A reader quotes another:
Food stamp users get on average less than a $1 per meal per month. That's $3-4 a day. That's not a lot and not a huge boost in purchasing power. Most food stamp users who buy soda do so not necessarily because they are wasteful or uneducated or looking to work the system, but because soda is all they can really afford to buy on a paltry amount of benefits.
My family's experience on food stamps a couple of years ago was completely different from what this reader describes. As a family of four (me, wife, two kids) we got around $550 for food per month (~$140/person per month). This was far more than we were spending before we ended up on food stamps and more than we budget for food now that I am employed again. We bought milk, not soda, and meat, not canned food, and we had enough to build up some food storage as well. The idea that there just isn't enough money from food stamps and people are forced into making poor food choices is flat wrong in my experience. I can see if a family insists on eating prepared food every day for every meal, or regularly uses EBT to buy take-and-bake pizza, they may run into some problems due to the convenience premium that is priced into those products. But it is well within a food stamp budget to buy healthy ingredients and make your own food.
Another writes:
Here in good old Oregon, where one in five citizens is on food stamps, we almost have the opposite problem: people using food stamps to purchase gourmet, organic, fair-trade, eco-friendly food.
I've seen people purchase $20/pound wild caught fresh salmon and not blink an eye at the thought of using their EBT card. Oh, you need a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio to go with that? That's fine, the system automatically deducts what you can and can't buy with food stamps, alcohol included.
As someone who is a proponent of healthier eating and of "voting with your dollar," I feel that it is important to purchase food which is good for you and good for the earth. Sometimes this comes with a price, and I can understand the argument that using food stamps to purchase more expensive, organic, and natural food sends a message about the types of products consumers want to see in stores, hopefully driving the cost of those items down. But food stamps are for people seriously suffering to make ends meet, and that $20 salmon could have easily been a bounty of fresh vegetables (even organic ones). As someone whose EBT balance just got updated with this month's $200, it's hard to imagine justifying that type of purchase.
A perspective from across the Pond:
When I was in England in the early '70s, the restaurants had the usual door stickers announcing that they accepted Visa, American Express, and Mastercard. They also had a sticker that read "LV". "What's that?" I asked my English girlfriend. "Luncheon Vouchers" she said. It was (and still is for one more year) an untaxed benefit that is given by employers to workers, originating in the early postwar days of rationing, and designed to encourage healthy noontime eating. (Cannot be used in pubs!) My friend pointed out "help wanted" ads that advertised pay rates like "21 pounds/per week + LV". It was a way for the employer and the government to encourage nutrition and sobriety for the afternoon. The system has slowly faded and is being put out of its misery in 2013.
The Dish 