"Her friend looked momentarily horrified at the exposure, but conceded that, yes, her family was on food stamps. She had recently completed acupuncture school and her husband had just finished a graduate program in art history."

The Creative Class, bringing that economic mojo!

I have no issue with using food stamps at a public market. People can make their choices in terms of amount vs. quality, especially if the market is matching. What I do have a problem with is the last line where she uses her savings for flowers!!! She gives truly deserving food stamp holders a bad name and this article just makes me angry.

Now why would any couple with one having a degree in acupuncture and the other in art history, ever have a need for food stamps?

That's not the creative class, as the destestible phrase is defined. That's bohos.

And these are the people "Mayor" Creepy wants more of in Portland. We are doomed...clueless creative class hipsters.

This is a great example of America in decline.

But hey, NoPo Guy, they ride bikes!

Now why would any couple with one having a degree in acupuncture and the other in art history, ever have a need for food stamps?

Acupuncture could actually land you a decent job in PDX, but art history? Im guessing he will getting work experience in the "barista arts" soon.

The food stamp program allows people to buy chips, soda pop and candy with their cards. This is food?

That's not the creative class, as the destestible phrase is defined.

Actually, it is. The "creative class" as specifically defined by Florida, includes almost half of all employable adults in the country. It's meaningless.

The food stamp program allows people to buy chips, soda pop and candy with their cards.

New York's trying to end that cognitive dissonance. IN Portland, the problem (as elsewhere) is that even though farmer's markets accept food stamps, few recipients are using them there. It's apparently not a matter of cost or "freshness", it's a matter of habit and convenience. That's an uncomfortable fact that locals don't want to face.

And, one wouldn't need to drive to the Sandy River for wild blackberries - try around Rose City golf course, or any water way, or unmaintained street in Portland, and you could find plenty this summer.

Our senators and congressmen (the folks who set rules for the food stamp program), decided that they didn't want poor people to feel stigmatized by disallowing certain types of food. Pretty much any food item except for prepared foods, alcohol and cigarettes are OK. Unbaked pizzas are OK, halloween candy is OK, and... you get the idea. It would be horrible indeed for any person who accepts food stamps to feel bad about the experience!

Does anyone know if folks who get tokens at the farmers' markets are able to buy non-food items with the tokens? Are the flower merchants able to accept the tokens and redeem them for cash even if they are only meant for food?

I suspect the rules regarding sodas and candy have much more to do with the clout of the sugar and beverage lobbies than with any concern about stigmatizing food stamp recipients.

Having been on the receiving end of the federal food program in the 60's as a grade schooler; maybe if these people were stigmatized a little more, they would have the incentive to find work more quickly. Nothing motivates quite like powdered milk, bulgar, shortening and other goods in packaging that states that it comes from USDA programs at that time. Not only that but having to learn to cook with unfamiliar items reinforces the fact that you need to explore other options. Being able to buy from the farmer's market really does not reinforce the desperation like this program did.

The best part is watching people buy cases of water with their "Oregon Trail Card", then dump them out in the parking lot to get the bottle deposits back as cash and buy booze with it.

The fact that she's living in a single-family house in inner NE might have something to do with the fact that she can't pay her bills. Maybe a move out to Rockwood would keep her off SNAP?

Poverty FAIL.

Makes me misty-eyed, so much have I missed the reaganesque railing against welfare queens in their Cadillacs. Heartfelt thanks to Jack and the commenters for this wistful trip down memory lane.

I am angry , angry I say , that you can buy death-in-a-can pop with food stamps , and not home grown , good-for-the-heart micros , + those are Oregon Jobs over at our Breweries Widmer/Bridgeport/Deschutes....
cheers

It's a wonder how federal/state programs like SNAP, OTC and unemployment decides the everyday life of many.

A friend who received two years of unemployment, even "retaining education" (which he did use to take classes he always wanted to after his long ago undergraduate degree)suddenly realized that another continuation of unemployment for his situation would end. His sabbatical, as he called it was coming to an end unless Congress stepped in again.

Guess what, in two weeks he found a well paying job and he hadn't even applied for it yet-they called him based on his information at the Oregon Unemployment Office.

Our welfare state is working well. And pardon me if my friend deciphers who I'm writing about.

I recently had to accept food stamps for two months, as I was not allowed to purchase an Austin taxi permit for three months due to training class schedules...I had to wait and wait, and wait some more to be trained to drive a cab in my home town, where I had driven a cab before, due to new layers of bureaucracy.

My savings was gone, many things dear to me had been sold off, and the odd manual labor jobs I could scrounge paid for rent, but that was it. No one will hire you for work in a recession if they know you are just going to leave in a few months for something better.

I hadn't taken them since the early 90s. I hate talking welfare, it's utterly humiliating for a person with a strong work ethic, who simply is not allowed to work. Well, maybe some people actually like sticking their hands out for freebies. I don't.

So...reluctantly...I got in line for a little free food until I was allowed to work again. When I began work, I promptly informed Big Brother to cut them off.

But what I found was remarkable. They gave me $210 per month on an electronic card. That is about seven dollars per day. What one person requires seven dollars per day worth of food ? Some retarded fatso who cannot cook ?

My room-mate was stone broke at the time, from attempting to pay off her mortgage. I fed both of us quite well...with money to spare...on $7 per day. I still have lots of canned tuna left over. Hell, instant oatmeal is twenty cents per packet. A few pounds of cheap cuts of meat can be barbequed, chopped up on tortillas and feed an army. And you don't need to eat that much meat at all to stay healthy...rice and pasta cost hardly anything at all.

What an incredible waste of money. They could be giving people $100 per month each, and they wouldn't even be close to hunger.

I'm about as bleeding heart as they come for truly poor folks, having lived on quite little for a while; however, I've always thought that the only foods you should be able to buy with food stamps are those available through the WIC nutritional supplementation program (Women, Infants, and Children) -- that's pretty much all solid foods, fruits and vegetables.

Give every person who registers for food stamps an electric pressure cooker/hot pot and a recipe book for the WIC menu items and we'd be miles ahead.

Yeah, pressure cooker, great for killing all the nutrition in fresh foods.

The real pressure cooker are those who insult the people who are actually needy. Savings to buy flowers? So what! $2 for a small bunch of delight isn't going to make a difference in the budget.

I notice that the majority posting here are of the insulting class. Spend your time complaining about the bailouts which crippled financing for businesses! Welfare for the rich? Acceptable. Welfare for the needy? Stick it to 'em!

Bah!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/unemployment-pay-wall-street-climbs-144-billion/

. . While the US unemployment rate remains stuck at 9.6 percent, pay on Wall Street is likely to rise another 4 percent.

To what? $144 billion, according to an estimate by the (paid restricted) Wall Street Journal published Tuesday.

The Journal's estimate is based on only some of the houses on Wall Street -- those that are large and publicly traded, and include banks, investment banks, hedge funds, money management firms and securities exchanges.

"Compensation was expected to rise at 26 of the 35 firms," the paper's reporters wrote, with the total payouts leaping to $144 billion, "a 4% increase from the $139 billion paid out in 2009."

The left's bête noire, Goldman Sachs, is expected to see a sizable revenue decline ($39.1 billion from $45.2 billion) but is still projected to increase staff payouts by 3.7 percent, the Journal says. Goldman's new compensation total? $16.8 billion. .

Is this why so many more are on food stamps in our country? Hopefully not more and more, but class warfare is most likely coming into play here. Let us not fight amongst ourselves.