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does this happen other places? Why would anyone do this?


bettyandbob
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Upthread someone made a comment about people using WIC sometimes having to shift things around or put things back, which elicits groans from the people in line.  I think that can happen whatever the reasons people are putting stuff back, not just because they are using WIC or whatever.  It is very frustrating to be in a long line and have people realize they haven't enough cash (or whatever) to pay.  I've been in situations where people are asking the cashier to take this item off, then another thing, then put the first thing back... it can take several minutes, while people behind wait and their frozen fruit starts to defrost. 

 

I feel for people in that situation, and I don't groan, glare, or make comments. But I can't deny it's annoying to have to wait while this dance goes on.  (Annoyed at the situation, not the person.)  The frustration mounts when I can see the person is carrying a smartphone, which means they have a calculator in their pocket. That might shift my annoyance to the person, a little.   My mom always carried a calculator when she went shopping, so she never had to worry about not having enough money at the cash register. I grew up with that being a normal practice.   I use one occasionally when I am paying cash, though usually I can get by with a rough idea and using a credit or debit card. 

 

(I did once go through the line at Aldi only to find that my debit card had expired.  Fortunately I didn't have any frozen stuff and had time to get home and paw through the pile of mail that contained the new debit card.  The cashier just voided the transaction and set the cart aside. )

 

 

Edited by marbel
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People can be awful.

 

I was an enlisted, single mom of 2 (E-1 through E-5, from 2007-2011). I chose to live in a cheap house off base so my bah could help with child care. I'm sure I qualified for WIC and SNAP but I didn't use either, I had little debt and a cheap car. I lived paycheck to paycheck but I was ok, my ex did/does not pay child support. I don't have a lot of sympathy sor the plight of the lower enlisted. I'm out now but dh is still in, our taxable income is less than half of our real income, he's E-6, we have 3 kids, and plenty. We probably could qualify for something but it wouldn't be the right thing to do.

 

However, I support a higher minimum wage and a higher wage for military. I don't support corporate welfare and extremely wasteful military programs.

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I'm not in what anyone considers a HCOL city/state and our first dirt cheap up three rickety flights of outdoor stairs studio apt was $409 a month not including utilities.

 

You can't find a one bedroom anything for that now.

 

I was in a relatively HCOL state, but that area I was in wasn't really super high.  Not southern California high.  KWIM?

 

So the example I suspect would be way off base in a lot of places.

 

 

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Upthread someone made a comment about people using WIC sometimes having to shift things around or put things back, which elicits groans from the people in line.  I think that can happen whatever the reasons people are putting stuff back, not just because they are using WIC or whatever.  It is very frustrating to be in a long line and have people realize they haven't enough cash (or whatever) to pay.  I've been in situations where people are asking the cashier to take this item off, then another thing, then put the first thing back... it can take several minutes, while people behind wait and their frozen fruit starts to defrost. 

 

I feel for people in that situation, and I don't groan, glare, or make comments. But I can't deny it's annoying to have to wait while this dance goes on.  (Annoyed at the situation, not the person.)  The frustration mounts when I can see the person is carrying a smartphone, which means they have a calculator in their pocket. That might shift my annoyance to the person, a little.   My mom always carried a calculator when she went shopping, so she never had to worry about not having enough money at the cash register. I grew up with that being a normal practice.   I use one occasionally when I am paying cash, though usually I can get by with a rough idea and using a credit or debit card. 

 

(I did once go through the line at Aldi only to find that my debit card had expired.  Fortunately I didn't have any frozen stuff and had time to get home and paw through the pile of mail that contained the new debit card.  The cashier just voided the transaction and set the cart aside. )

 

No...WIC is particularly annoying to use period.  I have never encountered anything more annoying.  I'm not blaming WIC users nor the store.  It's just the way WIC works in general.  I don't know how they could change that to make it better, but as it is now, it is annoying.

 

I never groan either.  I mean really the details of how people are paying for their food is nobody else's business and nobody has the right to comment on it at the store.  That's just ridiculous.  But for me, I never go to the store when I'm in a hurry.  I suppose that's a luxury in a way.  So I never feel panicked about having to get out of there.  I think that is what it comes down to with some people.  

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Just about e only thing that ticks me off at the grocery store is the place has 10-20 registers but only 2-4 of the registers are open. Even at the busiest time of day or week.

 

If I see there are 20 resisters but only 4-6 are open and all of them have 6-8 people with over flowing carts - I just leave my cart and go elsewhere. Or home. Hire the staff to do the job or lose my business. I'm not spending more time in line than I did to shop bc the stupid store doesn't want to hire a few more cashiers.

 

I don't get mad or pitch a fit or anything. I just leave my cart at the checkout line and leave. If someone asks me anything, I just calmly and cheerfully say they should have staffed appropriately.

 

But. I really really hate shopping and the shopping I hate the most is the kind that involved paying for bad service.

 

I love Sprouts. I don't care how far out that check out line is, every single register is in use and they are quickly and cheerfully processing carts.

Edited by Murphy101
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When I worked in a grocery store years ago, most WIC users would come in late at night when the store was dead. Probably to avoid annoying people. But gee that's stupid that something that is supposed to help is kind of a major pain to use.

When we were our poorest, just about the only time we could go shopping was between 10pm and 7am. We had one car, so it had to be around jobs. And we'd have to wait until the paycheck cleared the bank at midnight, so dh would to it on the way home after a midnight shift or firs thing before starting his next shift.

 

Oddly enough, when I worked at both gas stations and places like wal mart, the graveyard shifts always had an influx between midnight and 2am (when bank accounts rolled over and some night shifts ended) and again from 4:30am to 6am (when people were trying to hit the store before going to school/work).

 

So it might have been to avoid people, but more likely, that's just when they can finally get it done.

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I have family members in rural North Georgia who can, and do, rent 2-3 bedroom apartments for $500-$600 a month. My sister pays $650 a month for a 3 bedroom house.

 

I can't imagine it here in my area either, but in rural places, it is possible.

I have relatives living in cheap places. Cheap places where getting a FT job is rare so they either commute for hours a day or live in poverty wages or a fixed income of some sort (SS, disability). Housing prices climb in areas where there are well paying FT jobs, a phenomena that can be seen over and over again in rural boom towns. So the McDonalds worker in the anecdote might be getting minimum wage but only 20 hours a week. Increasingly even PT jobs require open availability, making it harder than ever before to string together two or more PT jobs into FT wages. Edited by LucyStoner
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Yes, a service member's housing allowance is based on their rank and where they are stationed and if they have dependents or not. You get a lot more if you're stationed in, say, D.C. vs catalytic's example of Kentucky.

 

ETA, sorry, I missed what you were trying to say. But renting a room. In a shared house? My brother did it for a long time in one of the highest COL areas in the country and he never paid more than $400/month (I don't think). Meanwhile a studio apartment would go for $1k or more. It is crazy!

Renting a room can be close to $1000 here depending on location and the bathroom and kitchen access situation. $750 is more common. $400 is 1999 pricing here.

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I have been the child standing in line with my parent who was directly confronted or just spoken about well within their hearing about using food stamps. The time that sticks out was when we were living in a motel (paid for by a family homeless shelter/voucher program) and my father had tried and failed to make a birthday cake in the kitchenette so he took us to the store to pick one out. This was a big deal, store cake! They even wrote Happy Birthday on it for us! It was 1985 and that little cake couldn't have cost more than $4 or something but someone felt the need to express their dismay that food stamps could be used to buy such luxuries as bakery cakes.

 

That someone was an asshole and so is everyone else who had ever contemplated the contents of someone's basket based on their method a payment. And yeah, there are clearly a lot of assholes out there.

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  Or did I turn into the type of person that believes there are starter wages meant for unskilled workers and then there are better wages for those who work for them/have skills?  Even in fast food, there is room to move up from minimum wage.

 

Do I feel for people trying to support a family on minimum wage?  Absolutely.  I think we, as a country, DO need to help them.  (I'm not sure I consider Obamacare a step in the right direction, however, ime it seems to have screwed over as many as it helped.)  I have no grief with people using food stamps or WIC if they are trying to better their situation.  (And if someone is working, then I consider them trying to better their situation.)  I certainly don't judge people in the checkout line how they pay for what's in their carts.

 

The reality is that minimum wage is not a "starter" wage for a lot of people.

 

My girlfriend has a resume that includes store management at a pizza delivery place, and low-level retail management. Yet when she has had to start at a new company because she was laid off or fired (for BS reasons every. single. time, and not frequently) she has still had to start at the bottom with minimum wage again. Most recently, at Taco Bell. There are no raises over time for employees, and supervisory positions pay only a little better than minimum wage. Not everyone is able to move up. People she works with often simply do not have the aptitude, ambition, physical ability, or emotional stability to be promoted in the food service career chain. That is true in any other industry with minimum wage workers at the bottom doing a lot of hard work, often with no benefits to go along with their crappy pay, often trying to cobble together multiple such jobs to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads. There are plenty of adults willing to work hard who aren't management material and don't have the educational opportunities (or shy away from them because of past experiences). These people still work hard and the reality is that minimum wage is not a "starter wage" for them, it's the only wage they're ever going to get.

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When I worked in a grocery store years ago, most WIC users would come in late at night when the store was dead.  Probably to avoid annoying people.  But gee that's stupid that something that is supposed to help is kind of a major pain to use.

 

I grocery shop late at night (Even now that we are off WIC) because I can go kid-free. (Kids are in bed and when DH is home to watch)

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The whole point of the minimum wage was to be a LIVING wage. You can ask FDR, it was his plan.

 

It'll be a heck of a lot cheaper to cut corporate welfare and raise the minimum wage than to keep allowing Walmart and McDonald's to get rich off of the fact that their employees make ends meet (or don't) using SNAP and taking out payroll loans.

And the subsidies to companies paying ridiculously low wages aren't just SNAP- Medicaid, public or subsidized housing, childcare subsidies, utility assistance all cost everyone money. Some walmart locations famously gave out Medicaid/SCHIP applications for their new hires. Others ask employees to donate holiday food to...other employees. We've socialized the cost of having a business with low wage employees but privatized the profits. Pretty sweet deal for the low wage employers and pretty crappy deal for everyone else.

 

FFS.

Edited by LucyStoner
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In our state, this was true at O-1 as well. I found out because the social worker at the hospital tried very hard to get me to enroll, even though I told her we didn't need assistance. Which is why I think eligibility is not the same thing as someone needing assistance, so the numbers and stats may be a bit skewed.

 

You hit the nail on the head with this. Eligibility is not the same as needing the assistance, at least when it comes to WIC. IIRC, the cutoff for WIC is something like 4X the poverty line income. WIth DS, I jumped through the hoops for it mostly so I could get a pump for work (we got enough in SNAP that we didn't need it otherwise). Someone with much more income than I had but still within the guidelines who had a baby that had to be on an expensive formula like nutrimigen might need it more for their infant. 

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When we were our poorest, just about the only time we could go shopping was between 10pm and 7am. We had one car, so it had to be around jobs. And we'd have to wait until the paycheck cleared the bank at midnight, so dh would to it on the way home after a midnight shift or firs thing before starting his next shift.

 

Oddly enough, when I worked at both gas stations and places like wal mart, the graveyard shifts always had an influx between midnight and 2am (when bank accounts rolled over and some night shifts ended) and again from 4:30am to 6am (when people were trying to hit the store before going to school/work).

 

So it might have been to avoid people, but more likely, that's just when they can finally get it done.

 

All this. Also, in Arizona, I would see families who lived in walking distance of the store who didn't have a car come in in the wee hours because it wasn't quite as hot and was the only time of day they could get their groceries home on foot without risking it all going bad on the way, or to avoid dragging small children on a long walk through the hot sun.

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You hit the nail on the head with this. Eligibility is not the same as needing the assistance, at least when it comes to WIC. IIRC, the cutoff for WIC is something like 4X the poverty line income. WIth DS, I jumped through the hoops for it mostly so I could get a pump for work (we got enough in SNAP that we didn't need it otherwise). Someone with much more income than I had but still within the guidelines who had a baby that had to be on an expensive formula like nutrimigen might need it more for their infant.

Just by way of information, WIC limits are 185% of the FPL. http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/wic-income-eligibility-guidelines

 

Many families who qualify for WIC make too much to qualify for more than a nominal amount of, if any, SNAP so those making towards the higher end of the range may well need the benefits more than a family with a larger SNAP benefit. Especially in a HCOL area.

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I have been the child standing in line with my parent who was directly confronted or just spoken about well within their hearing about using food stamps. The time that sticks out was when we were living in a motel (paid for by a family homeless shelter/voucher program) and my father had tried and failed to make a birthday cake in the kitchenette so he took us to the store to pick one out. This was a big deal, store cake! They even wrote Happy Birthday on it for us! It was 1985 and that little cake couldn't have cost more than $4 or something but someone felt the need to express their dismay that food stamps could be used to buy such luxuries as bakery cakes.

 

That someone was an asshole and so is everyone else who had ever contemplated the contents of someone's basket based on their method a payment. And yeah, there are clearly a lot of assholes out there.

 

That's what got me about the video, the kids standing on both ends of it.  :crying:

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That's what got me about the video, the kids standing on both ends of it. :crying:

Yup. Newsflash for judgey assholes: poor kids, barring deafness, can frigging hear you. I bet that person has rarely, if ever, thought about their words in the intervening 31 years. They are wholly unaware that their nastiness is etched into my memory and that I can still hear their cold and cruel tone to this day.

 

Think before you speak. Always.

Edited by LucyStoner
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Someone elsewhere tracked down the young couple. Turns out I was right - it wasn't even food stamps. It was WIC.

 

Here is a long to the mom's original FB post.

 

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10153752750693702&id=695678701

 

And she started a gofundme, mostly bc other people were making ones fraudulently for them and she figured at least people could give to the right source.

 

https://www.gofundme.com/wicfamilyvideo

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Yup. Newsflash for judgey assholes: poor kids, barring deafness, can frigging hear you. I bet that person has rarely, if ever, thought about their words in the intervening 31 years. They are wholly unaware that their nastiness is etched into my memory and that I can still hear their cold and cruel tone to this day.

 

Think before you speak. Always.

 

*hugs*

 

You didn't deserve that. Nobody does.

 

 â€œI've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.â€

 

 

Maya Angelou. She never wrote a truer word.

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