Fast forward to today, where a bunch of Austin liberals have decided to run a "challenge" to see just how difficult it is to live on $4.50 per day in food stamps.
Living on $4.50 a day for food. James Harrington, Chron.com
That's the question 22 of us staff of the Texas Civil Rights Project asked as we began the "SNAP Challenge" for a week in mid-November. SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) is the new name for food stamps.
We did it to understand what it is like for so many poor and low-income people in our society who have to live this way every day - 15 percent of Texans get SNAP food assistance. We, of course, had the luxury of knowing there was a light at the end of the tunnel, that we only had to do it a week, and then back to our eating habits.
We learned it is extremely difficult to live like this, and we went to bed hungry every night. Most of us spent our $31.50 for the week on lentils, beans, bread, peanut butter, crackers, tuna fish, cheese and some salad items, but little meat. It was a far cry from how we're accustomed to eating, and it meant no afternoon or evening snacks. Our stomachs growled a lot. There was no eating out with friends, no afternoon soda (that was one-third of the $4.50), no coffee shop visits and so on.
So you see, more people with little idea as to what it means to be truly poor telling us that the way to 'help' the poor is to give them more hand-outs so they can have an afternoon soda (which the same liberals will tell you is driving the obesity epidemic and must be made even more expensive through taxation) and afternoon visits to the coffee shop. In other words, being 'poor' to these people is not having access to the things White people like. That's sad.
The first error made is one of definition. The "SNAP Challenge" uses the "Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program" as a food budget in its entirety. This ignores the basic goal of the program which is to "supplement" incomes to provide basic foodstuffs, allowing the remainder of income to go to purchasing meats, possibly a soda (unless it's taxed out of the range) and an occasional coffee here and there. And I'm not even sure that any of these are needed.
Firstly, Americans eat too much meat. This is not the ranting of a crazy vegetarian its truth. If you look at the serving size for meat (about the size of a deck of cards) and then look at the average size of a steak at your local grocers (I'm not even talking about restaurant steaks) you can see that the average steak is upwards of 3 servings. While we're told that it's our "right" to have our steak and eat it too, we forget that it's not always necessary to have an individual stead for each person. Afternoon snacks? Well, if you portion your meals correctly you can probably have these as well. Granted, they probably won't be meal bars or something fancy such as that, but an apple or a pear? Yes, this can be done. Can it be done for $31.50/week, probably no, but it certainly could be done for $50, which is entirely reasonable considering the supplemental nature of food stamps.
Lest you think I don't know what I'm talking about I can assure you that, not too long ago, the wife and I were poor. When we first started out we had a 1 bedroom apartment (in Branson MO) furnished with a mattress and box springs that family gave to us, hand-me-down dressers, pots and pans and dishes that were wedding gifts, and used utensils that were also gifts from our families who weren't using them any longer. Our food budget was $35/week. Granted, this was in the mid-to-late 90's where foods (and gas) were much cheaper, but we still weren't eating steak on a nightly basis. As a matter of fact, I learned a LOT during those times on how to save money at the store. We clipped coupons, we purchased meat on sale, we almost always selected the cheaper cuts, we learned about frozen vegetables and how to prepare them. We splurged and purchased a $5 steamer at an outlet mall which cooked most everything. We bought cookbooks on clearance at the outlet bookstores and we made ends meet. Never once did we accept food stamps or anything of the sort. We survived on a diet of vegetables, rice, beans and on occasion meat. We drank a lot of water and made a lot of Sun tea. In short, we survived.
I don't give the above example to belittle those who find themselves using the SNAP program, everyone has a different experience and attitude about being poor. But it's not fair to lump all of the poor into one bucket and just state that they all need more handouts to allow them to do the things you take for granted. I rarely drink soda, although I will admit to being a sucker for Dr. Pepper made with sugar, nor do I think having an afternoon soda should be a concern to someone who's struggling to make ends meet. While a lot of my co-workers make the afternoon run to Starbucks for a 1/2-caff, no sugar, soy-milk latte with an extra shot of espresso I rarely join them, although I will darken Starbuck's door when they release the pumpkin spice and egg-nog lattes. But I can also make coffee at home, using a $9 French Press, a .99 cent small bottle of HEB egg nog and $4.99/lb coffee. As a matter of fact, almost all of the Starbucks flavors can be replicated using fairly cheap flavorings that are available at your discount grocers.
All of this brings us to the point (finally): Does grandstanding by relatively well-off liberals and politicians really do anything to "help" the poor. My feeling is no. If anything, it hurts them because it lends to the stereotype that the true poor want increases to be able to afford the luxuries deemed important to the liberal elite. While this might be the case in some instances, I would imagine that the large majority of poor people are not yearning to spend their days pecking away on an iMac while sipping a coffee and looking for all the world like an extra in Reality Bites. Neither is it helpful to perpetuate the idea that the poor should be totally reliant on a supplemental food program for all of their nutritional needs. Not only does this remove the onus to pay our way from a large segment of society, but it also strips away the incentive to do better.
This, above all other things, is what I believe to be the most debilitating part of these desperate calls for attention from the unproductive class. If we begin to allow ourselves to view the poor as hapless and too stupid to pull themselves up from their condition then we are, in fact, doing them a disservice. It's a trend that's perpetuated, in part, by so-called advocacy groups and the media elite (Jeff Cohen, the diminutive editor of the Chron Editorial page plays golf frequently at a Country Club) who know very little about what it is to be truly poor. The insistences of these groups, as well as politicians who are mining the underclass for votes, create a perpetual cycle of poverty from which there is no hope for escape. Cutting back on a supplemental food program might not be ideal, but stripping an entire economic class of hope might be the greatest crime of all. Shame on them.
