30 People Arrested For Food Stamp Fraud; Guess How Many Were Black?

Rexanglorum said:

myselfonline said:

Exactly, whites make up over 75% of the US population, and blacks are less than 15%. When you do the math on the percentage of whites using food stamps vs the percentage of blacks using food stamps, the numbers kind of show why there is a stereotype.

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It is true that black people receive SNAP benefits at a higher rate. In order to get SNAP benefits, one has to be pretty poor and have a low income and very few assets. Considering that US History is largely defined as the story of black labor and wealth being extorted away from black people, is it any surprise that black people are disproportionately poor and thus disproportionately eligible for Food Assistance?

We also need to think of SNAP Benefits (colloquially referred to as "food stamps") in the broader context of US Food Economic policy. When they came into being, food stamps were not a handout, they were a rebate. We decided that it was in our national interest to help farmers by keeping the price of their crops high. We used subsidies, protectionism against foreign trade and state organized and backed collusion in order to keep the prices of agricultural prices high.

This was very helpful for farmers, who were almost always white and who had middle and upper incomes. The byproduct of these high price polices was that grocery bills were made artificially high for everyone and this created a particular hardship for poor people. That is why we decided to give very poor people vouchers for food.

For the last 40 years or so, Congress routinely appropriated money for SNAP benefits at the same time that it reauthorized assistance for farmers. Thanks to the Tea Party, this process is being disrupted. Since the Tea Party is allegedly terrified of the National Debt and excessive government spending, one would think they would go after welfare for farmers since welfare for farmers makes up the majority of the Farm Bill and cost tax payers far more than food stamps do.

Naturally, they gutted the SNAP/food stamps Portion because "freedom" and "the DEBT!" The real kicker is that many members of Congress and/or their immediate family members actually receive those welfare benefits for farmers. Of course, when affluent, white farmers get goodies from the government, it is not welfare. People like Joni "bread bags" Ernst and her family received "business incentives" for decades on her family's Iowa farm.

As we know the only people who receive welfare benefits are poor, lazy, shiftless nig-- um, inner city people, who have a culture of non work and poor impulse control. The next time you see someone using public assistance to buy groceries and you feel an upwelling of rage and indignation, try to redirect it towards the good folks out in the town of Skokabok, No Where. The folks who get paid for being being rural and white, you know "The Real Americans," need $100,000 every year in a way that poor families apparently do not need a couple $100 per month.

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JChambers said:

Good. I am glad that is settled.

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Someone please edit this Wikipedia page about WASPs.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_white_Americans_in_the_United_States

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jdfrenchbread23 said:

JChambers said:

Good. I am glad that is settled.

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Someone please edit this Wikipedia page about WASPs.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_white_Americans_in_the_United_States

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This is actually pretty funny. Love the reach false equivalences.

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durantula said:

Some very good info here for those not too familiar with this.

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However one correction to the bolded part.

"Meanwhile, the funding for federal food assistance programs rose from 67% in the 2008 Farm Bill to 80% today."

Spending for the food stamps increased 13%, not "gutted"

source: http://www.snaptohealth.org/farm-bill-usda/u-s-farm-bill-faq/

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Rexanglorum said:

durantula said:

Some very good info here for those not too familiar with this.

View media item 1427764

However one correction to the bolded part.

"Meanwhile, the funding for federal food assistance programs rose from 67% in the 2008 Farm Bill to 80% today."

Spending for the food stamps increased 13%, not "gutted"

source: http://www.snaptohealth.org/farm-bill-usda/u-s-farm-bill-faq/

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Mah man. I do mean that seriously in this context. I am a progressive, much of NT has progressive politics so while I appreciate the reps and praise from the rest of the community, I realize that I am swimming with the tide. I respect any and all fact-based, push back on my posts.

I have three things to say about what you posted.


- The baseline that you showed is very important. The baseline is 2008. In 2008 the recession had just begun, in GDP terms, and the labor market was yet to collapse, as it did in 2009. By the nature of the SNAP program, a collapsing labor market will make millions of people newly eligible for SNAP benefits (as well as unemployment insurance and Medicaid since these programs are designed to spend more money when people are losing their jobs).

When I said that Congress gutted SNAP, I was talking about the last year or two. Since 2013, Congress has reduced SNAP spending despite the fact that the labor market has only marginally improved since it bottomed out in 2009. I will concede that the term "gutted" was a bit florid but it is a fact that we decided to cut food vouchers for poor people in the midst of what is still a de facto depression for the poorer half of America.


- The SNAP program is large because it has to literally feed millions of people and their dependents who are either children or the elderly. Meanwhile, the direct subsidies to farmers exist to serve a much smaller number of people. I will concede that the Farm Bill does allocate more money to poor, urban consumer but it is used to hold those millions up to a subsistence standard of living. At the same time the direct aid to farmers is used to hold tens of thousands up to a middle or upper-class standard of living.

Furthermore, the farm aid helps very few people. Only about four percent of the US population works in agriculture. Among that segment of the population, Farm Aid only helps the owners of medium and large farms. It shuts out the workers and the owners of small farms. In other words, poor, rural people, stay poor.


- Finally, I assume that you must have a serious interest in politics or public policy. I assume that you either have studied, are studying or have an interest in Economics. As we know in Economics, one must look beyond the dollars and cents when calculating costs.

Direct aid to farmers is just one part of of the whole constellation of benefits that we confer to elite farmers. We subside their crop insurance and periodically pass the cost overrun to the tax payers. We block imports from foreign countries and that passes on the costs to all US consumers (with the costs disproportionately passed onto poorer Americans).

Most importantly, the US Government coordinates and backs cartels among farmers. Cartels are not just for drug lords or oil sheiks. All number of staples crops are more expensive than they otherwise would be because the US government assists farmers in agreeing to sell their products for higher prices than what the market otherwise would bear.



In short, we treat well-off farmers very well and we dump on poor people who would otherwise starve due to the largess that we provide to farmers. If you believe that the free market should rule everything, that is fine; but, we should demand that farmers and the urban poor alike both do so. As it stands, our Tea Party Congress wants rugged individualism for the urban poor and they want cradle to grave socialism for themselves.

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JChambers said:

True. Hilariously false equivalences.





Nobody automatically thinks you're on welfare if you're black, just like nobody automatically thinks you're rich if you're white. Those stereotypes don't exist.

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Methodical Management said:

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If you have one stereotype that attempts to push people of color down, and another that attempts to push White people up, that's not an "equal and opposite reaction."  Both stereotypes serve to achieve the same effect: hierarchically elevating Whites. 


Would you put up a picture of a man with tears striking down his face, bemoaning how "everyone just assumes I'm rational and capable?"  

"Positive stereotypes" about men exist BECAUSE of negative, sexist beliefs about women.  Unless there exists some group that is negatively stereotyped as irrational/emotional and helpless/incapable, the stereotype would be invalid.  (e.g. "everyone assumes everyone is rational and capable.")  


So, to your point, the stereotype of White affluence isn't an example of "reverse racism"; it's something that both stems from and reinforces notions of White superiority.  


It's worth noting, too, that the stereotype of "White trash" (a decidedly negative stereotype) exists to sanctify "Whiteness" as a whole.  Bear in mind, I'm not attempting to deny the hurtfulness of "White trash" stereotypes, but, rather, situating them according to their social function.  ​They isolate every negative characteristic or outcome and brand them "less than White", or outside the White norm.  

"White trash" typically refers to Whites deemed poor, ignorant, unclean, and lazy: all traits commonly present within stereotypes of non-White groups.  The difference is that negative stereotypes of non-Whites are not sequestered into a separate category.  Rather, they are used to define (and defame) the whole.  


In a sense, that's what Chris Rock was trying to achieve with his "Black people vs." routine, or what Bill Cosby may have been attempting through his infamous "pound cake speech."  On one side, stood honest, decent, intelligent Black people.  On the other, they presented every negative stereotype.  (Rock literally labeling this group with the cardinal racial slur.)  

The Faustian bargain each attempted to strike was, in essence, "I'll grant you that this stereotype of yours is valid.... for a certain group of people.  But it isn't true about all of us.  And (perhaps most importantly), it isn't true about me."  



We have in place a system that justifies injustice.  To maintain the myth of America as an egalitarian meritocracy, the "winners" and "losers" in our current system must be portrayed as deserving.  If you're poor or wield less power, it must be because you lack the requisite virtues associated with success.  (Those who have it, have it.) 

A stereotype that labels White people as successful reinforces, rather than challenges, this hierarchy.  

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jdfrenchbread23 said:

Love how people can go into a thread like this, completely ignore the factual information presented and still have the audacity to say "blacks make up 14% of the population but a higher percentage of blacks are on welfare when compared to whites".

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Superb said:

stilldont matter.  whites ounumber blacks on welfare point blank..

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Since the Ronald Reagan era, Black people in general, but Black women, in particular, have been synonymous with public assistance. Many have even been labeled “welfare queens.” Despite the data showing how white people make up the majority of welfare recipients, the African American community still has to deal with the stereotype that most Black people not only need welfare but will steal it too.

But a recent bust in New York continues to prove that government officials should really be side-eyeing people of a paler skin tone.

On Friday, authorities in St. Lawrence County, New York arrested 13 white women for welfare fraud with four more arrests pending. According to police, the women stole $104,000 from people who actually needed it.



“Here in St. Lawrence County, our welfare benefits provide vital support to genuinely needy families at great cost to honest hard working taxpayers,” District Attorney Gary Pasqua said in a statement. “Those individuals who gain benefits through deception are stealing medicine, groceries, and other necessary provisions from innocent children, vulnerable seniors, working citizens, and others in need.”

Georgeanna L. Aldous, 47, Kandy L. Butler, 29, Brandi David, 41, Ashley Debiew, 25, Cara E. Dimon, 25, Jessica Driscoll, 29, Crystal L. Lalone, 39, Amber Morrill, 35, Kerry M. Pelo, 36, Star L. Perrin, 39, Lynn A. Ryan, 46, Sherri A. Scott, 51 and Nancy G. Sherman, 27, all stole individual amounts of welfare that ranged from $1,000 up to over $31,000. All the women failed to accurately report their income and have been charged with varying degrees of welfare fraud that ranged from the third andfourth degree. Their arrests, which were the largest sweep in the history of the county, were made possible following an investigation by the St. Lawrence County Social Services Fraud Unit, District Attorney Fraud Investigator and the St. Lawrence County District Attorneys Office.

“[I am] proud of the professionalism and participation of the Sheriff’s Department in carrying out this operation, which is critical to deterring abuse of the taxpayers and ensuring that these critical resources go to those in need,” St. Lawrence County Sheriff Kevin Wells said.

If convicted the women can face 4-7 year prison sentences, 5 years of probation, a fine and having to pay restitution in the amount of what they stole.

Though the case in St. Lawrence County is frustrating because there are so many people who are actually living below the poverty line that need those resources, it in no way proves that many “welfare reformers” are right about rampant welfare fraud as an excuse to slowly drain funding for programs. According to Lexington Law, 10.6 percent of federal welfare was found to be improperly or fraudulently paid in 2016. In most cases, fraud is found to be improperly filed due to an error made by a caseworker.

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