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[GlyphGryph]

In what possible way could a cash-based minimum income be abused? Because I'm not seeing any.

I'm opposed, in general, to telling poor people that we know how to run their lives better than they do, and instead of trying to inform them and help them make better decisions, we are simply going to force them to do what we want (for their own good, of course). And sure, they'll do it inefficiently, and it will involve a lot of waste, but hey, at least we can say we forced those poor people into some better behaviour right?

It's not a viewpoint I particularly like. I understand it, I understand why you could have it, but I don't approve of it.

[Nadaka]

I'm not sure how necessary expanding food stamps is in the US. We have the cheapest food in the world. Have you ever tried to starve to death in America? It isn't easy.

What needs to happen is an end to corn subsidies and the subsidization of fruits as to end the high-fructose corn syrup epidemic.

I have to call bullshit on this. In the late 80's my familiy was on food stamps. We got $50 a month for a family including 4 children. We would not have survived if my grandparents didn't keep a 3 acre garden.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I'm not sure how necessary expanding food stamps is in the US. We have the cheapest food in the world. Have you ever tried to starve to death in America? It isn't easy.

What needs to happen is an end to corn subsidies and the subsidization of fruits as to end the high-fructose corn syrup epidemic.

I have to call bullshit on this. In the late 80's my familiy was on food stamps. We got $50 a month for a family including 4 children. We would not have survived if my grandparents didn't keep a 3 acre garden.

And you had at least three acres of fertile land but needed food stamps because...

[Nadaka]

I'm not sure how necessary expanding food stamps is in the US. We have the cheapest food in the world. Have you ever tried to starve to death in America? It isn't easy.

What needs to happen is an end to corn subsidies and the subsidization of fruits as to end the high-fructose corn syrup epidemic.

I have to call bullshit on this. In the late 80's my familiy was on food stamps. We got $50 a month for a family including 4 children. We would not have survived if my grandparents didn't keep a 3 acre garden.

And you had at least three acres of fertile land but needed food stamps because...

We did not have 3 acres of fertile land.
My grandparents did.
They were under no obligation to help us survive.

[RedKing]

And wouldn't you know it, but Congress just happens to be debating the Farm Bill right now.(which covers both corn subsidies and food stamps).

Interestingly, this year it's not so much a partisan divide on the bill as it is a regional one. There are proposed changes to Federal subsidies (especially price protections) that would shift most of the burden away from direct Federal payments to the use of subsidized crop insurance. In layman's terms, instead of the Feds guaranteeing subsidies if the market price of your commodity plummets...they'd help you pay for crop insurance which would cover those losses.

The catch? Midwestern crops like corn and soybeans enjoy lower premium rates for coverage than Southern crops like rice and peanuts.  Thus, Dems *and* Republicans from the South are up in arms, while a bipartisan Midwestern bloc is applauding the changes. Also, corn and soybeans tend to be an all-or-nothing sort of thing. Weather can wipe out your whole crop, yields can be highly variable, but price tends to remain fairly constant because they're just such a huge commodity market. Even if everybody has a bumper crop, the price of corn isn't going to plummet because there's vast industrial demand. Rice and peanuts are actually less risky in terms of losing your crop, but are far more volatile in terms of market pricing.

There's also language in the Senate which would cut the food stamp program some by targeting abuse. The GOP-controlled House wants to restrict eligibility to save money. Working out a compromise bill will be difficult to say the least.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You know, if they keep up with making the corn as widespread as possible it'll come back to bite them. One good plant disease could take out the entire annual crop.

[GlyphGryph]

We got $50 a month for a family including 4 children.

Which would be.... 147 dollars a month, for 6 people, or 24 dollars a month per person, which is 80cents a day, in today currency.

Since foodstamps are supposed to be supplemental income for the vast majority of families that use it (filling the gap, as you were, between your actual wages and the ones you need to survive), that seems pretty reasonable if at least one of your parents were woking a full time minimum-wage job. Obviously, I've got no idea if that was the case.

Feeding yourself comfortably in the US is about 2 dollars a day for a full grown adult (counting only dollar values, which are the only bits foodstamps can meet), and for children varies depending on how old they are but averages out to about the same. That would require your parents putting... about 73 dollars (in 1980s dollars). Obviously, I don't know if your family could have, but keep in mind that "food stamps" are not an all or nothing affair, and it seems reasonable that the government at least expected you to be able to do so.

[Nadaka]

Actual wages were 0, we had no income at all.

[Mr. Palau]

You know, if they keep up with making the corn as widespread as possible it'll come back to bite them. One good plant disease could take out the entire annual crop.

You could substitute corn with any other major GM crop.
"You know, if they keep up with making the corn wheat as widespread as possible it'll come back to bite them. One good plant disease could take out the entire annual crop"

Actual wages were 0, we had no income at all.

For how long?

And about living on 2 dollars a day, yeah I suppose you could live off of rice and beans the entire time but I doubt with only two dollars per day you could achieve a diet varied enough to prevent disease, or developmental disadvantages.

[GlyphGryph]

If you can't eat decently off two dollars a day, you're either very large or doing something wrong.

(My brother would probably need at least three, but he also manages to be over 250lbs without much in the way of fat, so that's a bit of a special case)

[Mr. Palau]

I don't know how much food costs were you live, but 2$ in NY is almost impossible.

[Leafsnail]

There's also language in the Senate which would cut the food stamp program some by targeting abuse. The GOP-controlled House wants to restrict eligibility to save money. Working out a compromise bill will be difficult to say the least.

It's impressive how the cost of means testing almost always exceeds the money saved from people not getting help.  If the GOP actually were against bureaucracy it'd be a good place to start.

[GlyphGryph]

NYC, it's difficult. NY State, not so much. Honestly, if you don't have kids you can manage it for less than that, but ignoring any unsavory activities like diving or begging, and any location based activities like scavenging, 2 dollars a day is not super-hard. The problem (and this is a problem) is that people don't really have the knowledge of how to eat or how to shop, or the time to actually prepare food.

And yeah, that seems to be the GOP motto - We'll save democracy and money, no matter what it costs or we have to disenfranchise to achieve it!

[Nadaka]

You know, if they keep up with making the corn as widespread as possible it'll come back to bite them. One good plant disease could take out the entire annual crop.

You could substitute corn with any other major GM crop.
"You know, if they keep up with making the corn wheat as widespread as possible it'll come back to bite them. One good plant disease could take out the entire annual crop"

Actual wages were 0, we had no income at all.

For how long?

And about living on 2 dollars a day, yeah I suppose you could live off of rice and beans the entire time but I doubt with only two dollars per day you could achieve a diet varied enough to prevent disease, or developmental disadvantages.

It was about 87 to about 91 in Mississippi. Give or take 4-5 years. It was ~30 cents a day per person, and the price of food has about doubled since then, so GlyphGryphs numbers are too high. That 30c a month had to cover food, toilet paper, all over the counter medication, all sanitary, cleaning and health supplies and all transportation costs. We had to use the change from the food stamps to buy gas to get to the store/grandparents garden. Again 0 income.

The house the state put us in was caked with black mold, flooded regularly, and could not be kept under 130 degrees in the summer. You cant fight the state without a lawyer. If you have a lawyer you obviously don't need state support.

Any and all "income" counted more or less double against welfare. If you documented 20 dollars earned, you lost 40 dollars of support. Even if that "income" is the result of acquiring debt. In Mississippi you do not survive on welfare without undocumented income. At all. That the food stamp program would be scaled back at all, or even not expanded dramatically, is a horrific idea. We got "off welfare" when my mother went back to school, and used her student loan "income" to pay the bills so we didn't die. I know what hunger is.

The "room for abuse" for cash welfare I was talking about: Getting locked in a shed on starvation rations while someone else spends what little you had coming in. This is true for parents wasting the money intended to feed their kids on addictions as well as larger scale exploitation. Purposeful welfare in the form of dedicated food and rent subsidies puts a small but important barrier between that kind of abuse and the poor. Would Cash welfare also have helped? Absolutely. But as a complete replacement, I see too many risks.

There's also language in the Senate which would cut the food stamp program some by targeting abuse. The GOP-controlled House wants to restrict eligibility to save money. Working out a compromise bill will be difficult to say the least.

It's impressive how the cost of means testing almost always exceeds the money saved from people not getting help.  If the GOP actually were against bureaucracy it'd be a good place to start.

And that is one of the reasons why I think that EVERYONE should receive welfare. You can significantly reduce the bureaucratic overhead.

[Sheb]

Well, if the aim of farm subsidy isn't to feed American. The aim is to get support from all those mid-western Senators. That money could be spent of Food Stamp or more useful stuff wthout wrecking the farming economies of third-world country.