Tag: snap

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What’s a Living Wage?

The federal poverty line is $15, 650 per year for a single person. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour and has been since 2009. If you work 40 hours per week, every week of the year (no sick days, no holidays etc), you will make a grand total of $15,080 per year (gross, meaning before taxes are taken out).

If you are a single person, and you make double the minimum wage (which is roughly what big box stores like Walmart, Target pay) you might still qualify for SNAP benefits. What does this say? This says that double the minimum wage is still not a living wage. Remember, these figures don’t account for sick days, store closures for holidays, etc.

That is for one single person working full time.

Let’s say you make $15 per hour. If you work 40 hours per week, you’ll make $2400 for the month if you don’t miss any days due to illness, etc. (40 hours per week, 4 weeks in the month – keeping figures simple here).

Your tax rate will be somewhere between 18-22%, so for the sake of math, let’s say 20%.

So your take-home pay will be $1,920.

If you live in downtown Allentown, you MIGHT be able to get an apartment for $1000 a month. Where I live you are unlikely to find a place for less than $1500.

That leaves you with $920. You need some utilities: internet, electric, phone, and some sort of heat source. If you use Mint Mobile, you can get some slightly sketchy internet and cell phone service for about $45 per month. Your electric will likely be $100 and more if you have electric heat.

Now you are down to $775. But you still need insurance and transportation.

My cheap car insurance on an old, paid-for van and a clean record is $75 per month. Car maintenance can easily cost $100 per month (just think how often you need routine items like tires, brakes, oil change, etc). The average amount spent on gas is around $150 per month.

If you go to the USDA website and look at their food plans, a 20-50 year old male would need at minimum (the cheapest food there is) $310 a month for food.

If your employer sponsors your health care, you might be able to get a basic plan with minimum coverage for $110.

Now you are left with $30 in the month, as long as you haven’t had any sick days, flat tires, you don’t have any credit cards, school loans, or a car payment.

That $30 has to cover everything else – toilet paper, laundry soap, shampoo and conditioner, and an occasional bottle of Pepto Bismal or Draino.

Or say a $10 per month rental insurance plan which might be required by your landlord. A new pair of sneakers once in a while, since you’re probably on your feet all day if you work for $15 an hour. This budget doesn’t include water, sewer, trash pickup – hopefully that’s all included in your rent, but it might not be.

You can’t afford to go to McDonald’s even once, get a parking ticket, give to your favorite charity, or buy your mom flowers for Mother’s Day. No Christmas presents. No new clothes. No Netflix. No extras to make you feel better about life. Your apartment doesn’t have a washer and dryer – so off you go to the laundry mat. How much does that cost?

This doesn’t give you room to save for an emergency fund, retirement, or a new car. If you do any of that, you’ll need a second job. You won’t have time to go to school to get a better job because you’re working so hard already.

And even if you have health insurance, you can’t afford the copay. You can’t even afford to be sick since you can’t take any days off of work. Dave Ramsey says skip the latte, eat rice and beans and you’ll build the American Dream. Dave Ramsey is dead wrong because wages haven’t kept up with the cost of housing, and this is our problem.

The reason SO MANY people in America – like 42 million – need SNAP and medical assistance is because they cannot make a living wage. Meanwhile, profits for the shareholders of large companies like McDonald’s, Walmart, Amazon, just to name a few – are raking it in on the backs of people just trying to get by. I’m not anti-capitalism here, but it absolutely needs to be bridled if we don’t want people needing more government assistance.

Someone making $15 an hour as a single person MIGHT quality for SNAP – at about $24 a month. Less than $1 a day. Maybe they get some extra protein for that, or a bag of apples and some salad. But they aren’t getting rich. They’re barely getting by. A can of chicken is $3.99, a bag of apples is about $4.99. It doesn’t cover much.

People can’t pull themselves up by their bootstraps – the don’t even make enough money to afford the boots! We need to seriously consider what is a living wage and who deserves to earn one. (Hint: it’s not just the people at the top).

By the way, if you make $15 an hour, at the end of the day, you’ll bring home $96 max after taxes. Congress, on the other hand, gets $79 for lunch every day they show up to work. And that isn’t their paycheck. That’s just their lunch.

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Food Insecurity

If only there were organizations that could collect wasted food and hand it out to people who need it… oh wait, there are! Food banks and food pantries are a great way to get food to the masses who need it. But… there’s always a but…

Roughly 1 in 12 people rely on SNAP monthly. 1 in 7 people use a food bank at some point each year. This means people you know are food insecure. Let me say it again – people you know are food insecure. Studies on the USDA website say it’s around 18% of households with children that have food insecurity, and the parents are more likely to go hungry because the adults don’t eat so that their kids can.

Pennsylvania ranks better than most of the US as far as food insecurity goes. Our state has a number of programs to support people in food insecure homes. For example, universal free breakfast is available at all public schools in Pa, giving students the opportunity to learn with a full belly. They also provide a number of state grants to counties to support food charities, known as the State Food Purchase Program (Pa is the leader in this program!). But even with all of this help, food pantries really are just a supplement and don’t provide enough food for a family that is hungry.

You can find food pantries near you by visiting 211.org or feedingamerica.org. Some of these organizations are able to work with grocery stores that would otherwise have to throw the food away. In Pa, at least, it is legal for food pantries to give away food that is past its best buy date, as long as it appears to still be good. The exceptions are baby food and formula, vitamins, or medicine.

But don’t just go raid your pantry for last year’s somewhat smashed box of taco shells. If it isn’t appetizing to you, why on earth would you expect someone that is food insecure to eat it? Don’t they deserve the dignity of good food, too?

And while some people truthfully enjoy shopping for others, the absolute best way to support a food pantry usually is to give your cash. Somehow, a lot of people feel better about handing out a few cans of black beans when your $20 would go much further in the hands of a food pantry.

The reality is that a food pantry has significantly better purchasing power than a single person. So putting the cash in their hands gives them the opportunity to buy in bulk, buy at wholesale prices, or get special deals that normal people aren’t eligible for. People who work or volunteer regularly at food pantries have a better pulse on what’s really needed rather than what the average joe thinks someone else should eat.

And when people donate random items, it’s harder for food pantries to put together usable meals. One influencer spent $25 on a mystery box at his food pantry (yes he had to pay for this one) and ended up with 30 pounds of croutons. This is what happens when food pantries can’t make decisions for themselves about what to purchase and distribute.

If you do have miscellaneous food to move from your pantry, consider offering it in your local buy nothing group. Often times, people who are in immediate need will post looking for specific items or any items available and you can offer what’s in your pantry to them.

If you really want to get grassroots and boots on the ground, offer to drive for your local food pantry. They sometimes need people willing to go to the grocery store to collect items and then deliver it to the pantry where it can be distributed. Or perhaps you want to box items or be someone who actually hands it off to people who are in need.

At this moment in time, it looks like only 50% of the SNAP funds will be delivered in the month of November. Gov. Shapiro has made an emergency order to get more funding to food banks. But food pantries are going to be overrun and probably still won’t be able to fulfill the needs. So if you’ve got more than enough, consider calling up your local food pantry and seeing what they need.

Thanksgiving is around the corner and Christmas and Hannukah are not far away. Now is the time to share not just your old leftovers, but your cash.

Real people are in real need and it’s going to get worse as the month goes on.

So if you want to help – and I hope you do- call up your local food pantry and ask what they need. And while you’re out there dropping it off, check on your neighbor. You never know who might be going hungry today.

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The Poor Tax

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You’ve probably heard of the ‘pink tax’ – where manufacturers will make something in pink or even something breast-cancer related and charge extra for it.

The poor tax is even more insidious.

The poor tax refers to the phenomenon that it actually costs more to be poor than to be middle or upper class. So if you’re wondering why poor people can’t just ‘do better’ – this is one of the reasons.

For example, if your grocery budget is small, you’re being as frugal as you can. But you don’t have any money to buy more than exactly what you need. So maybe you buy smaller packages with less food in them – but food packaged that way actually costs more per ounce. You don’t have extra cash to take advantage of sales, either. Whereas someone with a little room in their food budget, or someone who has a full pantry they can rely on, can stock up on major sales. They might be able to buy a month’s worth of cereal when it’s only 1.77 a box, but someone who is poor can only buy one because there’s no wiggle room to stock up, even though it would save money in the long run. So although they are spending less per week they are paying more for the food they actually eat.

Someone who has a lower income is usually paid by the hour, which means if they have to miss work due to anything from the flu to jury duty, they’re out an entire day or more worth of income. That’s a big deal, so maybe they have to put this week’s groceries on the credit card. But because their income is low and their credit isn’t great, their interest rate is 34%, which makes that food cost 1/3 more! They’re trying to make the payments, but just putting a little bit of food on that card has maxed it out, because low income means a low credit card limit. So their score drops even more, and their interest rate might go up even further.

Now that they’ve missed work and have another bill to pay, they accidentally overdraw their account. Now, on top of being short money already, they have to pay a $35 per day fee for overdrawing their bank account. Where are they going to get the extra funds?

If you only make $15 an hour – which is double minimum wage by the way- it’s going to take you a long time to recover from even missing a couple days of work.

You’re trying hard to build up an emergency fund, but if you get more than $3000 in the bank – which is less than say first and last months rent if you need to move to a new apartment – you lose your SNAP benefits. So you can’t just move and find a cheaper place to live, you’re stuck where you are. Because if you save up money and lose snap, you’ll have to use that money for food.

Let’s talk about cars! You had an old but very reliable car to get back and forth to work. It wasn’t fancy, but it was paid off. You get rear ended at a stop sign, and because the car is old, the insurance company considered it totaled. They gave you $2000 to buy a new car. So you search FB marketplace and you put that money plus all your savings into the best car you can find. You don’t have money to get it checked out by a mechanic first, so you pick one that looks reliable and has an up-to-date inspection sticker.

You drive the car for 2 months, but you didn’t realize that the car was never maintained and the transmission goes. Your savings are gone, your car is too expensive to fix, and now you can’t get to work. What do you do?

Uber is expensive. You can’t afford that. It’s too far to walk because you can’t afford to live near where you work. Oh, and since you live in a semi-rural area (the only place you could afford) there are no buses. You can ride your bike, but the road is sketchy and all of the drivers get mad at you because there isn’t a shoulder to ride on. What do you do? (This is a true story, btw, although it didn’t happen to me).

Your only option now is to finance a car. So you go to a sketchy car dealership and they do give you a $2000 car, but they charge extra fees because you don’t have a downpayment. It has an R title because it was underwater once and everything smells bad.

And because your credit cards are maxed from buying groceries when you were sick, your interest rate is 29% over 3 years. How much more does that car cost verses someone who was able to buy a newer car at a much lower interest rate?

These are just a few real life examples of why it costs much more to be poor. Just getting a few hundred dollars of SNAP benefits a month doesn’t make up for this low-paying, hourly income and the extra cost of goods. You would love to enroll in school so you could get a better job, but you can’t afford it. And who would watch your kids while you go to class? It’s hard enough working while they’re in school, with all of the half days, holidays, and sick days. What do you do?

How are you supposed to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when there aren’t options for you to do so? You’re not lazy at all, you work really hard at your job and you show up. But you are stuck and worse, you are hated because you can’t ‘do better.’

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Who Deserves to Eat?

Who deserves to eat? Moreover, who gets to decide who eats? And what are the determining factors?

Does where you live determine whether you should be able to eat or not?

Does how much money you make determine whether you should eat or not?

Does your level of productivity determine if you should eat or not?

If you discovered your aging parent was missing meals because they didn’t have enough food, wouldn’t you bring them a hot meal? Or maybe you found out your college-age kid wasn’t getting enough meals at school- you’d probably send them a great big care package.

But what the grandma whose kids have moved away and she has no one to bring her food that covers the hungry times? What about the 20 year old who is on their own, doing their best, but still going hungry?

What precludes you from being worthy of enough calories?

People are quick to say work harder, get a better job, work more hours….

Imagine you are a single mom through no fault of your own. Child care costs as much as your mortgage, so in order to go to work you need someone to watch your children. If you don’t have family or friends that are able or willing to babysit regularly, you’re going to have to have a job that makes enough money to cover the all of the costs. This is hard enough for households with 2 working parents, but somehow our society expects single moms to do it alone without help and without complaining because “they chose this.”

Even if your children are school age, you still need after school care, which is more expensive per hour. But let’s not miss out on all of the half days, holidays, school programs, conferences, IEP meetings, and it’s not forget sick days, checkups, and dentist appointments. If your child or children have special needs, the number of appointments can easily triple or more. If they need speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational theory or other things, these are weekly appointments that can make it nearly impossible to work. Does that mom and child deserve to not eat because they have to spend all their business hours trying to get well?

Do homeless people deserve to eat? 50% of homeless people actually have jobs. They’re trying, they just don’t make enough money to afford a place to eat and live. They’re working but finding it impossible to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Do they deserve to eat?

What about addicts? Addiction is a disease. Yes, it may come with a lot of bad choices and mistakes but underneath that disease is another human being just trying to get through life the best way they know how. Do you really mean it when you say they don’t deserve to eat? Maybe a few hot meals, a chance to learn that there is some good in this world would give them the energy and security to invest themselves in rehab (which is another issue – rehab is expensive and hard and that’s not their fault).

Who decides what people get to eat? A creator on instagram said people on snap should be given a box of only healthy fresh foods. But here’s the thing…. processed foods are literally cheaper and they are much more shelf stable. Why on earth would you buy fresh meat or veggies that would go bad in a couple days when you could buy much cheaper noodles or even potato chips which will stay good for months? Furthermore, food is cultural and what is considered healthy in one area might not be the same in another area. Or even available. About 6% of the United States lives in a food desert – defined as a place where there isn’t easy access to healthy food or good quality fresh food. So do these people not deserve to eat?

Have you ever eaten a piece of chocolate to make yourself feel better? Or gone out to eat after a stressful day because you’re just worn out? Do you only deserve this kind of comfort if you are a certain social or economic status? or is it ok for a small child to eat a cookie after a long day at school?

We don’t need to police WHO gets to eat or WHAT they want to eat. Let’s just make sure that everyone has the opportunity to eat.

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Shady AI Videos

This shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. There are a number of AI-created videos rolling around on TikTok and Instagram solely for the purpose of perpetuating the myth of the welfare queen.

These videos usually portray a non-white, non-skinny, non-educated person crashing out at the cash register over frozen food stamps. They’re threatening to steal food or cause harm. There are a few variations and they just seem to further ignite hatred towards people who get assistance and push the stereotype about who gets help and why. That’s the whole point.

These videos are shared by creators looking to get extra views by promoting harmful stereotypes. Don’t fall for it! AI is quickly improving in its capabilities and the best thing you can do is arm yourself against falling for it.

Remember, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is. Maybe you’ve seen videos of a small child being rescued from a tree falling by a dog. Another video depicts a bull defending a toddler from another bull. Bunnies or raccoons jumping on a trampoline. Grandma taking a herd of cats on leashes for a walk. And my personal fav, Grandma getting in trouble with the police for feeding a bear.

How can you tell if it isn’t real?

Look for a watermark or a blurry spot where someone used poor editing to erase a watermark.

Look for a timestamp that doesn’t make sense.

Watch for strange body parts – such as odd shaped fingers and hands, a weird arm, etc.

Keep your eye on the background – parts will move or not move in ways you would expect.

Watch facial expressions – those faces may look overly botoxed, filtered, – AI doesn’t make the face move as much as it normally would.

Any unusual artifact – objects in the video don’t look right, the video may be blurred in areas you would expect detail, or you may see spots where the AI didn’t generate everything that should be there.

Security cameras. The trampoline bunnies look like the footage came from a Ring camera at night – this is intentional, because it’s easier to cover up the AI mistakes. Also, the videos of animals bringing random animals into their owner’s beds – these are AI. Who films their bed with a security camera while they are sleeping?

Things that are out of character. I watched a video of Mr. Rogers crashing out and screaming obscenities. That is completely out of character for his personality, both real and on-screen.

If you have to question if it’s AI, it probably is.

AI videos are a lot of fun to play with but they can be very damaging, especially when they are used to further stereotypes that can cause significant harm to people (imagine the ramifications of the ‘welfare queen’ video or a video of real person doing something illegal they never actually did).

Use your common sense and please stop the stereotype narratives at every opportunity.

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How Much Do You Spend on Food?

How much do you actually spend on food? How do you compare to the national average?

The USDA offers several food budget suggestions based on the national cost of groceries. You can find it here: https://www.fns.usda.gov/…/cost-food-monthly-reports.

The thrifty plan is the cheapest budget, and you wouldn’t be able to afford organic or luxury foods on this level, it’s just the absolute cheapest most basic amount that the government thinks you should be spending on groceries. They even break it down according to age. Check it out and see where you fall! Then think about SNAP benefits – because SNAP doesn’t cover the entire amount of a thrifty food plan. So the government knows that this amount doesn’t fully cover your food for the month, it’s a supplement.

You have to reapply for snap benefits every 6 months and if you don’t complete your application on time, you lose them. In order to apply, you have to fill out a pretty large packet of information, which can be especially challenging if English isn’t your first language or you don’t have a good education. The directions are pretty confusing, and you will also need to include verification – copies of your bank statements, maybe your mortgage or rent, your utilities, etc. If you don’t have a computer or internet access, it is harder and slower to apply.

Also, you cannot directly call the Department of Human Services or the caseworker that you are assigned. You have to call the call center, and you wait on hold for about an hour. Then you speak to a call center rep who will take your information and forward it to right person. I think they have 3 days to call you back and if you miss the call, you have to start all over again. And if you’re at work you might not be able to answer your phone, so it could literally take you weeks to actually discuss your case with someone who can help you. But the caseworkers don’t make the decision, the supervisors do, and you don’t get to speak with them.

If you don’t upload the right documents, they will reject your case but until you get a chance to speak with someone, you might not even know why your case was rejected. If you are self-employed or a contractor, it’s even harder to prove your income. Last year’s tax returns aren’t enough, you need last months paystubs. If you don’t get paystubs, you’ll have to work with a caseworker to figure out what type of documentation is acceptable, because it isn’t always the same based on your particular supervisor for your case.

Getting – and keeping – SNAP benefits just isn’t that easy. And you likely have to miss work time to get them done because caseworkers are only available during business hours. You have to jump through a lot of hoops.

You aren’t getting rich off of benefits. One woman used her SNAP benefits to make baked goods to sell in order to help her family. As far as I can tell from the story, her intentions were wholesome. But she got caught, was arrested, and may face up to 10 years in prison. If you commit fraud trying to get SNAP, you may have to pay them back, pay fines, face jail, or get booted off the program for life.

Two judges voted that the president must release the emergency funds earmarked for keeping SNAP going through a government shutdown. Hopefully, he complies, but even if he does, SNAP benefits will be delivered late this month.

People are quick to judge what SNAP users put in their grocery cars, but the reality is that food is more than filling bellies. It is security. It is health. It is comfort. It’s a little bit of hope. A little bit of joy.

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What the Bible Actually Says about the Poor

I saw a pastor on threads railing against people who were on SNAP benefits. He said if they are able bodied enough to be on TikTok, they can get a job. Clearly, he doesn’t understand that 86% of households receiving SNAP benefits include a child, elderly, or disabled person. I am not sure where the stereotypes came from, but there is this image that people on SNAP are lazy and cheating the system.

Fraud rates for SNAP are estimated around 11%, but fraud by the people using them is probably less than 1%. The other fraud that is occurring is people skimming and cloning EBT cards, not people lying about needing them. If your SNAP benefits get stolen in Pa, they do not get replaced by the government. You just lose out. Furthermore, the largest group by race receiving SNAP benefits are actually white folks, coming in at 37%.

So-called Christian creators are using 2 Thess. 3:10 to say the government shouldn’t provide for you if you aren’t working:, “For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If anyone is unwilling to work, let him not eat”. This is wrong on a number of levels. First, that verse was directed at Christians who were sitting around doing nothing because they expected Jesus to return any minute. Second, that verse has nothing to do with people who are poor, sick, children, disabled, or can’t make a living wage. 3. The constitution isn’t actually based on the Bible, and definitely not on that verse (however, Russia may have used it in their government reform to reinforce communism).

The Bible says to care for the poor over 2000 times yet Christians keep taking specific verses out of context to shame and bully people who need help. But Jesus never asked people if they had a job before he fed them… he just fed them. He didn’t ask if they paid for their health insurance, he just healed them.

Jesus was against people that shamed others or that used Scripture as a weapon to bully others (Ie the Pharisees). Instead, he championed the poor, the widow, the orphan, the disabled… you get the idea. He never showed disdain for someone who society deemed as less, he actually invited them to dinner.

The reality is that Jesus called Christians into action. James 2:15-16: “If a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?”

That means that sending ‘thoughts and prayers’ are not enough – believers are supposed to be in the trenches, handing out the coats and food. Thoughts and prayers are not good enough!

The Old Testament said in Deuteronomy and Leviticus that farmers were to leave food in the fields so that poor folks could come along behind and get themselves food to eat.

Honestly, if you follow Jesus, you probably should be thankful that the government has programs to care for the poor in your neglect. When the rich young ruler asked Jesus what he needed to do to be saved, Jesus told him to sell everything he owned and give the money to the poor. I’m pretty sure if you have a nice home and plenty of food, Jesus would expect you to bring some homeless people over for dinner, give them some of the best clothes from your closet, and let them sleep in your guest room. Oh, yeah, and he would have washed their stinky feet first.

So if you’re a Christian my question for you is, which kind of Christian are you? The kind that prooftexts Bible verses to reinforce their petty biases or the kind that follows the example of Jesus?

-sincerely, a doctoral student of Biblical exegesis.