Don't get me wrong, I think he is an awesome person and is doing great things for his community. I'm just not sure what the purpose of this exercise is. I personally, think it would be more valuable if someone who had a family to support did it.
I don't see what's so special about this whole thing. I don't think it accurately shows the difficulty that those who are on food stamps have to deal with.
Don't get me wrong, I think he is an awesome person and is doing great things for his community. I'm just not sure what the purpose of this exercise is. I personally, think it would be more valuable if someone who had a family to support did it.
I don't see what's so special about this whole thing. I don't think it accurately shows the difficulty that those who are on food stamps have to deal with.
Of course it doesn't show accurately how hard it is to deal with being on food stamps -- no simulation could. But he has a huge audience that includes many people who will never be on food stamps so if he can spread some awareness of how hard it is to fake be on food stamps (let alone to real be on food stamps), is that such a bad thing?
I also don't understand why you're drawing a distinction between a single person and a family. Why does that make such a difference to you?
This all also seems a bit odd coming from you, because as of a few months ago you weren't struggling more than many college students are, and were thinking of applying for food stamps. Your experience on food stamps would have been a lot easier than many of Booker's constituents' experiences are...
Don't get me wrong, I think he is an awesome person and is doing great things for his community. I'm just not sure what the purpose of this exercise is. I personally, think it would be more valuable if someone who had a family to support did it.
I don't see what's so special about this whole thing. I don't think it accurately shows the difficulty that those who are on food stamps have to deal with.
Of course it doesn't show accurately how hard it is to deal with being on food stamps -- no simulation could. But he has a huge audience that includes many people who will never be on food stamps so if he can spread some awareness of how hard it is to fake be on food stamps (let alone to real be on food stamps), is that such a bad thing?
I also don't understand why you're drawing a distinction between a single person and a family. Why does that make such a difference to you?
This all also seems a bit odd coming from you, because as of a few months ago you weren't struggling more than many college students are, and were thinking of applying for food stamps. Your experience on food stamps would have been a lot easier than many of Booker's constituents' experiences are...
Actually, I was struggling more than many college students which is why I was thinking of applying for food stamps. I was unemployed and had zero income (zero financial support). I also got flamed for thinking about applying to food stamps. I sold DVDs weekly for 2 months to keep food in my cupboards. And I would have gotten the same $30/week that Booker is getting.
What makes a difference to me, is that I currently spend $30-50/week on food. Anytime my budget has been posted here people have commented on how low my grocery bill is. Not because I can't afford more, but because it is really easy to fed 1 person on $30/week. Plenty of people do it without food stamps.
To me, it's nothing special because most the single people I know, spend about that on food for themselves. So while it may be an eye-opener for a lot of his supporters, it's not for me. It's just my opinion. I think his voice and appeal could be better used in another scenario.
lol. Maybe you actually could be good at PR given the spin on that story.
Yes, you were unemployed. But this was because you quit your job so you could "experience" college life... at the age of 25. Most people applying for TANF or SNAP aren't doing so because they wanted a leisurely semester of undergrad. Please.
Actually, I was struggling more than many college students... Prove it.
What makes a difference to me, is that I currently spend $30-50/week on food. Anytime my budget has been posted here people have commented on how low my grocery bill is. But what do you spend on booze? Most people on this board aren't single and a lot have kids so of course your food budget seems low to them. I rarely spent more than $40 weekly on food (not including booze) when I was single.
Actually, I was struggling more than many college students... Prove it.
What makes a difference to me, is that I currently spend $30-50/week on food. Anytime my budget has been posted here people have commented on how low my grocery bill is. But what do you spend on booze? Most people on this board aren't single and a lot have kids so of course your food budget seems low to them. I rarely spent more than $40 weekly on food (not including booze) when I was single.
Also, grocery budget =/= food budget.
I doubt my husband and I spend $30-$50 on average for the two of us in groceries on average, despite living in an area where groceries are at least twice as expensive as other areas. So this would be super easy for us! No wait, it wouldn't, because there's a whole lot of eating out and alcohol and such that isn't wrapped up in our grocery budget.
Bliss, I think you've explained before that your alcohol and eating out budget is fairly small because you know a lot of people in the hospitality industry and get a lot of stuff comped, but that isn't an option that many people on food stamps have to supplement their $30 a week of groceries. If you couldn't have Giant buy you dinner, or go to a club where your friends are working, or get free wings at Hoots, you might have more trouble feeding yourself 21 meals on $30 a week.
I think it is laughable that you think that your life as a student enjoying her last semester of college is at all similar to the struggles of many of the people in Newark who were born into poverty, live in poverty, and will die in poverty. I supported your decision to quit your job and all of that, so I'm not judging you for doing that -- but you had lots of other options available to you (get a job, take out more student loans) that real poor people don't. Also, didn't you say that you had like 5 part time jobs during that time? (Big newspaper job, grocery store, and waiting tables come to mind, though I think you may have mentioned that at least one of the many internships you said you had was paid).
Of course it doesn't show accurately how hard it is to deal with being on food stamps -- no simulation could. But he has a huge audience that includes many people who will never be on food stamps so if he can spread some awareness of how hard it is to fake be on food stamps (let alone to real be on food stamps), is that such a bad thing?
I also don't understand why you're drawing a distinction between a single person and a family. Why does that make such a difference to you?
This all also seems a bit odd coming from you, because as of a few months ago you weren't struggling more than many college students are, and were thinking of applying for food stamps. Your experience on food stamps would have been a lot easier than many of Booker's constituents' experiences are...
Actually, I was struggling more than many college students which is why I was thinking of applying for food stamps. I was unemployed and had zero income (zero financial support). I also got flamed for thinking about applying to food stamps. I sold DVDs weekly for 2 months to keep food in my cupboards. And I would have gotten the same $30/week that Booker is getting.
What makes a difference to me, is that I currently spend $30-50/week on food. Anytime my budget has been posted here people have commented on how low my grocery bill is. Not because I can't afford more, but because it is really easy to fed 1 person on $30/week. Plenty of people do it without food stamps.
To me, it's nothing special because most the single people I know, spend about that on food for themselves. So while it may be an eye-opener for a lot of his supporters, it's not for me. It's just my opinion. I think his voice and appeal could be better used in another scenario.
Bliss, you are not a typical single person on food stamps, though. My mom is single, on food stamps and gets approximately $150/month in food stamps. Do you know how she differs from the situation you are in? She is old, is not dating, has few friends and no places to score a free meal. When you were in school, think about how many extra meetings or clubs you could go to and eat a free slice of pizza or a bagel or some other free food. How many meals or drinks do/did you get on dates or at bars and clubs, or at friends' places?
Food stamps are responsible for literally every meal and snack my mom eats. No, it is not easy to feed one person for $30 total. Especially if you want to try and eat healthfully.
Thank you all for telling me about my life. I appreciate it so much.
Um, everything I know about you is because you posted it here. What did I say that was not true? Are you implying that for the past however many years, you have consistently paid for all of your own food and drink, with your own cash money, and it's totaled between $30-$50 every week?
Everything posted here =/= what happens IRL. I don't post everything here. And my $30-50/week doesn't include alcohol. I also don't often get meals from Giant or friends for that matter. I don't even get free food from Hoots. I can't even recall my last free meal.
All I said, was that I think his voice could be better used elsewhere. I'm allowed to have an opinion and it doesn't need to involve everyone telling me about my life and how I've lived it.
And yes, I've consistently paid for my own food and drink for the last 8 years.
Everything posted here =/= what happens IRL. I don't post everything here. And my $30-50/week doesn't include alcohol. I also don't often get meals from Giant or friends for that matter. I don't even get free food from Hoots. I can't even recall my last free meal.
All I said, was that I think his voice could be better used elsewhere. I'm allowed to have an opinion and it doesn't need to involve everyone telling me about my life and how I've lived it.
And yes, I've consistently paid for my own food and drink for the last 8 years.
OK, you're right. Your situation is totally the same as the average person who is scraping buy on $30 week worth of food stamps. I'll tell my mom to stop crying poor, because it is totally easy to feed herself with that amount.
Could you post a sample grocery list and meals that I could send to her?
Everything posted here =/= what happens IRL. I don't post everything here. And my $30-50/week doesn't include alcohol. I also don't often get meals from Giant or friends for that matter. I don't even get free food from Hoots. I can't even recall my last free meal.
All I said, was that I think his voice could be better used elsewhere. I'm allowed to have an opinion and it doesn't need to involve everyone telling me about my life and how I've lived it.
And yes, I've consistently paid for my own food and drink for the last 8 years.
But at least you managed to make this thread all about you, so...you know, job well done.
Congressional Pay Cut, Food Stamp Challenge, Governor Robert Bentley, Mayor Cory Booker, MEAN Democracy, pay cut for congress Mayor Cory Booker’s Political Lesson For Congress Members: And Why The Food Stamp Challenge is Important In Media Coverage, Political Strategy, Uncategorized on December 4, 2012 at 8:42 pm Mayor Cory BookerCredit: AP
Newark Mayor Cory Booker Credit: AP
Rising political star and Newark Mayor Cory Booker is stealing some of the spotlight away from deadlocked “fiscal cliff” negotiations in Congress this week. After engaging in a debate last month with an anonymous conserva-troll on Twitter about free school lunches for poor students , Mayor Booker is about to let his actions speak louder than his words.
The Food Stamp Challenge
Mayor Booker announced this week the beginning of a Food Stamp Challenge. The challenge involves his agreement to live on the monetary equivalent of the SNAP/Food Stamp assistance available to his fellow New Jerseyans who meet the program’s poverty-level standards.
In his first foray to the grocery store since starting the Food Stamp Challenge, Mayor Booker spent $29.78 for his food allowance for the week. Initial reports state that he bought cheap but healthy food items, including “lots of beans.”
Although Mayor Booker’s goal is to spend just $30 for the week in food expenses, the average food allowance for the typical recipient of such assistance may be even less in New Jersey (about $4.00 per day).
The Food Research and Action Center describes the Food Stamp Challenge’s purpose on its website:
The SNAP Challenge gives participants a view of what life can be like for millions of low-income Americans. Most participants take the Challenge for one week, living on the average daily food stamp benefit (about $4 per person per day). Challenge participants find they have to make difficult food shopping choices, and often realize how difficult it is to avoid hunger, afford nutritious foods, and stay healthy.
More than 47 million Americans currently receive food stamp assistance, which many conservative news outlets pointed out is more than the populations of 24 states combined.
Hunger, unemployment, and shrinking family income are persistent problems, despite the technical end of the Great Recession. Because economic hard times are still on most Americans’ minds, we can expect Mayor Booker’s Food Stamp Challenge to receive more publicity than similar efforts by Congress members who lived on food stamps for a week in 2007 — before the financial meltdown and Great Recession brought economic worries of the middle and working class to the fore.
There are two reasons why Mayor Booker’s Food Stamp Challenge is especially relevant in the current political atmosphere: first, a purely political reason; but second and more important, a policy or prescriptive reason.
Economic Empathy is Good Politics
Savvy political observers know Mayor Cory Booker, and few dispute that he is a rising star. But a recent poll shows Mayor Booker likely losing in a head-to-head gubernatorial contest against Governor Chris Christie in 2013. The popular governor leads the mayor 53% to 34% in the Rutgers Poll.
It will be interesting to see whether these numbers change as media coverage of Mayor Booker’s Food Stamp Challenge increases his name recognition, national profile, and leadership bona fides.
In the past, gestures of economic solidarity or empathy produced mixed results for both Democrat and Republican candidates. Mitt Romney refused a salary as Massachusetts Governor and was ambivalent about whether he would accept a salary if elected to the presidency.
But Romney’s gesture as Governor of Massachusetts lacked resonance because he failed to imbibe the act with any meaning. The half-billionaire’s pledge to forgo a relatively modest government salary just seemed like an obvious move for someone who had already made a killing in the private equity field. To most voters, a six figure salary for Governor Romney or presidential candidate Romney must have seemed nominal. In any event, he failed to make the gesture a big issue in his presidential campaign.
To the contrary, when a candidate makes foregoing part of their salary an explicit gesture of solidarity or empathy with the ordinary voter, the story will have more juice in the media. Especially if there is some contingency involved such as the performance of the economy, the creation of jobs, or the balancing of budgets, candidates who pledge to forgo their salary get a bump in support.
MEAN Democracy recently published a piece on California Rep.-Elect Ami Bera and his promise to accept no salary as a Congress member until the unemployment rate falls below 5% in his district. The promise was made during the final debate of the campaign. Because the promise was widely broadcast but his spokesman’s later walk-back of the promise was not (the promise changed to a pledge to vote against an automatic pay raise if unemployment remained above 5% in his district), it is likely that the pledge he made at the televised debate helped Rep.-Elect Bera defeat incumbent Rep. Dan Lungren by a narrow margin last month.
A better example may be Robert J. Bentley, the Republican Governor of Alabama. Prior to Bentley’s election in 2010, the New York Times published a piece crediting Bentley’s pledge to take no salary until unemployment falls to 5.2% for carrying him from political unknown to Republican nominee in 2010.
Most voters remembered candidate Bentley for the pledge, although at least one of his supporters according to the Times piece considered the pledge a gimmick. Still, the Times noted that Bentley’s pledge to take no salary could be distinguished from similar pledges by mega-rich politicians such as the failed gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman or the failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Bentley, a retired dermatologist at the time of his 2010 gubernatorial win, withdrew money from his personal retirement and mortgaged his home to fund his campaign and pull off an upset win in the Alabama gubernatorial primary. Two years later and Bentley has yet to take a salary, per his promise not to, but the Governor is popular in his state with a 71% job satisfaction rating and a 63% favorability rating.
Governor Bentley’s political gesture demonstrates that where a politician offers to put some skin in the game and where their promise is invested with meaning (i.e., reducing the unemployment rate), forgoing a salary or other perks makes for a shrewd political maneuver.
While these sacrifices of salary or perks by politicians may seem like nothing more than a gimmick to get elected, the potential policy implications for a voluntary pay cut by Congress as a body could be revolutionary.
A Voluntary Pay Cut Could Restore Faith in Congress as an Institution and Could Revolutionize Economic Policy
MEAN Democracy applauds all efforts by political leaders to show solidarity and empathy with the middle class and the working poor. As such, we believe that the Food Stamp Challenge is a great way for politicians to learn how important food subsidies may be for children in single parent households or for adults still struggling to find work.
But we believe Congress as an institution should take an even deeper vow of poverty to purge itself of its reputation as the tool of corporations and special interests. We believe that Congress should forgo its salary, returning most of it to the treasury or the charity of their choice, and should instead accept only the the median income of their home districts.
Because this pay cut promise operates in a bipartisan fashion to incentivize economic progress for ordinary Americans, it could elevate economic policy above the partisan divide, which is the source of Congress’s current stalemate, dysfunction, and unpopularity. Congress members, if pressured to accept this pay cut by their constituents, would start working together to further the economic interests of the 99% in terms of fiscal, labor, and trade policies.
Aside from pushing Congress into a more coordinated economic policy, the voluntary pay cut could cause the media and voters to focus on an objective standard by which to measure political success–an increase in median income in given congressional districts. This would be good for our democracy, since it would make elections somewhat more transparent, lessening the influence of dark-money campaign ads that sow poisonous seeds of distraction into our national debate.
If Congress members would just take a cue from Mayor Booker and Governor Bentley, they could do more than just improve their personal political prospects. A voluntary pay cut of this kind, if adopted by a critical mass of Congress members, may even save our democracy and our economy from the corrupting influence of big money in politics.
Everything posted here =/= what happens IRL. I don't post everything here. And my $30-50/week doesn't include alcohol. I also don't often get meals from Giant or friends for that matter. I don't even get free food from Hoots. I can't even recall my last free meal.
All I said, was that I think his voice could be better used elsewhere. I'm allowed to have an opinion and it doesn't need to involve everyone telling me about my life and how I've lived it.
And yes, I've consistently paid for my own food and drink for the last 8 years.
OK, you're right. Your situation is totally the same as the average person who is scraping buy on $30 week worth of food stamps. I'll tell my mom to stop crying poor, because it is totally easy to feed herself with that amount.
Could you post a sample grocery list and meals that I could send to her?
ditto. my mom's a hotel housekeeper and also the parent of a high school boy who eats A LOT--they receive benefits but things are still tight. can you help, bliss?
I didn't say my situation was the same as anyone on food stamps. All I said, was that I think Mr. Booker's voice could be better used elsewhere. I admire him for doing it, it's not easily. I think he's a great political figure and respect him tremendously.
It's not like Mr. Booker's situation is the same as someone on food stamps either. So....
I'd be interested in this meal plan too. Please enlighten us.
Also, Bliss, you do know food doesn't cost the same in one area to another, and that food is actually more expensive in an area like Newark bc they don't have easy access to supermarkets- rather they pay more the price for a loaf of bread at the corner store than i would at a suburban supermarket.
Also one of the things Booker is doing is highlighting the problem of getting healthy, affordable food in inner cities like Newark. It's not just about living on $30- it's about eating healthy on $30 in an inner city.
I didn't say my situation was the same as anyone on food stamps. All I said, was that I think Mr. Booker's voice could be better used elsewhere. I admire him for doing it, it's not easily. I think he's a great political figure and respect him tremendously.
It's not like Mr. Booker's situation is the same as someone on food stamps either. So....
So you're saying that as mayor of Newark, he shouldn't be using his notoriety to draw attention to issues that greatly affect the lives of his constituents?
Actually, it's the people responding to me who make it about me. You all fucking claim to hate me and wish I'd DIAF yet people respond to me time and time again.
Or the seek me out once I stop posting.
So either accept who the fuck I am or use the block button. Otherwise, you're just as bad as me.
I didn't say my situation was the same as anyone on food stamps. All I said, was that I think Mr. Booker's voice could be better used elsewhere. I admire him for doing it, it's not easily. I think he's a great political figure and respect him tremendously.
It's not like Mr. Booker's situation is the same as someone on food stamps either. So....
So you're saying that as mayor of Newark, he shouldn't be using his notoriety to draw attention to issues that greatly affect the lives of his constituents?