Cory Booker’s Food Stamp Falsehoods
Both FRAC and Booker conveniently ignore what the “S” in “SNAP” stands for: “Supplemental.” The USDA’s “Fact Sheet on Resources, Income, and Benefits” clearly explains why challenge participants limiting themselves to $28-$30 a week are being disingenuous:
The amount of benefits the household gets is called an allotment. The net monthly income of the household is multiplied by .3, and the result is subtracted from the maximum allotment for the household size to find the household’s allotment. This is because SNAP households are expected to spend about 30 percent of their resources on food.
As has been the case for the five-plus years I’ve been following the challenge, FRAC and other leftist advocates have deliberately ignored how the food stamp program really works. The following shows how much a household with no other available resources will receive in monthly benefits during the current fiscal year (converted to weekly by yours truly for comparative purposes), and what those levels were six years ago:
Note that Maximum Monthly Allotments have increased by 29% in six years. During that time, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food costs have risen roughly 20%.
The mayor’s “challenge” obviously should have been how to get by on $46.03 a week. That’s easy, especially for a vegetarian like Booker:
- Seven 15-ounce cans of various generic or store-brand vegetables should cost no more than about 80¢ each, for a total of $6 (rounded). Each can supposedly has 3.5 servings, but since Booker is an ex-football player, I’ll assume that each can will only last him two meals. That’s 14 meals, or enough for a full week of lunches and dinners.
- Seven 15-ounce or 20-ounce cans of generic or store-brand fruits averaging $1.25 each will cost $9 (rounded). That’s also enough for all required lunches and dinners.
- A gallon of milk and a gallon of orange juice come in at a combined $7 or so, enough to provide a 12-ounce serving of one or the other for all 21 weekly meals.
That leaves $24, which is surely enough to provide for all breakfasts and anything else Booker wants to add to his lunches and dinners, including more generous servings of fruits and vegetables. Meat-eaters could spend about $7 for seven cans (14 servings) of heat-and-eat canned pasta and still have $17 left for all breakfasts.
Astute shoppers certainly recognize that my individual cost figures are far higher than one will pay if they shop aggressively. Additionally, I didn’t even look at substituting often cheaper fresh fruits and vegetables or at purchasing in bulk. I daresay that frugal Walmart shoppers could easily feed themselves adequately in most parts of the country on less than $35 a week, and far less than $200 a month.
He needed to be on there for at least a month and eat government cheese, too.
It’s not a winning strategy for Republicans to try to convince people that it’s “simple” to live on $46 a week in food (and drink). Can it be done? Sure. But considering we are supposed to be the greatest nation in the world, doing such a thing is rather petty and mean spirited.
There are a lot of other things that need cutting first before food programs.
And as to Walmart being a good place to shop, well, not really. They are cheap on some things, and expensive on others. And let’s not pretend they aren’t recipients of a lot of corporate welfare and special deals, as well as encouraging their employees to take advantage of government programs because Walmart doesn’t want to.
There is something corrupt about taxing the industrious and running up public debt to feed the indolent. Christian ethics do not justify the food stamp program.
Patrick, couldn’t agree more.
The program should be used as only a short, stop gap measure for people in crisis, not as a way of life!
And Booker,despite all his educational background, is a populist and a Dem and that is that. While people who know him speak highly of his generous spirit, first and foremost he is a political operative.
And if he wasn’t currying favor with the Dem establishment he would use his common sense and cease pandering.
But leftist dogma is the same world over, and even his intellect, and otherwise stand up character, is not enough to save him from their leftist clutches – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/01/leftist-dogma-the-same-world-over-freedom-loving-people-beware-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki-32-2/
What Booker is doing should be coined mental bullying.
I’m sure you have links to objective statistics that prove your claims.
And you’re right, there are a lot of things that need cutting. Let’s start with the EPA.
One reason the cost of living is higher in New Jersey is the taxes and regulations Leftists love. Cut out a few of those and watch the prices fall.
A few years ago, my oldest son went through a divorce. He moved to Colorado with his two young (1 and 3) children. For almost a year, he was a food stamp client. Between WIC and food stamps, he was getting $400 a month in benefits, or roughly $100 a week. This was for one adult and two young children. By way of comparison, my wife and I spend about $50 a week to feed two adults.
People who get food stamps also qualify for free school breakfast and lunch programs (with some places also including dinner). Their food stamps aren’t offset to cover the cost of those school programs, so in effect they’re being paid twice. It isn’t too hard to understand why obesity is one of the biggest health issues of the poor. They actually are getting too much food and, if you watch what they buy in grocery stores, much of it is of poor nutrition. In some places, you can use food stamps to buy coffee in places like Starbucks (some with more fat and calories than a Big Mac).
Food stamps are not supposed to cover non-food items nor prepared food in restaurants. Perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed to purchase junk food, either.
Totally agree. Wouldn’t it be smarter, cheaper, and healthier if recipients were issued food “credit cards” that only worked for authorized items up to a certain amount per week/month? Photo ID required.
Crooked retailers will always find ways to scam the system.
The government should not be in the charity business. It is a gateway to unbridled corruption at all levels.
Jeremy, We are a great nation because of individual responsibility and charity, not because of “Great Society” nonsense that has only served to increase the poverty roles instead of reducing them. Giving away things for free destroys the motivation required to succeed on your own. Plus, stealing money from one group to pay for another is completely against the text of US Constitution. I know, for we grew up very poor, subsisting on peanut butter, oatmeal, powdered milk and the like. It can be done EASILY for far less than $46 per week and without free cell phones, computers and internet.
I tell the idiots I know, that they voted the same way everyone in Gary, Indiana voted. That’s like telling them they voted the same way everyone in Newark, New Jersey voted. One of the idiots replied that George Clooney voted for Obama, and to that I gave an alliterative response about how people from the actor’s town of a certain orientaion would naturally fall for Obama too.
I am fairly certain that I voted the way Neil Armstrong would have voted.
The Babbitts of Greater Cincinnati were prophetically foreseen by St. George of Orwell:
Happy days.
A whole chicken costs about $6.00. For my family of five, I can stretch one chicken out for three meals with a few supplemental ingredients. First meal roasted chicken with some side dishes (instant mashed potatoes and green beans are cheap and easy to prepare for example). I use the drippings to make gravy. Next day, chicken tacos or enchiladas (a few bucks for some tortillas, beans, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes to go with it). The next day, pick off remaining meat from entire chicken, boil the carcass to make soup. Add some affordable ingredients like carrots, onions, potatoes, peas, rice, noodles, beans, corn (just a few ideas, you don’t have to add all of them). Have eggs and toast for breakfast everyday. Chicken thighs are also a very affordable yet tasty cut of meat. Canned salmon mixed with eggs and breadcrumbs into tasty little patties. Spaghetti at least once per week (a meatsauce is quite affordable to make with some ground beef- cheaper if you buy the family pack and freeze some, some grated zucchini, and canned crushed tomatoes (stock up on them when they are on sale). Tortellinis will also get you a lot a sustenance bang for your buck and make a quick and easy kid friendly meal. For drinks, water is sufficient, but if that is too plain a bottle of juice can be stretched quite far if you water it down, one part juice to three parts water. It is actually quite refreshing. Many of these ideas I learned from my grandmothers who lived through the depression and I use them for my family.
I forgot to mention, use the cheap canned salmon with the bones, they are easy to slide out if you open the salmon carefully or you can smoosh them up good and eat them because they are soft bones. My kids love those salmon patties. I call them salmon cookies. They eat them up and ask for more. I put creamed spinach on top for my husband and I (frozen spinach, salt, pepper, sour cream). Couscous is a fantastic affordable side dish or rice with peas (also quite affordable per serving). There are so many delicious, nutritious, affordable foods. I could go on but I will spare you my blabbing. I love this topic. Can you tell? I am so thankful for all of the culinary knowledge my grandparents passed down (including my grandfather who grew a wonderful garden and made some delicious salads).
Another way we have saved money… breastfeeding. I have never had to buy formula. It is amazing how abundant nature is. Perfectly formulated nutrition flows from my breasts. A few seeds in the ground (or even a pot on a porch) and food grows from the ground. Amazing, isn’t it? A fruit tree bears an amazing abundance of fruit every year.
Amen L. It is so easy to save money with a little common sense. When my wife and I were first married we had no money (This was in the mid 90′s not the 30s) but we refused to take any govt help. We ate lots of beans, rice, and learned to properly cook cheap cuts of meat and chicken parts. The amazing thing is we enjoyed this food and even though now I have a 6 figure income we continue to eat pretty much the same way. We still love chicken thighs and the soup that comes from a ransacked and boiled chicken carcass. We make chicken wings every Friday and boil them first to get the fat out, throw in some carrots and onion, bay leave and some garlic and you have a wonderful chicken stock.
I can remember the times we would go to Walmart to purchase our paltry list of groceries for the week and we would see others in line with their baskets piled with name brand orange juice, pr-packaged foods, expensive cuts of beef – things we could never afford – and then pull out their food stamps to pay for it. It was infuriating but we learned as lesson, be content with what the Lord gives you and enjoy the fruits of your own labor no matter how paltry they may be.
I prefer the much cheaper per serving and free of additives homemade soup any day to the canned junk. I freeze the excess in large yogurt containers. Pull it out of the freezer, instant awesome meal with some buttered dinner rolls.
Boneless chicken thighs are delicious grilled, preferable even to boneless breasts in my opinion. Maybe I should keep it a secret. If demand rises the price may go up.
Yes, boneless thighs are great. With a sharp boning knife you can de-bone them very quickly and use the bones and meat that comes with it (most of it is the nasty tendons) for a great stock. Throw them in the oven for a few minutes on broil with the veggies and you can use them to make a deep dark flavorful stock.
Our fav way to do the thighs is to de-bone them and put a few slices of garlic under the skin and coat the bottom and outside of the skin with lemon pepper and roast them until there are just slightly moist. The wife and kids inhale them when made this way.
BTW L, what are your favorite cooking sits? Sounds like our methods and tastes are the same.
I bet your husband really enjoys the breastfeeding…/sarc
Wouldn’t you?
okay, how do you get to three days? I can manage two, on the chicken. One, chicken breasts and drum-sticks, and then what?
thank you. your post is very helpful to me.
really. it is.
I buy a Costco grilled chicken ($ 4.99)and get 3 days of meals for my wife & I, first day chicken with sliced tomatoes and half baked potato, 2nd day chicken Caesar salad w/chicken & garlic bread, third day, boil chicken for bouillon and make chicken soup with leftover veggies and rice. Easy does it
I mostly agree with those of you who point to the fact that the poor often have bad eating/shopping habits–with one reservation. I happen to live in the same county as Newark in an area where smaller cities begin to give way to suburbs.
When I shop for food, I can go to the supermarkets nearest my home, where many of the customers are black and Hispanic, or I can drive a few miles away to more suburban areas. In the last few months especially, I have notice that the supermarkets nearest me charge substantially more than the same chain in an area with a predominantly white population. I should add that the minority supermarkets are in safe neighborhoods, so higher crime rates don’t account for higher prices.I would imagine the discrepancy is even higher in inner city neighborhoods. It is also true that, at least in the New York area, many of the poor don’t have cars, and so are dependent on whatever is close to home.
Having said that, I have long believed that long-term food stamps recipients should be required to take a course in economical shopping and cooking, and receive a basic slow cooker upon successful completion. Many schools no longer teach home ec; and many kids have working mothers who aren’t home to show them the ropes–if they know them themselves. My daughter has told me some amazing stories about how little her friends know about cooking, and some of them do have mothers who are at home all day. If this is a problem in my affluent town, it is surely worse in Newark, where only 1/3 of students graduate from high school.
I agree that many don’t know how to cook. I would add that how to stock a pantry should also be taught. People don’t know how much you can do with cheap foods like potatoes, cabbage, rice etc, or that you should always have canned tomatoes, tuna, and pasta on hand.
The simple explanation is……….the food stamp grocery stores don’t have to compete. The one by my work is patronized primarily by food stamp recipients that a) have no reason to care about price because it is not their money they are using and b) the store knows that most patrons have no transportation, sans the bus, to get to a store with lower prices. There are no flyers, no sales, and I have never seen anyone using a coupon. Ever.
I wouldn’t call these supermarkets “food stamp grocery stores”, although they do have some customers on food stamps. Most of them are lower to middle class, and pay with money. That’s why I find the discrepancy in price so disturbing.
Unless I am mistaken, you have not joined me on my no less than 15 visits to the food stamp grocery store. Because that is what it is. The store is right in front of the section 8 housing project. And, the only, THE ONLY person I saw paying with money was an elderly, well dressed grandma using her own money to pay $.079 for a honey bun, and $.035 for a slice of cornbread from the hot bar. She reminded me of my grandma (RIP), so I told the cashier to combine her purchase with mine, because it was on me. Because that is what Conservatives DO. Turn off MSNBC and NPR now and then, will ya?
I used to live in a city in a nice section but not so far from a more run down area. I was close enough to use the grocery store in either area (same chain). The difference between the two stores was stark. In the “poorer” section the selection was awful, the prices higher and the produce looked like they brought in whatever didn’t sell from the other store.
I couldn’t understand this at first but I came to see it as a normal market affect similar to restaurants with ocean views that have bad food. Without special effort, businesses will devolve to the lowest standard that they can meet without suffering financially. It is precisely the same reason that government is so bad at everything. Of course their was no shortage of activists claiming that this was intentionally done and an indication of racism on the part of the store chain.
Brilliant!! Absolutely spot on. When someone signs up for SNAP they should be required to attend a class on basic home economics, not as a punishment, but because you can’t expect people to make good food choices if they’ve never been shown how. It would go a long way to help with the obesity problem too. Also, prepared foods and beverages (i.e. Starbucks, takeout, deli, etc.) should not be able to be purchased with SNAP.
If you get a store id card (free) you can take full advantage of sales. You don’t have to buy in bulk, but you can buy more than one of an item.
For instance, one store has a brand-name salad on sale this week for $1.99. Stores frequently have “10 for $10″ sales and you almost never have to buy ten items to get the discount. It amounts to a dollar-sale. If it’s a non-perishable and you use it frequently, you can almost always avoid paying full price. For everything else, all you have to do is look at the circulars that come in the mail every week and plan your meals accordingly. Other than for some dairy products, there is almost no reason to pay full price. From one week to the next, some grocery store has an item you want on sale.
If you get cards from different stores (maybe the mayor doesn’t have as many stores to choose from?) you can plan your shopping based on what stores are offering the best deals.
Well written article. Here’s how I look at it:
You are Mayor Corey Booker and your job is to improve the welfare of the citizens of Newark. Do you:
a) tackle gangs & drug crime
b) reform the schools and give people real school choice
c) try to attract business & jobs to your city
d) publicly prosecute corrupt officials / shady city contractors
e) pretend to live solely on food stamps and tell the whole world all about it at every single opportunity
Love comments from SL. I got some great ideas from her. Of course these ideas are best suited for a family with a stay at home parent/partner. Heaven forbid Corey booker offer up that scenario so much better to provide free day care so both parents can work all day, come home exhausted and just order pizza or go out to dinner
Very true. I am thankful that I have the opportunity to focus on my family. However, it would still be possible to pull off for a working family. Grilled chicken thighs and salmon patties are quick and easy paired with simple side dishes. The three meal chicken deal could be pulled off on a Sunday or other day off. Roast the chicken (wash and dry chicken, rub with butter, salt, and pepper, brown in dutch oven, roast), when done pull off all meat and separate it according to the three meals. Boil the carcass, make the soup, add some of the meat. Freeze the soup. Eat some of the meat for dinner with simple side dishes. Refrigerate some of the meat for quick and easy mexican the next day. Delicious, nutritious meals can be simple and affordable.
“The Stanford- and Yale-educated Booker should know that the most just and sustainable food system ever devised goes by the name of “Walmart.””
Is this a joke? Wal Mart is the answer? Author is just trolling his readers.
And judging from his photo, author could benefit from the food stamp diet.
Usually, a declarative statement is backed up with some rationale and evidence. Ad hominems aren’t really necessary if one has a good argument.
Major Booker, and former Police Director, and Superintendent Garry McCarthy still have not revealed their true knowledge of the NYPD surveilance of Muslims. McCarthy’s new friends in Chicago, CAIR wouldn’t be so friendly towards their police superintendent if they knew the truth that McCarthy had knowledge of the surveilance. Booker’s politicizing food stamps for a week trial was a purly political stunt.
We budget $100/week for a family of five. We usually stay at or under budget. So we use $200 less a month than the government would allot us. Not only that, but we have a weekly menu and plan a fairly balanced diet. We cook from scratch as much as possible. Everything we are doing is somehow supposedly impossible on food stamps.
We spend $600 a month for a family of six. That includes a dessert night once a week and lots of whole milk (almost a gallon a day). I’d love to be able to spend the extra $ the gov’t would give me, my kids would be eating a lot more fillet mignon. I can’t even buy wheat bread anymore because it’s too expensive but my kids like it better than the crappy white bread.
I thought food stamps were a supplement to low income, not your whole food budget.
$46/week of food to live on.
I can go to a fast food chicken restaurant and eat for $5/day or $35/week.
If I go to the market I can double the amount of food that I get at the fast food restaurant for the same price bringing my cost down to $17.50/week.
Granted I won’t get lobster, steaks, lots of candy and snacks, but the purpose of welfare food stamps isn’t to give everyone what they want but to provide help and necessities.
Remember all those realators and mortgage brokers who were were earining $200,000/year?
One of the just called me to advise me that he had been accepted to foodstamps. This despite a networth of close to $1 million.
>By totally revamping how groceries are distributed, sold, and tracked, forcing its competitors to imitate them or die, and constantly pushing the low-price envelope, the company has saved and continues to save American families untold billions of after-tax dollars.<
Part of that equation appears to be missing. The software must have cut that description off. Darn software.
The few at Walmart (applies to other rentiers as well), respond to demand by arranging thousands of little meager, scratching jobs that move unsuspecting people from unemployed to working poor. They would not have enough even to get back to work every day if it wasn't for the the "Welfare for Walmart" program otherwise known as Earned Income Credit, direct taxpayer payments to families Walmart employs but who can't live on the meager portion of the money they earn but which is pocketed by only a few at Walmart, the few who do, mostly, nothing for it. Food stamps – 10 million working families get food stamps, many of them because Walmart, again, keeps the money the employee earns and lets the taxpayer foot the bill. Those are direct subsidies to Walmart from taxpayer funds, and must be accounted for. (Darn software, I know)
The tragedy for the country is that this is the top of the ladder for the employees. No future at the company, no real opportunity in the community because the company avoids serious investing in the community for education and training (not schooling), pockets what others earned. Business is the only entity that can make the investments, because they are allocating the money the employee earns. When Walmart takes the money and puts it in their own few pockets, the community around them dies.
They also profit by leave the bill unpaid, from he money the employee earns by pocketing what would pay the always and forever bills due for the majority of medical care and retirement. They stiff the taxpayers, for when we have to pay that bill with the "savings" you spoke of, there is never enough.
The only dollars Mr. Charlie has are those that others earned. What Mr. Charlie "gives" is too expensive for a free person. And the only fix is for the employees to learn to own the assets, and the rentiers will fade away.
13. Gary Ogletree
I thought food stamps were a supplement to low income, not your whole food budget.
Exactly, not meant to be the entire budget- and as noted by some on here- once you qualify for food stamps you are automatically qualified for other “assistance”
I have no problem with people getting temporary help to survive- I think most of us don’t- I do take issue with people using these programs to scam the system- and they do.
We are financing JIHAD via fraud- food stamp fraud, Medicare fraud, tobacco sales fraud, these programs are sheltering money launderers- in all states of USA- Debbie Schlussl and creepingsharia blogs have many articles on this subject.
We are being gamed , attacked using our own money http://creepingsharia.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/ohio-imam-gets-just-1-year-in-3-8m-food-stamp-fraud/
After growing up with a whore mother [4 husbands/multiple boyfriends in between] who soaked the welfare system for as long as she could until my sister and I grew to adulthood (and, then, low and behold she figured out to hold down a gd job!), I learned a very important lesson and that was…if I wanted to avoid going hungry in harsh economic times…I would stockpile and organize food and essential sundries and ALWAYS have a pantry. It has taken me a few years of dedication to keep my pantry always stocked (like a mini-store) and always accounted for and organized.
Even while we were dirt poor I managed to keep a well stocked supply of food. Namely dry pasta and condensed soup and canned tuna (tuna casserole is still one of my ‘po folk’ favorite meals).
The Food Stamp Program was designed to SUPPLEMENT a family’s public assistance income, not replace it. Food stamps were given to recipients of public assistance (welfare) in addition to their normal semi-monthly benefit allotment for food, rent, and other household expenses in order to boost nutrition for poor families. Later, it was extended to SSI and UIB benefit recipients.
The Food Stamp Program was NEVER supposed to pay for ALL of a family’s food needs. To say that is just wrong! Certainly food stamps are not enough for a family; they were never designed to be.
Now, all of a sudden, political activists and their friends in the media are declaring that food stamps are supposed to be a family’s ONLY money for food. What happened to the rest of the family’s benefit allotment?
Give me a break. This is so disingenuous (i.e., a fraud).
You forgot to mention that the other people in the household may be children and if they qualify for SNAP, they will qualify for free/reduced lunch and or breakfast.
Before going EBT, in one year, we saved 2k in foodstamps, . . . but of course, you must have a place, . . . y’know, a stove, refrigerator, . . . whatnot, . . . and some knowledge, . . . helping out at a neighborhood food pantry, I meet women who don’t know what to do with basil or pomegranate, sure, but fresh green beans, and fresh ears of corn? Yes, women who don’t know what to do with green beans, squash, and fresh ears of corn, . . .
Balancing Economic Control and Entrepreneurship By Scott Shane December 10, 2012. In Economic Trends The London-based Think Tank Legatum Institute recently offered empirical evidence of what many Americans have been thinking lately.
Our national well-being is slipping. Over the past four years, prosperity has increased around the globe, while it has remained stagnant in the United States, the Legatum Institute reports. As a result, the Institute ranked the United States 12th out of 142 countries on its 2012 Prosperity Index, putting the country outside the top ten for the first time.
http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/12/balancing-economic-control-and-entrepreneurship.html?extlink=dw-openf-original-source
Cory Booker is a New Jim Crow guy. What that means is that he basically believes all the ills of black folks in America in 2012 can be traced to white folks. He has spoken publicly about his theories.
Once you understand this about Booker, you know all you need to know about where he’s coming from. In a larger sense, Booker, and people like Booker, are completely irrelevant, lost in their own stupid world.
Cory Booker, proudly the first Food Stamp Mayor, capitulated and sold his soul with the hostage tape. Now he is just, as FB commented, a New Jim Crow guy. They are a dime a dozen these days.
What I thought when this first made news was that it made it sound like the only variable considered for eligibility was family size, as though the program were “one-size-fits-all,” as though all families of 4 were exactly the same. Which it isn’t, and they aren’t. As though you could say all families of 4 that receive SNAP benefits receive x dollars per month, which is not how it works.
In fact the amount is determined by an eligibility process. If the family has one or more members with income but still needs help to get by, they may not receive much per month. Nowhere is it written that a family receiving SNAP benefits must completely rely on them. Some liberals seem to really believe that just as the law should mandate a minimum wage that is enough for a family to live on forever, as though a more experienced worker will never get a raise or a promotion, the govt. must also provide food stamp benefits that are enough to live on regardless of the family’s income. That’s why liberals keep saying this imaginary one-size-fits-all benefit should be higher.
I know the conservative response to this sort of comment is usually that the eligibility process doesn’t work because people cheat. But just because apparently a lot of people get away with cheating it doesn’t mean that the eligibility process is worthless.
But it does exist. Liberals like those discussed in this article ignore the existence of such a process and how it affects the experience of those using these benefits.
Like “L” here I can stretch a chicken to three days and I also use beans. I buy a variety of dried beans use soup bones, ham, or even cheese and make a meal of them. My grocery bill ranges from $160.00-$200.00 a week depending on what I buy. I always buy extra because members of my family are really struggling. I have pets and also feed many teenagers friends of my children. I also shop at the Dollar Tree regularly for snack and whatnot. Our family makes just over $60,000 with both of us working and I am still paying my college loans and sometimes it is hard but we make it thanks to Jesus’ blessings. But I have to say I wish Corey Booker would remember how hard it was for him to become who he is today and the fight with the prior mayor and all the underhanded things that went on and why he does not recognize this same pattern with this administration. He can do all the food stamp drills he wants to but if he forgets the corruption he came to fix and becomes part of the prblem, he is just like the others.