If you can afford it, ok, but...not the "other"! Really?

A friend shared a Facebook 'hook' from "Right Wing News", that struck me as interesting. On the face of it, I see, feel, intuit, a righteous indictment on a slice of the population that needs, and who subscribe to, food stamps - and thus, welfare. The pronouncement goes like this:

"If you can afford beer, cigarettes, new tattoos, drugs and cable TV...then you don't need food stamps, or welfare."

On its face, sure! If one has the money to buy all these items and pay for cable TV...(btw, can You?... these days, really?)...then you do not need these benefits. You could direct some of those monetary resources to your own sustenance and support. Yep. I can see that.

On the other hand, is this one of those "old myths", an "old stereotyping conviction" from when the world was mostly..."uniform"? Hint, hint...color... A quick Internet search on the price of these items shows what it would cost for a month's 'supply':

• Beer goes for approximately, $5.50/6 pack ~ @2 beers/day ~ $1.83/day; times 30 days/mo. = $55/mo. for beer;
• Cigarettes: per month, in Georgia: $135/mo;
• Tattoo: $90 minimum, $160/hr. Say one per month...? - $160/mo;
• Cable TV: $49 - $80/month...conservative estimate: $80/mo; 
• Drugs - undefined...

The 4 items above would be around $430/mo. No drugs...wait, let's add that WSB-TV reports $10 for a heroin shot. Say one daily...that is $300/month. So, adding to the above amounts, we are talking $730/month approximately.

So, if you have that amount - $730 - sitting around your pockets not needing to be used for food, gas, electricity, A/C, for your home, etc., you definitely have NO need for food stamps and welfare. You need help..., of another kind, serious help. Yes.

But, are there any of "those people" that have that kind of cash, just for these uses? To be sincere with you, I don't "see" it...and If there are, how many?

$730/mo is around $8,760/yr. The average US household income is now $54, 045: in Georgia it is $49, 604...so, according to this statistic, there's sufficient to go around. There's no need for benefits. If you get that average, you can use those $730 and still have a lot leftover for the remaining living expenses. But averages, well...that's what they are...they don't tell the whole story. There is a huge part of the curve "below the average"...statistically, mathematically. Not just happenstance.

In Georgia there are 9.99 million people, and the poverty rate is 19%; extreme poverty is at 8.8%. With unemployment at 8.5%, at least. See spotlightonpoverty.org web site for more data. Food insecurity is at 16.9%, and the minimum wage is at $5.15. (40 hours per week at this rate is ...the grand sum of...$206...If the fast food chain gives you that schedule...30 hours, maybe...$154.50, w/o deductions. 

Take home pay, neat, no? If you have a job, that is.

So, easy multiplications: 1.88 million are poor (871,000 are really poor!), and 1,673,100 have food insecurity. So, what does this say of the numbers above? Does this support the thesis that there are people that "have all this cash" and throw it around before using it to sustain themselves...(and their families...maybe...?), healthily?

Additionally, checking on SNAP data, in FY 2013 there were 1.948 million Georgians participating in SNAP...!!!, and do you know how much those people were "leaching" from the Government on a monthly basis...? The grand sum of $292.69, per month. Oh, wait, that was on a household basis...sorry! On a per capita basis it was...tadaáá!...:$136.40.

But wait...we needed from the above...$730/mo, at least, so as to buy all those goodies. "Houston, we have a problem here!" These people must be somewhere else, not in Georgia. We are missing $600, at least!

Or maybe not anywhere, not in the U$, not here. Impossible, don't you think? Yes, living in derelict conditions of poverty, the pain has to be so that masking it with "something" - and maybe once in a while (or more?) - does not come across as unreasonable. It is conceivable. How many times to satiate hunger pangs have we eaten something of such "poor quality" that our heads spun guiltily for days afterwards? Just to stop the pang, just to satisfy the craving, the voices inside asking for "it's time"? Haven't we? So...?

Let's talk health. We are having a conversation on this subject of benefits of food sustenance support, as if we all were "in full health", which is not a reality. In Georgia, there are 1,318,733 Medicare Beneficiaries (2012). See this link : here
Of 10 million people, that is 13.2% of the population, spending per capita - costing? - in 2009,  $5,467. Somewhere in those numbers lies 12% of the population, Georgia's, people who are 65 years old and above. 

So, depending on what group is being 'described' or in what Boolean piece of society:benefits that "individual" falls, is it difficult to obviate their pangs of hunger, or pain from sickness, or the plain pain  of lacking resources to pay the heating bill, or...? 

Yet, many voices using the expensive Medicare benefits, as I suspect were the voices circulating that "hook" above, may be - and are - chastising "the others" across the benefit aisle. How can that be? "It's ok for me to use the bennies, I deserve them, but not you!", not "the others"?, seems to be the voice that comes through.

I've got a pang...

...beer, anyone?