42 million on SNAP seems like a lot!

I’ll say this. SNAP benefits are not a lot and those relying on them are on very tight budgets. Most people eligible also have kids. We have a lot of poor people in this country.

We also have a lot of fraud and waste in the welfare programs. We should not be subsidizing people who cannot afford to have children. And have you seen what the people using SNAP buy with SNAP? They are not buying frozen chicken breasts and broccoli. Their dietary habits as are ignorant and lazy as the rest of their life.

2 out of 3 federal dollars spent on welfare go to administration. Just like any other scam.

At my company, we have women, in jobs paying well over $30 an hour, who take a lot of bogus unpaid medical leave every year so they stay under the earning threshold to retain their SNAP benefits. They could make more than enough money to afford food if they came to work, but they’d rather scam the system, come to work less, and keep their company medical benefits. You’re paying for their SNAP benefits so these bums can blow off work. We fire a lot of them but it’s hard when they have a doctor who cooperates in the scam.

Wow! $30/hr is more than $60K per year!

No doubt there are people that actually need help but on the other hand there are probably just as many people that have made living off the government/taxpayers that have made it a lifelong career of doing nothing for themselves.

Seems to be pretty common that strippers who have kids get SNAP. They might not qualify if they reported all their cash income. But the ones who get SNAP don't seem to be living large or anything. They drive old cars that are barely limping along.
When I tip in a restaurant, I often tip in cash instead of on the card. But I don't know as enough people do that, to enable massive levels of SNAP fraud. About 12% of people get SNAP. It's mostly people on Social Security and low-income families.

When I had em after college looking for my first gig I got maybe 100$ or so. Heh that freeed up money for them Strip Clubs tho Am I RIgHt

"At my company, we have women, in jobs paying well over $30 an hour, who take a lot of bogus unpaid medical leave every year so they stay under the earning threshold to retain their SNAP benefits."

What kind of jobs pay well over $30 an hour?

^ I think that is relative to where you live. $30 an hour in most of California and you may still be homeless.

On the other hand in Mississippi you’re living large.

It’s commonly said that “snap is subsidies for low wage employers”. A lot of the hourly retail type of jobs play with the amount of hours per week their employees work for their $8-$15 per hour. If one has a constantly changing schedule, then it’s tough to get another job. People wouldn’t put up with that without SNAP.

It’s an interesting thought experiment whether removing snap benefits long term would force employees to change their behavior. Kinda like it would be interesting if removing easy access student loans would lessen university tuition bills. But it would have to be one heck of a politician who would be willing to be the asshole to pull the plug there.

^ great point - I remember watching a segment on 60 Minutes (probably a decade ago) and it was focused on low level hourly wage employees at Walmarts in Maryland, and how the majority of them received government benefits. One of the main reasons? They couldn’t afford their monthly contributions into Walmart’s insurance plan at the time. The researchers claimed Walmart was purposely keeping most of these employees right under 40 hour workweeks essentially screwing them out of better benefit packages subsidized by Walmart (like most normal corporations/companies). Meanwhile, one of the biggest and wealthiest corporations in the US was forcing their employees to rely on government assistance instead of paying their employees a few more bucks or giving them a few more hours a week bumping them up to better benefits packages which Walmart could easily afford and enabling those employees to get off of assistance. Walmart’s argument when confronted about this was “well, we are the biggest employer in several states, just imagine how bad it would be if we didn’t employee these people at all?”

SNAP seems half-assed. It'd be simpler to give poor people money. So I guess the idea is a lot of them would not budget, and have no money left to eat? But, if you're patronizing people anyway, why not only make nutritious, reasonably priced food SNAP eligible?
What I needed to do my job, I could have learned in a community college certificate program in under two years. But almost no company would hire someone for the better IT jobs without a Bachelor's. College is mostly about elevating some people to a higher social status. Cost-effective learning is a secondary goal at best.

Wal-mart employment tactics plays to their overall strategy of low-pricing. If they paid their employees higher wages, gave them more hours, or increased employer contributions to the benefits packages, then Wal-Mart shoppers would have to pay the difference.

Personally, I do not shop at Wal-Mart. It is too far, the parking lot is too crowded, and the checkout lines are too long. I am willing to pay more at Publix for most of the same goods which I could purchase at Wal-Mart for a few cents less.

Also, Wal-Mart is unskilled labor. A major driver of inflation is unskilled, replaceable workers in entry-level jobs demanding wages and compensation equal to mid-level employees in more challenging fields. The fact is that if you work in a dead-end, unskilled position as your primary income, then you should not be a head of household, living alone, expecting the same luxuries and benefits as people who put in the effort and risk of obtaining advanced skills or degrees. To say that EBT and SNAP benefits low-wage employers is false. It incentivizes low-effort employees, lack of ambition, stagnant lifestyles, and blighted living. This welfare class costs the taxpayers billions of dollars per year, and these programs need a complete overhaul. No immigrants on SNAP, restrictions on the quality of items available for purchase using SNAP, welfare-to-work requirements. SNAP and other welfare programs need to be envisioned as a bridge, not a lifestyle.

I believe @nicespice is onto something. Low interest rates caused housing prices to soar. And yes, I agree with her point on student loans. For the record, the University of Miami is $83K per year. My daughter did not qualify for student loans under my FAFSA application, but when she applied as an independent adult student (with an in income of $0.00), she was able to take out subsidized student loans - that I’m paying off. But the interest rate on the student loans is a lot less than what I’m making in the stock market on that cash.

@Iknowbetter remember you'll probably eventually have to pay at least 15% income tax on what you make in the market. Potential issues with gift tax once your kids are over 18 (although only for the wealthiest). How exposed are you to the AI bubble?

Not to disagree too much with gammanu95, when I was a younger consultant, one of my first jobs was with Walmart. Many locations pay low and they do expect their employees to rely on social services. That being said, I agree, entry level work at Walmart is low/no skill, and they want it that way. They also do promote from within. This one manager I talked to was proud to move from retail to corporate. He also corporate doesn't pay as well either, they call it competitive. But, what does happen is people leave to get better pay elsewhere. Walmart sees this as loyalty. Our pure consulting group disagreed with that, but they didn't care.

As for SNAP, the same manager saw people selling their SNAP or WIC or whatever cards on avg of $0.50 per dollar or even as low as $0.20. Some workers were retirees, but since they were working, they qualified for county benefits, which Walmart told them about. So yeah, there's a lot of waste and some fraud.

Why would anybody sell their SNAP benefit? I think SNAP provides around $6 a day per person. It would be pretty hard to spend less than that on food. I think people on SNAP spend some of their other income on food. Unless it's somebody who claims fake dependents. Supposedly that's harder to do now, since dependents have to have a Social Security number.

@ilbbaicnl- you are correct. Capital gains taxes were a consideration for me not wanting to take $ out of the market to pay for college. I’d rather pay back loans every month from cash on hand - like I pay other bills. And who knows, maybe we’ll get another democrat president who wants to forgive student loans.

People wonder why many working people struggle and might need snap benefits. Canterbury Park near me is a horse track and casino with blackjack, poker and other table games. None of the dealers at the casino are allowed to work 40 hours per week. They all have to work slightly less hours than 40 hours per week so the casino doesn't have to pay for health insurance etc. Many of those people work 2 jobs and have shit benefits or no benefits at all. Health insurance will likely increase a lot over the next couple of years which leaves them less money for food. How many companies do things like this? Many.

Country of 325-340 million people, 10-13% are getting SNAP.

I tried to get snap but didn't qualify the last time I checked because they won't let me deduct my spousal support payments.