easy to get if you take the time to fill out the forms, and if you’re qualified.

      If you need help don’t be afraid by fake horror stories like the above comment. There are people that are more than happy to help you get what you need it you ask.

      The accounts per month are different for each state, but no one feeding a family is getting only $200. That comment is pure made up nonsense.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I really wish you weren’t wrong. But using Calfresh if you’re making 2929 with 5 people in the household you qualify. They then find 30 percent of that number. That’s 878 Dollars, and they deduct it from the benefit. The benefit is 1155. You get 276 Dollars, or 55 Dollars per person.

        For an entire month.

        And god help you if that family is 2 adults, 2 kids, and an elderly person requiring care.

        • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          It’s also not supposed to be your entire food budget. It’s a supplemental assistance. For most people it definitely helps get them through each month. Is $55 a person enough? No. But you can also get $300 a person per month. It’s all in the circumstances and qualifications. No one gets a blanket amount.

            • WarmSoda@lemm.ee
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              8 months ago

              Please explain. How does telling people to get help if they need it result in malnutrition deaths?

              I feel like I’m missing a narrative here that you want to tell. Everything I’ve said is true from personal experience. So, please, go on, educate me on how anything I said was incorrect.

              And also include how much assistance you’ve gotten so we all know what you’re saying is factual.

                • michaelmrose@lemmy.world
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                  8 months ago

                  Nobody is lying. You really can get between $20 and $300 a person. Even $20 extra per month is $240 per year $55 is $660 per year.

  • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    When I was in college, food stamps helped me a lot from having to take a third job just to eat.

    When I was laid off, food stamps helped me feed my family until I can get back on my feet.

    It’s a critical piece of basic living. The social stigma and all the arguments about it is stupid to me.

      • boogetyboo@aussie.zone
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        8 months ago

        It has lasting effects. My childhood was on the poverty line. I’m now, due to plenty of hard work but let’s face it - luck and opportunity (I’m very aware of my privilege in this regard), I’m now considered a high income earner in my country.

        But I still struggle to make purchasing decisions without extremely close scrutiny of the value comparisons. I harbour anxiety about running out of money, despite being comfortable and debt free.

        My childhood left permanent scars. When you are poor your baseline is stress. It impacts everything you think and do. Even when your situation changes, you can’t completely shake it off.

        I think people who’ve never experienced it, somehow think it’s compartmentalized from the rest of your life. Like, ‘oh well, I have no money - that’s ok, everything else is fine’. It pervades every part of your identity.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    The difference is that it is happening to someone else and not you.

    Poverty only matters to people when it happens to them.

    • ripcord@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Poverty only matters to some people when it happens to them.

      There’s a lot of people with empathy too.

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        I agree with you … when most people are directly faced with having to deal with poverty, like if someone were starving right in front of you, the majority of people everywhere have a level of empathy that makes them understand that you have to help and feed someone to keep them from dying. If someone is bleeding or dying in front of you, most people have a natural impulse to want to help … I honestly believe that … not everyone may act on that instinct but most people feel the urge to want to do something because they would see themselves in the same situation and wonder how they would want others to react for their benefit.

        The story is different when most people can not directly see the poverty in question but instead hear of it as a story far away or read about it in a news story or see a picture of somewhere far away from them. It removes them and its far easier for them to ignore it all or even have no empathy because they are not involved or will not directly feel any consequences if they choose to not have any empathy.

        I don’t just think that some people have empathy … I believe that the majority of people everywhere have empathy. It’s just that if we give people an opportunity to not show any empathy and not suffer any blame or consequences for it, most people will choose to stay in the shadows and not be bothered by anything or anyone, no matter how terrible the situation may be.

    • I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Same deal with abortion. Obviously I would only do it under extreme and understandable special circumstances (like being pregnant and not wanting to be) unlike all these hoes out here doing it for fun on a Sunday. Ban it.

  • Wes_Dev@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Huh, thought I posted this already, but I guess I forgot to.

    I’ve been on food stamps before. Basically, I said that my parents ranted and complained about “other people” scamming the system and not deserving the welfare, but I did. They also were shocked at how little I actually got each month, because they assumed you were supposed to get a lot more money.

    • Sharkwellington@lemmy.one
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      8 months ago

      They also were shocked at how little I actually got each month, because they assumed you were supposed to get a lot more money.

      You get something like $300 a month maximum, and that is if you are making $0 anywhere else. As soon as you get any type of income it plummets to $50, which is hardly even worth the hoops they make you jump through.

    • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      That’s the weird thing about conservatives. For all their complaining about how the government doesn’t work, they seem to vastly overestimate how much the government does and its competence.

    • ResoluteCatnap@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      I applied for food stamps when i was in college. I was financially independent (kicked out at 17), was working two part jobs to make ends meet, and met the requirements. When my dad found out about the food stamps he lost his mind and tried to sell me on this whole “ask family” bullshit when he was the one that cut me off and always had strings attached to his help. So yeah i took the food stamps. It sure hurt his pride that someone in our family would be on food stamps. But fuck pride, i needed to eat.

  • Olivia@lemmy.today
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    8 months ago

    Don’t ever let these assholes talk you out of using the goddamn societal safety net. And don’t let your pride do it either.

    It was built as the fucking floor of standards. Like, hey, people should be guaranteed 80% of their monthly nutrition needs.

    • sushibowl@feddit.nl
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      8 months ago

      Somehow people get shamed for taking advantage of government aid programs, but when corporations take advantage of favourable tax schemes this is just “good business practices.” Did anyone ever say “oh no, only truly struggling businesses apply for subsidies!” Ridiculous. If someone offers you a dollar, you take the dollar.

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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      8 months ago

      You are paying for it. It’s there for you to use when you need it. Would you be squeamish about submitting an insurance claim? It’s the exact same fucking thing, except it is being stigmatized by idiots who want to collapse society so they can profit off of poverty.

      • chatokun@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        My brother had to tell me this when I needed food stamps after a decade of working, but felt embarrassed. They really pulled one on us.

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      8 months ago

      Exactly, it’s a good thing that a food bank can prevent someone from going truly destitute in order to feed themselves. It prevents the emergency.

      Well maybe not always prevents, but it helps ensure you don’t fall below the floor of standards

    • Zink@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      It’s a side effect of how the owner class has convinced so much of the working class that their true enemy is other working class and/or poor people. It’s like the evolved form of voting against your own interests to hurt the “right” people. I typically see it two ways: first, avoid getting WeLfArE because that makes you as bad as those bad people (insert mental caricature of single mom welfare queen, almost certainly a minority). Second, take the government money and either act like you aren’t or that you are one of the rare unicorns that actually deserves their benefits.

    • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      You paid taxes with it. I don’t know why people would feel bad about applying for welfare benefits and food stamps if they have worked before. Are there those that abuse the system? Sure, but their number pale in comparison to those who genuinely need them. Most people who had been on social welfare do get out of it. Though I have a fairly cynical view, I still think most people do not like to stay in the rut and strive to work hard to move up in their stations. I don’t know about the US but in the UK the vast majority of welfare go to pensioner, disabled and children. Only a smaller percentage of the welfare go to the unemployed despite the anti-poor propaganda.

      I think one of the reasons for people feeling awkward to ask for welfare on a personal level is because as a society, we have been conditioned to please the wider society and should derive our sense of worth and happiness by working and grinding. Of course, you want to help society, and of course you can’t always rely on generosity alone, but there is unhealthy level of stigma of not working and looking bad in front of others-- most of whom just go on with their own lives not thinking about you when they go to bed. But we don’t realise that at all the grinding, working and trying to look productive to please others is only benefiting the billionaires whom we are ultimately working for.

  • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    And just so y’all know, in the USA people on food stamps qualify for a free government smartphone. So that old man and that boy should never have been arguing over whether or not that kid deserves to have a smartphone. because if you are poor enough, you will get a free one from the government.

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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      8 months ago

      Eh, this has been Republicans since long before MAGA. “Personal responsibility” and all that…

      • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        All Trump did was take away the dog whistles and pass out bullhorns.

        Trump is but another symptom/consequence of the Reagan Republican era.

        • snooggums@midwest.social
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          8 months ago

          Yup, if he had a fatal heart attack today, the GOP would still be pushing the same bullshit. Trump would not have been as effective without Fox News shilling for him 24/7 either.

      • Asafum@feddit.nl
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        8 months ago

        I love their unofficial “motto” the “party of personal responsibility.”

        Also, if they do anything wrong, no they didn’t. It was the antifadeepstatepizzaelites or something.

      • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
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        8 months ago

        OK… But left wingers actively support social welfare programs that prevent situations like this. Right wingers actively prevent them.

      • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Usually they’re Hungarian tankies that are one step away from realizing Kádár and Rákosi reinvented the protestant work morals within their eras. Gulags were pretty much “correction camps for the lazy”, and Orbán has a “more humane” replacement for them, called “public work program”.

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    People don’t understand how time-consuming and hard it can be to even get food stamps depending on where you are. I worked at my state’s dept of Food Stamps. The lines were always busy because so many people are struggling, then you add on work requirements and other nonsense people continue to struggle.

    • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Work requirements infuriate me because in so many states, the amount of income you’re allowed to have and still get food stamps is so low that you’d have to work less than 10 hours a month to fulfill a work requirement AND still be poor enough to get food stamps

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      In my 20s, I was poor enough that food stamps would have really helped. But since I lived in my grandparents’ old (falling apart) house which happened to have a washer and dryer in it from before they died, I didn’t qualify. Because of the washer and dryer. Seriously.

    • Doof@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      This is something that drives me crazy, where I live we don’t have food stamps but we have things that are similar. When I was going to miss a Mortgage payment and didn’t have food to eat I called one of the support lines and was told for the mortgage I had to wait for an eviction notice. For the food I had to email them my bank statements before they gave me like 50 for groceries. Forget programs line LTD, I know someone who had to spend at least once a week to remind his insurance he was off because of fucking cancer. Are there some bad actors? Sure. Is there enough to punish everyone? Fuck no.

  • wabafee@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Rich guy is right his not poor yet, still has the option to mug the rich guy. Perhaps steal his car, kidnap his kids for money. Then if it still does not work overthrow the government.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      No money for food stamps, but we’ve always got another billion for more police.

      Maybe unemployed guy should just become a cop and spend his time beating on other unemployed people. Then rich guy would love him

      • whereisk@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Easy: commit a petty crime in front of police.

        The government seems to have unlimited money to house, feed, provide 24 hours oversight and free healthcare when they imprison you.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          American Prisons are barely more than concentration camps in their modern incarnation. No A/C when temperatures soar north of 100⁰. The food is inedible. The water is toxic. Prison staff largely exist to abuse inmates, while gang membership is required to have any kind of safety behind bars.

          And that’s before the pandemic. Mortality rates in American prisons doubled under COVID. It’s a major reason why states like Texas can’t keep their prisons full. Too many inmates are dying while incarcerated.

    • RogueBanana@lemmy.zip
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      8 months ago

      Can we jump to the last one? I don’t have anything planned for this weekend.

  • Crack0n7uesday@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    If your genuinely considering applying for food stamps it’s already to late and you should have applied a month ago. Being poor sucks, I’ve been there before and I don’t recommend it, it’s not a fun experience.

      • Spendrill@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Well, first thing is, it is actually a joke.

        Second thing is we’re talking about a cartoon character, and a straw man at that. It’d be different if this was about actual named individuals.

        And thirdly this is Lemmy, where Eat the Rich is understood to be a humorous proposition rather than a literal injunction to cannibalism and both mods and admins are resistant to the bad faith arguments of Liberals/Conservatives that would have you believe otherwise.

        Your comment in Comic Strips was removed for the following reason:

        Rule: Adult content is not allowed.

        Disappointing.

        • LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          well if you feel strongly enough about sticking with your username no matter what, then you stand by it if you think it’s worth the battle 🤷🏻‍♀️

          One thing I don’t like about Lemmy lately the last few weeks, we can no longer entirely delete posts or comments. We can delete the text and replace it with a dot or something but even after you hit “delete,” username is forever attached to it.

        • Rooki@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          FUCK ALL ADMINS AND MODS ALL OF THEM EVERYWHERE.

          Shrug it of, you are not made out of sugar. Its YOU that chose that name, its YOU that made the name.

          You even contacted us about that you get harassed by the mods, but it was just that you had many comments that was against some rules in the communities and then you get notified through our automod.

          The BIGGEST difference here to reddit is, we get NO payment, we try our best but there is always someone (like you) that just hates us. If you dont like us just move to another instance or just create your own instance.