The Dark Side of Welfare

ROUGH DRAFT – NOT A PUBLIC POST YET:
Will be rewritten, more details added, and I’ll be covering the subject of anchor babies. Anchor babies are probably the biggest reason for the abuse of the welfare system.

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A lot of them will get things that have to be cooked, like dry rice, flour, etc, in their food pantry boxes, but they won’t use that stuff. They will have it in their pantry and complain that they don’t have anything to eat. They will tell the church pantries that they don’t have any food in the house, when they do! Try to teach them how to cook the stuff- HA! They aren’t interested. Many are the cupboards I’ve seen that were so packed full of “cookable” food, and even unwanted WIC stuff, that there was no room to squeeze anything else in. But they have nothing to eat! (I never have figured it out- they get ALL the stuff allowed on their WIC cards, even when they don’t use it! So it just piles up).

One neighborhood I lived in was one big party on food stamp day (that was back before ebt cards, when everyone got paper food stamps on the same day of the month). Every 5th or 6th house in the whole neighborhood would get their BBQ grills out, and use half their monthly food stamps for steaks and stuff to throw on the grill (and yes, there would be plenty of beer). These people would use up all their food stamps in the first week, then depend on church pantries the rest of the month.

Don’t get me wrong; most people use their food stamps wisely. But some recipients do not!

I should also mention how amazed people would be that I would still have food stamps left over at the end of the month. I was so careful to stretch them out by using coupons and shopping sales (and I cooked!). I would offer to teach people how, but many were not interested.

I saw too many children go hungry much of the time. One set of parents told me, while I was sitting in their living room, they hated summer because they had to feed the kids. During the school year, the children got free breakfast and lunch, and that’s ALL they got on school days.

On weekends and during the summer, the children lived almost exclusively on cheap (store brand) boxes of mac and cheese.

Of course most welfare families do feed their kids, but some sure don’t! I’ve seen some families let the kids eat first to make sure they got enough, but not all parents are so sacrificial.