Hamilton Nolan · 05/25/16 02:12PM
The only business edge that Walmart has left over Amazon: food stamp spending. (Much of it from Walmart employees!)
The only business edge that Walmart has left over Amazon: food stamp spending. (Much of it from Walmart employees!)
For the past few months, we have been bringing you true stories of Americans who receive welfare, food stamps, and other public benefits. Today we bring you our tenth and final installment of what it’s really like surviving on public generosity. These are worth reading.
Yesterday, the Oklahoma Republican Party posted a message on Facebook comparing America’s food stamp receipts—almost half of whom are children—to wild animals dependent on handouts.
State politicians across America are trying to restrict access to welfare and other anti-poverty benefits. To put this in perspective, we’re bringing you true stories from people who receive these benefits. A taste of society’s parsimonious generosity, below.
Even as the great recession recedes from memory, economic inequality in America widens and the class war rages on. We are bringing you true stories of people who have received welfare, food stamps, and other public benefits. Here is what it is like.
Across America, state governments are pursuing harsh restrictions on public anti-poverty benefits. Each week, we’re publishing true stories from people who receive those benefits. It’s not an easy life.
We are bringing you true stories from Americans who receive welfare, food stamps, and other anti-poverty benefits. Before you consider voting for a politician who would restrict these benefits, consider what life on the dole is actually like.
What is life like for Americans who receive food stamps, welfare, and other government benefits? It ain’t easy. Each week, we let some of them tell you in their own words. Today, we hear from six moms who are making it work.
As politicians threaten to cut public anti-poverty benefits, we are bringing you true stories from Americans who’ve received various forms of welfare and food stamps. Life on the dole is not as easy as some might think.
Access to food stamps and other government anti-poverty programs is often used as a political football. This amounts to playing with human lives. Each week, we are bringing you true stories from Americans who receive public assistance. Here are your fellow citizens speaking about their own lives.
Amid a nationwide push to restrict access to government anti-poverty programs, we are bringing you true stories from people who receive public assistance. Tight budgets, enraging bureaucracy, and real hunger, below.
More than one in four Americans—many of them employed—receive some type of government anti-poverty assistance. We are bringing you their stories. Today, seven different experiences from people in seven different states.
Across America, there is a significant political movement to restrict access to food stamps and other government aid programs for the poor. Earlier this week, we asked those of you who receive public assistance to send us your stories. The results have been overwhelming.
After the Great Recession of 2008 caused mass unemployment, the government expanded some elements of the social safety net. Now, states are moving to make food stamps and other public benefits harder to get. We want to hear from those of you who actually get these benefits.
Kansas—the flat, dusty mecca for anyone that loves tornadoes and hates gays—is looking to make life for families on welfare just a little bit worse. Meaning that soon, families could be banned from using public funds on movies, baseball tickets, and pretty much anything falling under the category of "enjoyable."
Recently defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is joining an investment bank, where he will get rich advising corporate clients on deals. Meanwhile, enrollment in the food stamp program, for which Cantor voted to cut funding, is down. So everyone is doing well.
A new study that traces the effect of government programs on poverty all the way back to 1967 finds unequivocally that the money the government spends to help the poor does, in fact, reduce poverty. Suck it, Republicans.
Labor advocates are promoting a shocking (edited) recording of a phone call between a longtime McDonald's worker and the company's 1-866 McResource Line, in which an operator advises the worker to bolster her $8.25-an-hour wages by signing up for food stamps and Medicaid. Good for McDonald's! Why should they keep pretending that our economy isn't completely ruined?