In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when “food stamps” were embarrassing bulky coupons). But I did not see any relationship between the use of the card and poverty as we once knew it: The electrical appurtenances owned by the user and the car into which the groceries were loaded were indistinguishable from those of the upper middle class.
By that I mean that most consumers drove late-model Camrys, Accords, or Tauruses, had iPhones, Bluetooths, or BlackBerries, and bought everything in the store with public-assistance credit. This seemed a world apart from the trailers I had just ridden by the day before. I don’t editorialize here on the logic or morality of any of this, but I note only that there are vast numbers of people who apparently are not working, are on public food assistance, and enjoy the technological veneer of the middle class. California has a consumer market surely, but often no apparent source of income. Does the $40 million a day supplement to unemployment benefits from Washington explain some of this?[/quote]
The types of “late-model” vehicles mentioned above are NOT particularly “upper middle class.” 5-15 year-old vehicles of these models, while still “looking new,” are cheap to buy these days and also reliable transportation for a low-income family, esp the Japanese models. And cell phones are often given away (not iphones) in exchange for a 2-year contract with a carrier. I can’t tell you how many offers I’ve thrown away to receive a ‘Droid, Blackberry (Bold or Curve), or other phone with features I don’t need or use for either =<$50 or FREE just for signing a 2 yr "feature-filled" contract! A $25 "bluetooth" device is required by law in this state to talk on a cell phone while driving.
EBT cards (formerly "food-stamps") are not valid for non-edible mdse. WIC coupons, also widely used, ARE bulky and time-consuming to process at the register and are only valid for a very strict list of commodities, all edible. In order to qualify for WIC, you must be a mother of young children and/or an eligible expectant mom. The vast majority of EBT recipients/users have minor children. Indigent (usually homeless) adults on “General Relief” and new parolees from a CA Dept of Corrections facility can usually get $50-$75 mo put on EBT’s for their use for a shorter period of time than a family with young children.
I’m not siding with recipients that Hanson observed while visiting markets in CA’s central valley (a far lower-income region than CA’s coastal counties). What I AM stating here is that it may APPEAR to a casual observer that these people are actually somehow “making out better” or “working the system.”
Every resident of this state if free to apply for these benefits and should certainly attempt to if they somehow feel “cheated.” Then they will find out exactly how “poor” they have to be to actually qualify for them :=]
