@mom2and “Unfortunately, in certain cities and school districts, the donated money may not make its way to the classroom.”
Exactly. That is why they need a separate entity with a high level of transparency and accountability to ensure that all of the money is used appropriately.
@mathyone Like you, I find the warehouse stores to be a poor choice for discount shopping for most food items. One notable exception is rice, which I buy in 25 lb. bags and then subdivide into two-coup portions placed in zippered storage bags. These Ziploc or Hefty bags generally cost about $3.29 a box, but about once a year they are on sale for a dollar, and I load up the cart. I generally have about a year’s supply of these on hand. (Seven or eight years ago Kroger had them on sale for a dollar and there were 50-cent coupons attached to most of the boxes. I bought about a four-year supply!).
There are a few other food items on which can save money, but most of the food I buy at the warehouse stores is what I consider luxury food, for which I pay a premium. I might pay less of a premium than I would at a grocery store, but still a premium. I do find the warehouse stores have great buys on things like little sauce cups that I use to put in the children’s lunches to hold salsa or Parmesan cheese or whatever. We use six or eight of these little cups a day, so buying five hundred or a thousand at a time makes sense.
The real grocery bargains are at the local supermarkets, and as I mentioned in an up-post, I stock up when things are on sale. I have more than 30 four-pound bags of sugar; I bought a bunch when it went on sale for $1.25, and then it went to a dollar a bag and I bought even more. Sugar never goes bad, and in a crisis a bag of sugar will keep a family of four alive for a day. One of my favorite Christmas traditions is to spend a couple of hours pushing my shopping cart around my Kroger store on Christmas Eve. Eventually the appointed moment will arrive, and every bit of ground beef, chuck, round, or whatever is going to be thrown out on the meat rack labeled as “ground beef” and marked at about $2.32 a pound, since the store will be closed on Christmas Day (This may seem a lot, but beef has gone up). Needless to say, I always buy at least 30 pounds, which I freeze in one-pound packages. Our grocery stores are so full of cheap food that I wonder how they stay in business, but then I visit with my wife and she just throws things in the cart without even considering the price or whether or not it’s on sale. I hate grocery shopping with my wife!
It’s changing the subject, but every high school student should be required to take a year of home ec and a year of “shop.” We know that a lot of our high school graduates are not going to make very much money. We at least ought to try to teach them how to grocery shop, cook beans, cook rice, and make food from scratch.
We are of course well off of the original topic of this thread, which had to do with school inequality, and how the behavior of the wealthy increases inequality. And yet the fact is, many people who are “economically comfortable” make a point of being very frugal in terms of consumer spending, and this behavior acts to increase inequality. I am fully aware that many poor people in some areas lack shopping choices, but I see people paying with EBT cards shopping at the same store that I do who just make terrible shopping choices. I can’t help but notice when somebody on food stamps buys the expensive, pre-made hamburger patties while there was ground beef on the old meat rack for a third of the price. Every wise choice made by those who are highly educated increases inequality, as does every poor choice made by the poor. I don’t think society has an obligation to come in and try to decrease this type of inequality.
At my local grocery, there’s regular on-sale stuff but also an area with stuff that is about to go out of date. I got two boxes of crumbled feta for $1 that had been $5 each yesterday and a giant container of organic baby greens for $1.39 that had been $6.99. When I walked into the store was I planning to make greek salad and later, roasted beets with feta? No, but that’s what I did.
I shop like that - “what can I do with this awesome bargain thing?” - a lot of of the time.
@EarlVanDorn, yes, I have also seen purchases being made with food stamps of items that cost double what I was paying for the comparable items in my cart, and I am not talking about nearly expired meat, where I can imagine that someone might have health or wasteage concerns, more like choosing one type or brand of juice over another very similar one. Also seen the baby formula diet pill combo a few times.
A good class in careful consumerism and practice in grocery store mental math, and the economic and health benefits of breastfeeding could help.
With regard to the schools, yes they need to be better funded, they need to be safe and in good repair, but I think too much emphasis is placed on lack of technology or other costly things. Students can learn in a safe building even if it doesn’t have a media lab or whatever.
I think most of the responsibility does rest with the parents and with the kids themselves. Our school system has a diverse make up with a bunch of elementary schools. The teachers are paid the same. The buildings and facilities and curriculum are very similar. And yet, if you look up our elementary schools on that great schools site which rates schools based on standardized test scores, they rank from 1 all the way to 10. Same school district. What is different is the parents and the kids.
@OHMomof2 If you are in Ohio you probably have Kroger. Their prices are actually fairly high overall, but their discounts are unbelieveable. Before the days of computerized cash registers, when they had double coupons I used to get paid money to take groceries out of the store. That is a very special feeling that unfortunately is no more.
What county are you in?
Paid maternity leave, or even access to a room for pumping breast milk at work could help, too.
Here’s another problem with these sorts of discussions—the assumption that people in a different group have access to the same sorts of systems that the people doing the discussion have.
The poor, for example, tend to have less access to systems (both in terms of infrastructure and time) that allow for breastfeeding than the middle and upper classes do, even though breastfeeding would be a relatively bigger economic boon for the poor than for those who are wealthier.
The poor have tighter cashflow, leading them to purchase smaller amounts of even shelf-stable staple foods at a time, which forces them to forego the financial advantages of buying in larger quantities (even aside from the storage space concerns discussed upthread).
And so on.
Anybody who blames the poor for their financial choices really needs to examine the extent to which they’re overextending their own present circumstances to individuals and families (and communities!) that might well not have access to the opportunity to improve their own circumstances in any meaningful way.
Women who end up arrested because they lock their child(ren) in cars while they work low paying jobs, which don’t pay them enough to afford childcare, probably aren’t in a great position to breastfeed.
Adult modeling is huge for kids. Spending all their waking hours with positive modeling has an impact. I only understand frugal shopping and long term meal planning because of modeling.
Sent you a PM @EarlVanDorn
In what instances are low income people allowed to buy premade burgers or name brand juice? When it’s someone’s birthday? Only if they have a coupon?
The judgments some people make about low income people are pretty sad. I was behind a young family in the grocery checkout a few weeks ago. I had just come back from a meeting so I was well dressed. The parents had a couple of toddlers and were paying for items using food stamps. Several purchases they had required coupons. One seemed to be missing but the young woman was sure she had it. The not so young clerk looked at me, rolled her eyes, and let out an exasperated sigh when the mom handed the youngest kiddo to the dad so she could search her purse. It was late, so of course the children were tired. The young couple sheepishly apologized to me for holding up the line. I couldn’t help but look pointedly at the clerk when I assured them there was no rush. There’s no excuse for such behavior.
I do not care for either the clerk or folks next to me in line to comment on my purchases. In my opinion, that is just nosy and rather rude. I do not welcome their opinions on my choices.
It is okay with me if someone asks me how I like a certain product because they are sincerely interested in my review before purchasing.
I try not to look at how people pay for their groceries. That seems intrusive.
Thank you Onion, for my favorite post whenever this comes up: http://www.theonion.com/article/woman-a-leading-authority-on-what-shouldnt-be-in-p-35922
“Woman A Leading Authority On What Shouldn’t Be In Poor People’s Grocery Carts”
Honestly, this Onion parody seems written by someone indulging in silly holier-than-thou moral preening to me. Any of us who’ve ever had to stretch a dollar know that there are smart decisions you can make when you’re tight on money and stupid decisions. Smart decisions lead to good outcomes for everybody, most especially the family using the EBT card since they will be able to stretch their dollars further or eat healthier. Certainly no one is saying that people using EBT cards have to survive on bread and water, or that they should be denied the occasional splurge. But as citizens and taxpayers, we should have opinions about how to best allocate scarce resources that we pay for.
In fact, grocery shopping is one thing that tens of millions of people know a lot about and can have valid and sound opinions about. It’s not as complicated as figuring out the best way to fix something like the healthcare system, and anyone who says otherwise is engaged in sophistry.
Frankly, if the ordinary voting American isn’t qualified to form opinions about what are good or bad ways to spend taxpayer dollars at the grocery store, then we might as well just give up on this democracy thing.
Despite super-duper-persuasive anecdotal evidence, the idea that SNAP participants eat much different than other low-income nonparticipants, or in many cases even higher income nonparticipants, isn’t supported by the evidence.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/ops/NHANES-SNAP07-10-Summary.pdf
• SNAP participants obtained a slightly larger share of their energy from empty calories (34 percent) than both low-income nonparticipants and higher income individuals (32 percent). This pattern was most pronounced among adults and did not appear among older adults.
• Compared to income-eligible nonparticipants, SNAP participants were less likely to consume fruit or 100 percent fruit juice and vegetables, and were more likely to consume whole milk and soda.
• At the same time, SNAP participants were less likely than higher income nonparticipants to consume sweets and desserts, salty snacks, and added fat and oils.
So, this study seems to say that everything is working out perfectly well food-wise for children who are SNAP participants, except they should eat some more fruits and vegetables and replace soda with fruit juice. Otherwise they’re eating the same or better on average than other children or even in many cases higher income children?
Good to know there’s no problem, I guess 
Not sure everyone would agree though.
@dfbdfb The problem with this line of thinking is that once it is accepted the poor can never be held accountable for poor choices.
The typical SNAP benefit for a family of four in the U.S. is $500. For a family in Flyover America with a car or a friend or relative with a car having access to normal supermarkets, it should be very easy to live on this amount.
Let’s consider the actual meals purchased. Kids on SNAP automatically get free breakfasts and lunches as school (and sometimes more), so a family of four has to provide for 30 suppers and eight breakfasts and lunches for four each month, and 22 breakfasts and lunches for two. It should be incredibly easy to do this for about $250 per month, which leaves $250 per month for snacks, fruit, and yes, stocking up on discounted groceries. The slightest amount of delayed gratification can result in the family living like kings on virtually free groceries.
The poor do not have tighter cash flow in most cases. They are unwilling to forego Cokes and Ruffles for even a single month in order to make good shopping choices, and that’s a shame for the children stuck living with the consequences. I’d love to see these foods taken off the list of permissible purchases, but I guess that will never happen.
Hardly. I think the takeaway is closer to “everyone eats like crap; and SNAP is not all that much different”
But it’s a better source of information on which to base one’s opinion on the issue, compared to peering into other people’s shopping carts.
I would encourage you to take a look at the full study: http://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/ops/NHANES-SNAP07-10.pdf It goes into a lot more detail and describes a lot more conclusions and findings.
That may or may not be true, but it isn’t what people in this thread have been saying the problem is. They’ve been saying that the problem is that low-income children don’t have enough to eat or don’t eat properly because they lack resources such as money, cars, storage space, etc. The study you cite suggests that money, cars, etc. aren’t the problem; the problem is that everyone eats like crap. Not sure I agree with that conclusion, but if it’s true then the problem is very different from what people in this thread have been saying, and the solution (if any) will have to be very different too.
I agree that we should rely on data and not anecdotes, particularly now that electronic checkout can give us good data about purchases. But if we’re going to rely on a study, then we should rely on it for all the public policy arguments, not just the ones that favor our prejudices. That’s the point I was making above.
Personally, I have no basis to have a valid opinion about how well fed low-income children are. However, I completely reject the notion that taxpayers do not have a right to voice their opinions about how their tax dollars are spent. Since these are public dollars, taxpayers can also require that these dollars are spent to make better food decisions than how someone might spend their own money. Using good data to help mandate better decisions on the part of EBT card users will benefit everyone, most especially the children on these programs.
There is more than enough food in USA. Common.
My mother-in-law (low income) gets so much food for free through charities that she cooks and supports all extended family. She routinely brings us food (very tasty!) that she makes with the free veggies, soups, etc. Practically, there is plenty, plenty of food, distributed for free.
Well, it’s the Onion.
Sure we can form opinions. I don’t think it’s appropriate to share those opinions with people using EBT in the grocery store, however.
This woman formed an opinion about deficiencies she saw in SNAP recipient diets and did something about it: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/08/01/337141837/cheap-eats-cookbook-shows-how-to-eat-well-on-a-food-stamp-budget
Excluded middle.