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Matthew Boyle steals from the government to prove that poor people don’t need food.

Jill

Wow, this is really horrible you guys: Did you know that you can use food stamps to buy actual food? Thank goodness right-wing investigative “journalists” are on the case.

Matthew Boyle lied on his food stamps application, thereby defrauding the government and receiving social services to which he was not actually entitled. He then went to Whole Foods and bought a single gourmet meal with the generous $105 in benefits he received for the whole month. The next month he bought $100 worth of candy.

The point, I guess, is that since Matthew Boyle defrauded the government and spent the money he stole on organic food and Rite Aid candy, food stamps are bad. Because poor people should not buy food. Definitely not organic food. Definitely not non-organic candy either. Or maybe the point is that the government should regulate what people are able to buy with their food stamps? (Boyle, of course, is a small-government-promoting Tea Partier). It’s unclear, actually, what the point of his article is, other than to admit to the world that he stole from the government — which is exactly what Republicans routinely accuse poor people of doing. Apparently he couldn’t find an actual poor person who wanted to spend their $105 for a month of food on Skittles, and so he did it himself. Awesome.

Amanda has more. Perhaps poor people just don’t need to eat more than once a month?

56 thoughts on Matthew Boyle steals from the government to prove that poor people don’t need food.

  1. You know, sometimes I wonder why we give idiots all this attention. Is it because we can’t turn away from stuff that is obscenely horrible?

    It routinely amazes me that there are people out there who really think that not everyone deserves to eat. Still, why give horrible excuses for human beings the fifteen minutes of fame they’re looking for?

  2. Given our current economic situation (which the Tea Party is happy to have), it’s inevitable that some of these people will become unemployed for so long that they don’t have money for food. I wonder if they’ll refuse food stamps on principle, or if they’ll engage in the kind of exceptionalism that anti-choice folks engage in: “Well, my situation is *special*. I deserve food stamps, but no-one else does” kinda crap.

    Also, if someone who is poor and really needs food stamps does go ahead and buy a big-ass luxury meal from Whole Foods or a bucketful of candy? I say go for it. Since when does being poor remove one’s right to enjoy life, even if only for an hour or two?

    1. Also, if someone who is poor and really needs food stamps does go ahead and buy a big-ass luxury meal from Whole Foods or a bucketful of candy? I say go for it. Since when does being poor remove one’s right to enjoy life, even if only for an hour or two?

      Wait, what? Poor people should be able to eat healthy foods or foods that taste good, or otherwise enjoy life? Socialist.

  3. Bushfire: You know, sometimes I wonder why we give idiots all this attention. Is it because we can’t turn away from stuff that is obscenely horrible?

    That’s probably the case with me. I’m addicted to right-winger train wrecks.

  4. Firstly, we’re not guys. Guys isn’t a gender neutral term, a guy is a man and therefore by calling mixed gender groups of people guys, by definition, that is sexism. Language is simple, language is complex, but it’s powerful and it reinforces underlying attitudes, ie women are lower status than men. Try calling a group that includes even one man girls, women, ladies, any female term and they are either insulted, or it’s a joke.

    Secondly, clearly this arsewipe of a journo is doing the decent thing and falling on his own sword. Presumably now he has confessed to criminal activity, he’ll be prosecuted and receive community service or gaol time. Since he’s a tea-bagger, he’ll no doubt expect to pay for his food and accommodation inside, thus saving the State loads of money, and setting a fine example for other criminals.
    Oh hang on, didn’t all this happen in Dickens’ time?
    Hmmmm……

  5. I dated a guy who used food stamps back in the day of Ye Olde Paper Coupons*, and sometimes if he had budgeted carefully enough for the month, he would “splurge” on fresh pasta and a jar of expensive pasta sauce and some haagen daaz as a way of taking me out to dinner.

    Jesus, the dirty looks he would get for spending food stamps on food that wasn’t ramen and generic peanut butter.

    *Speaking of dirty looks, he also regularly took shit from cashiers for the following unavoidable situation:
    He would pay for two dollar’s worth of groceries with a five dollar food coupon (or whatever denomination he had left). The cashier would give him three loose single food coupons back. The next time he went to pay for food and had to use the loose single coupons, the cashier would frequently give him the third degree. “Where’s the coupon book? I can’t take these without verifying the number on the book.” “I don’t have it. I got these in change.” “Well, I can’t take them.” “I got them in change from THIS STORE.” “Well, I have to have the book.” “I don’t have the book, because a cashier in this store gave them to me in change. This is what I have.” She would then glare at him for a long time, as if he was somehow perpetuating some massive fucking fraud against the government by buying a gallon of milk using single loose food coupons, MY GOD, before finally accepting them.

    I was so glad when they rolled out the EBT cards. So fucking glad. Nobody shoul have to go through that shit just to eat.

  6. Most people use their allotment of food stamps responsibly. I include myself. At the second of every month, I receive approximately $142 to spend only on food. As should not be much of a surprise, I use absolutely all of it on food. Most people use food stamps responsibly, and it is the few who trade their food stamps or sell them on the black market who give everyone a bad name. And, if they get caught, they are subject to punishments which can be as punitive as being banned from ever getting food stamps again.

    And they don’t really stretch as far as one might think. At most, it provide ten to fourteen days of groceries, after which I have to pay out of pocket like everyone else. They are supplements designed to make the dollar stretch more.

    There are regulations in place that prevent certain items from being purchased. Once, I tried to see if an energy bar would be covered, and it was not. Along with obvious things like alcohol are hot meals from a grocery store cafeteria meant to be consumed in a single serving. Candy is usually covered, though desserts of any sort are an occasional treat for me.

    I am frankly amazed at the ease by which this guy got food stamps in the first place. Here in DC, the food stamps office is the model of inefficiency and dysfunction. Need long ago outstripped the manpower needed to process applications in a timely, as well as competent fashion. It took me three months just to get my first allotment. And since the people who rely most heavily on food stamps have to put up with sub-standard assistance, experiences like mine are more in line with the norm.

    I actually had to employ the use of a worker at an advocacy agency to get my case reviewed and my paperwork processed. And then I had to call back three or four times ago when I was allotted an incorrect amount of food stamps. It still never got properly corrected, and I was given too much for four months. Even though it isn’t my fault this happened, I’m still being docked for it. That is the reality of food stamps, not some Tea Party activist trying to make a point.

  7. This is remarkably stupid because from what I know the food stamp program isn’t as much a sop to poor people as it is a subsidy to agricultural states. The producer states lobby for the food stamp program because otherwise a major group of consumers would simply cease consuming.

  8. This subject is one about which I have no sense of humor.

    This dude might be the most defunct person ever. His ‘experiment’ demonstrates the most reprehensible way in which American society is nihilist, or so fiercely individualist so as to resemble nihilism. No one will care how much his ‘experiment’ doesn’t prove or elucidate anything, rather people will only care that it looks bad for food stamps and that it confirms their already bigoted and anecdotally supported preconceptions about people who must use food stamps.

    Bad form, Matthew Boyle. We’re trying to run a society here; your class warfare is unwelcome, especially in these austere times.

  9. Sonia, could you explain that more? It sounds like “cease consuming” would mean “stop eating”. I’m curious.

  10. I spend a carefully budgeted $30-$50 a week on food, and thought I was just damn awesome for the longest time–until I started to work with low-income clients and saw that they were buying food for the whole month on about half that. One of my clients and I huddled together with a notebook and calculator for ten minutes trying to decide if she could afford fresh grapes.

    People need food. And vegetarians need food, and lactose-intolerant people need food, and people with celiac’s disease need food and they all need different kinds of food which is why food stamps have such a wide application.

    And I’d like to point that besides stealing, this guy effectively proved that it’s impossible to eat healthily on food stamps. Blowing your entire stack of stamps on one healthy meal is a giant, flashing sign of SOMETHING IS WRONG.

  11. GallingGala, I am certain that they would believe that they were special exceptions to their own rules. For some reason they believe that everyone on food stamps is there because they want to be, not because they fell on hard times.

  12. In his first post in this series, he mentions that he’s getting by because his mom and dad are paying his rent. Do I even have to point out the hypocrisy of him implicitly shaming others for getting help?

  14. Lance: In his first post in this series, he mentions that he’s getting by because his mom and dad are paying his rent.Do I even have to point out the hypocrisy of him implicitly shaming others for getting help?  

    Oh wow. Seriously, can’t even think of anything to say about that. That is just too…what a walking stereotype of a brat passing judgment on people in actual poverty by vaguely (not really) slumming it.

  16. Or, maybe wait until the year runs out, he’s defrauded more money and the penalties are probably higher. But on the other hand, people need that money he’s defrauding.

  18. To me, the takeaway is that the tea partier is either so irresponsible that he can’t conceive of how people with real responsibilities and problems make decisions, or so deluded into the mythology used to demonize the poor that he simply assumes that poor people make the most irresponsible decision that he can think of.

  19. God, this pisses me off.

    I’m a college “kid” (does 30 count as kid?) who’s been subsisting off food boxes from the local food bank once a month because I can’t find a job. In Oregon, if you’re a college student and don’t work at least 20 hours a week, you can’t get on the SNAP program. The college has a food pantry, too, but the pickings are slim, there, since I’m hardly the only one in this situation. And since Portland’s unemployment is around 10% or so, and has been unwavering for quite some time, I see no signs of my employment status changing. Campus job openings are few and far between, because of the ridiculous number of applicants for each position.

    To listen as some asshat goes on about how easy it was for him to get on food stamps, and how he doesn’t need it but he’s going to flaunt it and do stupid shit with it, while I’m here eating my sodium-rich, supergeneric tomato soup with a grilled government cheese sandwich (hey! I can bake! The bread, at least, is good!) because that’s what I’ve got? Man, I would be in heaven if I had $100 for food.

    I’ve got no mommy and daddy to fall back on – they’re both dead. So, Mr. “I’m-A-Trust-Fund-Kid-Gaming-The-System”, what do you suppose I do? It’s hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you can’t afford boots, y’know?

    And unfortunately, I take crap like this personally. It’s hard not to when he’s insulting a level of subsistence that I aspire to.

  20. I’d also like to point out how he buys Snickers and takes this as proof, somehow, that poor people are using food stamps to fund their luxurious lifestyle.

    I guess I’m the only person who’s even substituted candy for food because candy is cheaper and will keep me going. A bag or two of Snickers on sale costs me less than $14 and it gives me lunches for a whole month. And since I’m not DEATH!FAT!!!1!! that clearly means that it was a good healthchoice, because, as we all know, having low visible body fat totally means I’m healthy and my nutritionally needs are being met.

  21. Bushfire: Sonia, could you explain that more?It sounds like “cease consuming” would mean “stop eating”.I’m curious.  

    Same result, different motivation behind the act. One involves helping people stay alive, the other involves keeping farmers in business (or, in this age of agricultural consolidation, keeping Monsanto’s and ADM’s profits up, among others, though the actual farmers still get squeezed).

    I’d like to point out at this time that agricultural subsidies are regularly attacked as an unfair measure when implemented in smaller economies, to be eliminated if/when the IMF comes to town. The US and Europe regularly ignore requests from other agricultural exporters to end their own subsidy programs. The hypocrisy is illuminating.

  22. One thing I found interesting was the fact that he thinks that things like, eg, limes, are ONLY used for garnishing drinks. I mean… what?

  23. @justducky, yeah, I get where you are coming from. It is damned near impossible to collect food stamps for an adult. You know why Boyle got them so easily? Because he committed fraud. You know, I could get a large income boost really quick if I start going on robbery sprees does that mean it is easy for college students to make huge amounts of cash? People who talk shit like this are rich, white, able bodied, cis, hetero (mostly) men who have never been actually poor. They love to spout things about how the poor live, but, if you back them into a corner, it is likely that the only poor person they know is their maid and they have never actually witnessed any of the behavior they claim to ‘see all of the time’. Those of us who actually deal with this system know it sucks and know it is really hard to get by. As someone who has seen the dogfights between people actually eligible for benefits and being refused them, seeing some rich asshole whine about how easy it would be for us to get them if only we were wanton criminals really pisses me off. If you look at the actual figures from 2009, only 3.53% of participants were overpaid and, of those, two thirds were due to case worker (government employee) mistake. That means that about 1% of foodstamp overpayment was due to recipients filling out the forms wrong, and, I highly suspect that not even all of that 1% is intentionally commiting fraud (many poor Americans have low reading levels and may make mistakes about what counts as what). The rest of foodstamps recipients, a solid 98-99% are definitely not liars and fraud perpetrators, which is why they actually have real problems, not criminal Boyle’s imaginary ones.

    @Bushfire, right on. Also, Dumbass Thurman, the reason foodstamps is a Department of Agriculture program is because it was created by the department of agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace who instituted a program during the end of the Depression stating “We got a picture of a gorge, with farm surpluses on one cliff and under-nourished city folks with outstretched hands on the other. We set out to find a practical way to build a bridge across that chasm.” It was a very realistic way to deal with the fact that the US makes more than enough food to feed every citizen but people were still routinely starving to death (and did, until the wider program was initiated in the 60s). What food stamps has done is a virtually complete elimination of starvation deaths, particularly amoung children, seniors, and people with disabilities. Bushfire is dead on here, to ‘stop consuming’ means starving when you are talking about food.

  24. This is all I know: My family just had food stamps cut by 80% (that was compounded by a previous 37% cut), and were just barely managing to buy enough food every month. No, income did not go up.

    I want to just rage at this. I am so tired of this classist economic injustice BS.

  25. GallingGalla: Given our current economic situation (which the Tea Party is happy to have), it’s inevitable that some of these people will become unemployed for so long that they don’t have money for food.I wonder if they’ll refuse food stamps on principle, or if they’ll engage in the kind of exceptionalism that anti-choice folks engage in: “Well, my situation is *special*.I deserve food stamps, but no-one else does” kinda crap.

    It’s the same kind of people that campaign against government health care programs and then during congressional orientation they complain loudly that their taxpayer-paid health plan doesn’t start on day one.

    I also find it’s hypocritical that a supposedly libertarian publication is calling for the government to prescribe what people should eat.

  26. Just Ducky, the situation you describe is the same in every city around here. I wanted to work during university and there were no jobs anywhere. Now I’m in enormous debt and it will take me many years before I can even think about saving up for a condo apartment (let alone a house). If I didn’t have my parents to fall back on, I would literally be homeless. And there’s right-wing bizarros out there going on about imaginary leftists that are apparently sitting in a Starbucks drinking tea and writing poetry and excepting government handouts. Actually, I am studying and working, and I live as frugally as I can and I’m still barely making it. I consider myself lucky to have never gone hungry (so far).

  27. Jill: Wait, what? Poor people should be able to eat healthy foods or foods that taste good, or otherwise enjoy life? Socialist.

    Damned right! ^.^

  28. I hate this article so, so much, and I’m anti-big government. From a thoughtful limited government perspective, food stamps are a fantastic and effective entitlement program — since they are very, very close to straight cash, they’re not economically distortionary in the same way that our health care and education entitlements are, and they do exactly what they’re intended to do: Help feed people who are going hungry, with a fraction of the administrative costs of other welfare programs.

  29. Comrade Kevin: Unlike Matthew Boyle, I’m not sure I’d call queuing twice for 2 and a half hours each time at some Government office which no doubt has very limited opening hours “easy”. (Especially as he had to return the next day because the paperwork either hadn’t mentioned the fact that he had to bring two payslips as proof or he didn’t read it properly.) A lot easier than your experience, true, but…

  30. Wow. I’m actually kinda impressed. I honestly did not think it was possible to fit so much fail into one article. I get food stamps and yeah…fifty bucks on one meal? Not happening. Since, ya know, us poor folks do need more than one or two meals a month. I’m not touching the $100 worth of candy. This is what we call “not even trying”.

  31. His article made some other really good points about what parasites poor people are–in the waiting room he discovered that many had (gasp) cell phones, which the gov’t considers a “necessary expense” and doesn’t count against benefit eligibility. I wonder if they were wearing clothes too–I mean, people shouldn’t be eligible for benefits unless they show up shoeless and wrapped in plastic bags or something, amiright? Also, a few of them seemed to be doing phone interviews for gov’t jobs–the nerve!!–after all, gov’t jobs should be saved for those who are at least comfortably middle class.

    I hope he gets caught. He’ll probably get community service, and then he can write more articles about the outrage of homeless shelters, food pantries or soup kitchens or something and the parasites who take advantage of them. Or maybe prison–I hear people get 3 squares a day there.

    Grrr.

  32. Matthew Boyle is a douchebag although I find it hard to be mad since I’ve seen this brand of yellow journalism from fox news for a while now.

  33. Favorite comment so far is from purpleshoes at pandagon.net: “First, if someone is buying $8 worth of creamy organic goat milk with their EBT, how is this supposed to make me sad? They just got some delicious organic food that they presumably, if they aren’t actively scamming the government like this jackass, couldn’t have afforded while supporting an organic goat farmer. I think I just had a liberalgasm. “

  34. This reminds of others advising not to give money to homeless individuals because “they’ll just drink it” or “if they were *really* in trouble they wouldn’t have pets!” or the ludicrous “they should have done better in school!” As if they’re where they are because they must deserve it, and thus, they have no right to enjoyment or simple happiness. God forbid any of them have traces of dyed hair or lipstick! It’s that same sick mentality in smaller doses: let’s pass judgment on those who haven’t the power to protest–and if they do, of course they’ll be ignored.

  35. This was my favorite part:

    Within minutes, I’d picked up $99.99 worth of Halloween-sized candy, including nine bags of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and 12 bags of Snickers. The loot filled two shopping bags, but the cashier didn’t flinch.

    I love how he just tries to drag the cashier into it and speculate about why the guy wasn’t shocked.

    He seemed like he’d seen it before.

    OR it’s because, you know, he isn’t an asshole…

  36. I take it back, this is my favorite:

    The total (minus the cheese, which I discarded at the last moment) came to $51.10. Not bad for a gourmet meal, especially since I wasn’t paying for it.

    when followed by,

    can legally use food stamps to buy, as the USDA puts it on its website, “soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream.” In other words, junk food.

    You can’t have a nice meal and you can’t have junk. What the hell are poor people allowed to eat?

  37. This “expose” is disgusting. Fortunately these days I’m not hurting for money, but I have been there. It is cheaper to buy 8-packs of frozen burritos than it is to buy fresh fruit and vegetables.

    What’s most disgusting is rich assholes who were born into money who think they somehow “earned” their lots in life thinking they are better than other people. And even if they had to work their way into a higher class, thinking that those who can’t make it according to American definitions of success deserve to starve… I’m just too disgusted.

  40. Mireille, I had a conversation with my bankrupt mother who was irritated that the hospital she works at taxis home people on welfare free of charge.

    I mention this for two reasons.

    It’s not just people who are well-off who say really shitty things about people who need help (though I will say that in my mother’s case, it’s because she wishes government funding was shifted from taxis to doing anything to stimulate the economy or to change employers’ ageist and ableist hiring practices – or just frustration that the primary breadwinner is unable to win bread anymore and unskilled female labor doesn’t bring in the same cash that unskilled male labor does). Still, not okay.

    And when I reframed it for her as, “if it were you, I would want you in the hospital until you were well and if someone couldn’t pick you up, I wouldn’t want you taking the bus after just getting healthy enough to take care of yourself,” she got it. Good people make this mistake often and it’s because they don’t even know they’re not putting in a good-faith effort to empathize.

    I really just don’t think these people know any better, or even know what questions to ask. It doesn’t make it okay, but it makes it systemic and sad.

  41. Nahida: I take it back, this is my favorite:The total (minus the cheese, which I discarded at the last moment) came to $51.10. Not bad for a gourmet meal, especially since I wasn’t paying for it.when followed by,can legally use food stamps to buy, as the USDA puts it on its website, “soft drinks, candy, cookies, snack crackers, and ice cream.” In other words, junk food.You can’t have a nice meal and you can’t have junk. What the hell are poor people allowed to eat?  

    Apparently, rawhide. Full of protein, low in fat, nice and chewy to clean the teeth and strengthen the jaw.

  42. I’d be in favour of eliminating food stamps entirely…replacing it with an equivalent cash amount, accounting for any differences in the tax implications or whatever else there may be — I’m not from the US and most of my knowledge of food stamps comes from this comments thread. Real money would have avoided the people who glare at you problem, and should accomplish the same thing.

    I guess I wonder what the rationale is for basically a restricted currency. Less likely to get stolen/extorted? Just assuaging people like Matthew Boyle? Mistrusting the recipients by expecting them not to feed themselves?

  43. I guess I wonder what the rationale is for basically a restricted currency.

    Probably to publicly declare that THIS PERSON IS POOR so that everyone in the vicinity can commence juding them?

    ( I don’t live in the US either. )

  44. I guess I wonder what the rationale is for basically a restricted currency.

    Probably to publicly declare that THIS PERSON IS POOR so that everyone in the vicinity can commence judging them?

    ( I don’t live in the US either. )

  45. As someone mentioned above the restricted currency is more about farm subsidies than feeding the poor. The original idea behind “food stamps” was that there were enormous farm surplus but such widespread unemployment that there was in sufficient demand for food products. In the original program the only “free” food was surplus food. This tradition was kept alive even when I was a kids by the delivery of actually gov’t surplus food. Cheese, powdered milk, etc were surplus farm product purchased by the gov’t to keep US farmers in business. I’m not sure whether gov’t cheese is still directly distributed, but the program is still administered by the Dept of Agriculture (as opposed to Health and Human Services) and funded by Congress in conjunction with farm subsidies.

  46. My aunt was talking to me recently about how one of her friends was pissed off about her charity experience. Apparently, she bought fixings for two separate families to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner and a Xmas dinner.

    One family had a flat screen TV and the other had tons of family over while the single mother hid in the back.

    And while that sucks, if you feel that family doesn’t “deserve” a TV, why in heavens are you giving them a holiday dinner? Why do they “deserve” that? A holiday dinner is probably less value to them which is why they’re not paying for it.

    You’re just projecting your own money values onto them.

  47. @Ens–the reason people are given foodstamps is to make sure people buy ONLY food, and don’t spend the money on rent, clothes, or whatever.

    This is partially done because of the “irresponsible” poor, partially done to make sure that the agricultural markets of America are getting the money, and partially done because no-one can steal your food stamps–only you can use them.

  48. karak:
    @Ens–the reason people are given foodstamps is to make sure people buy ONLY food, and don’t spend the money on rent, clothes, or whatever.
    This is partially done because of the “irresponsible” poor, partially done to make sure that the agricultural markets of America are getting the money, and partially done because no-one can steal your food stamps–only you can use them.  

    Something like that.

  49. The thing about a flat screen TV is:

    1 – you can buy it on credit; if you have maxed your cards out, a store will often give you a new card to buy a flat screen TV. Groceries, not so much.

    2 – you could have bought it when you were employed, and now that you are unemployed, it’s not like if you sold it you’d get anywhere near what you paid for it, so you may as well keep it as long as you can keep the electric on and the rent paid.

    Seriously, people seem to have no concept that finances go up and down, that if you buy a durable good today you’ll have it in a month but if you buy food today you’ll eat it, so people who fall on hard times are more likely to still have their durable goods, and that some stuff (like cell phones) are so cheap and practical that it would be foolish *not* to have them even if you are homeless and starving.

    If you give charity to people, they may have a nice house, great clothes, a ton of electronics, toys for their kids, and all kinds of stuff they bought WHEN THEY HAD MONEY… and now they don’t have money, because someone lost a job and hasn’t been able to get a new one. It’s like you’re not the deserving poor if you were *ever* middle class… which is weird, because that’s exactly the category these folks would be in if they lost their jobs. Durable goods last after the money is gone. Food does not. So someone with a very nice car could still be starving, and their reason for not selling their very nice car could be that they are living in it, or that it’s vitally necessary for them to be able to get a new job ever.

    I mean, if the family had the latest HDTV in 3D model that just came out a few months ago, then even I might raise an eyebrow. But a flat screen TV? I had one of those six years ago. There’s no reason to assume that owning flat screen TV = currently well off.

  50. I live in Texas, which has one of the five most underfunded food stamp programs in the country. As a result it’s REALLY REALLY difficult to get them even when you qualify. As far as college, I was not allowed to receive them while I was a student, unless I picked up a full time job and was working 40 hours a week in addition to being in school full time (in order to receive enough loans to actually go).

    This even extended to the 4 weeks over Christmas break, when there was no meal plan because the cafeterias were shut down, and the DHHS became irate with me for even applying for the “few days” I wouldn’t have a meal plan (it was exactly 28 days).

    This is why I’m not in college, and why I explain to people who demand to know why I’m not in college why the system is designed to perpetuate social stratification–it’s virtually impossible to go if SOMEONE is not supporting you.

  51. If you give charity to people, they may have a nice house, great clothes, a ton of electronics, toys for their kids, and all kinds of stuff they bought WHEN THEY HAD MONEY… and now they don’t have money, because someone lost a job and hasn’t been able to get a new one.

    Wise words. My parents went through this once upon a time, and the scorn heaped upon them by certain people is something I’ve never been able to forget (even though I think I’m at that point where I can begin to forgive). Financial meltdown can happen very fast, and it’s not as if there’s a safety net in place for most people (in fact, we frown at the very concept of a safety net, because it’s zomg-pinko-commie-socialism!). I think it’s something people deliberately refuse to acknowledge, because of the subconscious terror that they’ll end up in the same situation one of these days. Nobody wants to admit that under the current system, it can happen to them.

  52. If you give charity to people, they may have a nice house, great clothes, a ton of electronics, toys for their kids, and all kinds of stuff they bought WHEN THEY HAD MONEY… and now they don’t have money, because someone lost a job and hasn’t been able to get a new one.  

    The reason people don’t recognize that possibility is because it opens up the other, unwelcome possibility that they too can end up in similar circumstances. We live in a country where “the poor are poor because they’re lazy, stupid and criminal” has been drummed into peoples’ heads for generations. The end result is that people not only won’t identify with the poor, they’re practically incapable of of identifying with the poor. To identify with the poor is to admit that it can happen to anyone, even good little citizens who work hard, say their prayers and follow all the rules. In comparison to that, many people prefer the comfortable lie that reassures them that they’ll never end up at the bottom.

  53. Where can we report this guy? All we have to do to prove him wrong is let the government know he’s committed fraud; then he hasn’t proven that the system doesn’t work.

  54. It reminds me of a story our local paper ran one December about a local soup kitchen. There was the photo of the soup line, and then off to the side, there was a man with a cell phone. “Why did that man have a cell phone?” the letter writers wrote, up in arms. “If he can afford a cell phone, why can’t he feed himself? Shouldn’t he be spending his money on [things of which we approve] instead of [things we declare luxuries, and thus too good for a homeless person]?”

    He probably has a cell phone because a home phone would require him to have a home. A prepaid phone can cost as little as $10 and be a crucial asset for such activities as finding a job or calling 911. But he shouldn’t get to use a phone for job hunting–he should stand in line for hours at the unemployment office, or better yet, walk from door to door begging for work. And he shouldn’t get to call 911, because if he wanted safety and security, he shouldn’t have gotten poor. And he certainly shouldn’t have anything that could be considered personal property or a sense of comfort–if you’re going to dare to be poor, you’d damn well better be destitute.

  55. To identify with the poor is to admit that it can happen to anyone, even good little citizens who work hard, say their prayers and follow all the rules. In comparison to that, many people prefer the comfortable lie that reassures them that they’ll never end up at the bottom.

    I’m sure this is a huge part of it. I think it’s also the reason people are so willing to blame rape victims–if I can find something she did wrong to get herself raped, all I have to do is never do that thing and I’ll never be raped. If I can identify qualities and actions in a poor person, if I can say they’re stupid and lazy and dishonest, I just have to never be that way and I’ll never be poor.

    A while back, I had the opportunity to interview a professor who’d done extensive research on homelessness. He made the point that something as simple as two days in jail can be enough to put a person out on the street. But it’s easier to just believe they’re all addicts and crazies and welfare hounds, because that means we’ll never be in their situation.

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