Comments on: The End Is Near: Final Thoughts on the Food Stamp Challenge

By: G. Grant

G. Grant — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 00:45:00 +0000

Michigan and the whole United States should look close at all the people who don’t get enough money to pay bills and buy food; sometimes food is more important than any other soil of energy on this earth. People like us are all hungry and need food. Unless you have been in a poor situation you understand. If you have never been poor and hungry you are lucky. So do not make us feel like we are the only people who don’t eat well. Take a look around the United States and you will see lots of people are going hungry from one month too the next. Michigan people were very good to the poor and never did complaint about helping. Now we need help look at what is happening around this state. State Civil Justice People stop sitting down in the chairs in Lansing and call yourself helping us when you are not. It is time you do the right thing and help people like us.

By: John Komski

John Komski — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:23:26 +0000

I now get $10.00 for the hole month, thats it! talk about it being rough? oh yes and I am dissabeled with a very serious Lung Condition. Now! this is what I call hard times.

By: Mary Brzys

Mary Brzys — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 13:02:59 +0000

I am a disabled person living on $10 in food stamps a month and the most I can get for living expenses is $674; most of which goes to food and bills. How do I do it? It is extremely difficult! I only buy things I need, to get by.

It would be great if I had $21 dollars a month for food stamps! As it is, I do not see that happening.

By: me

me — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:00:42 +0000

I know a family of 5 that receive almost $800 in food stamps. I don’t qualify for food stamps with my family of 5 and we are lucky to be able to budget in $400 a month for food. The quality isn’t there and we have to go without fresh fruits and vegatables. We do get them at time to time, but mostly it is food like bologna and cheap hamburg and alot of chicken leg quarters. I am not able to afford name brand items like my friends that get food stamps, and I ALWAYS have to look for deals and coupons.

By: Mom

Mom — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:45:01 +0000

$3 a day? That’s $360 a month for a family of 4. I’d love to get that in food stamps. Try $125.

By: Chuck Warpehoski

Chuck Warpehoski — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 14:42:40 +0000

I agree, Cody, that we should try to avoid gaming the system, but that doesn’t mean that we should abandon the program. I had a friend on WIC who was a very conscientious single mother, and she was furious when grocery store workers told her she had to buy generic formula for her daughter (this was around the time when all the product recalls were in the news). So restrictive programs like WIC also have their problems.

Your Great Society example is good: we need to find ways to have a complete system of support to get people back on their feet, which means job training and development, affordable housing, affordable quality daycare and after school programs, and quality food programs.

By: Cody

Cody — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 02:38:03 +0000

I would like all of you to know that you are supporting a very lost cause. I am a registered democrat and strongly favor most social welfare programs with the exception of food stamps. I worked my way through college, full time, (including a year-long student teaching experience) in a grocery store. During my years there I witnessed so much reckless abuse of food stamps by the vast majority of recipients. Granted, there are honest people that truly need assistance, but they are totally outnumbered by the scammers. I’ve seen it all from people managing to buy beer with their bridge cards (buying pop, dumping it outside and returning the bottles for the deposit), to people with multiple bridge cards, sometimes they have more than one form different states. It makes me absolutely sick to see such misuse. The thing that disgusts me the most is that college students have now started applying for and being given hundreds of dollars in food stamps per month.

I know a lot of you people that live above the poverty line find this hard to believe, but just ask anyone who works in a grocery store or supermarket, and they will back up my claims. Instead of wasting your time supporting this disgusting waste of tax dollars that could go to schools to hire more teachers (I still haven’t found a teaching job in my area yet, and I refuse to leave Michigan), call your legislators and ask them to think about reforming food stamps into a program like WIC where recipients meet with a caseworker and they help determine what specific foods they need for basic survival. I am a firm believer in LBJ’s great society, but we would get so much closer if we gave a hand up, not a hand out. Thank you and goodnight.

By: Tamar

Tamar — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 05:20:10 +0000

We used only $41 after subtracting the leftover things
But there was some Cheating with free food:
1-Lunch in the Synagogue on Saturday
2-Two meetings with cakes.
(We didn’t count our Vitamins and prescription pills).

For snacks we used thin slices of potatoes tosted in the toasteroven. Also toasted pieces of the Chalah we baked.

It is easier to eat less for us since we are older. From the other hand our health can go bad eating very little fruit and vegetables.

By: Jan Wright

Jan Wright — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 03:15:58 +0000

I’d like to take a sideways cut at the last question first. I was aware at several points of having some concern about offending people who have really experienced what it is like to live on food stamps–or who are currently experiencing that. I think the people involved did take this very seriously, and I think it was a very good thing to do; yet I wondered how it felt to hear or read about this if you were living on food stamps for far more than a week.

I think the biggest surprise was that I lost about four pounds. I never felt like I was going hungry, but I not only cut way down on sweets but on nuts, dried fruit, my evening bowl of cereal, etc. (except the last night when I indulged myself in the last of my oatmeal and canned peaches and some sweetened yogurt, knowing I didn’t need to hoard it any more because it might run out!). This experience made me realize more clearly that I often eat when I’m not really hungry but just because it tastes good–or to satisfy an emotional need.

One important learning for me was directly experiencing something I had heard in a workshop on class this summer–that one huge inequity between poor people and middle class or upper class people is the lack of choices. I think that was the hardest thingfor me–feeling like I couldn’t have anything that wasn’t part of what I had bought. And yet knowing that I still was way better off than a lot of people since my access to transportation had allowed me to shop around and get good bargains and my daily calorie needs are pretty low.

I like what Jackie says about what she is taking away from this–I hope to both more fully appreciate the flexibility and choices I have and also choose to eat somewhat more simply and use the money I save for better uses than mindless treats.

By: Joy Lange

Joy Lange — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:57:41 +0000

Well, I think we made it in just under the $84 my family of four would be allotted. It really helped that since my kids are in elementary school, I did not count what they ate for breakfast and took in their lunches as they would be getting the free meals at school. And I would likely take advantage of that. I’m sure it’s much harder to make ends meet during the summer months. I hope there is no talk of cutting the school meals as it is a big help for families with school age children. However, I do have to mention that currently my kids almost never eat what the school provides as I think the offerings are full of fat, processed foods, and few fresh or healthy options.

I planned carefully and made a few changes in our usual routine (made good use of a bag of potatoes, did not buy my usual organic milk, switched from butter to margarine, and did not allow for any “extras” like pickles, olives, flavored cream cheese etc.) and was able to have a fresh fruit and vegatable for every evening meal. For the most part I didn’t get any complaints about the food.

I just wanted to add one more thing to this discussion. As I work daily with families on food stamps, I have had quite a few discussions about their trials and strategies for coping. What never fails to amaze me is how quickly food stamps get reduced or cut off. If a family member gets even a part-time minimum wage job for a few weeks, the food stamps get immediately reduced. Often times it will take weeks to get the food stamps restored once the job is done. This is just another issue families on food stamps have to deal with.

It’s been interesting to follow others’ experiences. Thanks to all of you who documented your week.