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Comment by eganist | Hacker News Reader

> Sounds like BS. Food stamps are a thing,

How easy is it to qualify (and stay qualified with all the paperwork and occasional random denials) for EBT?

> and the alarming obesity rate among America’s poor tells me that hunger is not a problem now and haven’t been for decades.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/23/7855667...

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“Hungry” has a pretty specific meaning, and being stuffed with bag snacks, soda and other junk food is not “hungry”. You may notice that the Lancet report linked to in your article talks about malnutrition, not hunger.

The thing is healthy staples are fairly inexpensive and food stamp handouts can be spent on those instead of empty junk. But a lot of poor people can’t be bothered to prepare food. Don’t tell me how they all work 12 hours a day on multiple jobs and don’t have time — that’s just not true for most of them. Sure, there are structural problems, but you can’t blame every shitty outcome you observe on society. There’s a thing called free will, which some people conveniently don’t like to recognize when the result is poor.

> healthy staples are fairly inexpensive

False.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5708033/

https://www.google.com/search?q=healthy+food+more+expensive+...

Healthy food is more expensive than junk, but still fairly inexpensive in the U.S. Especially when you get free food stamps.

I have a lot of experience with food insecurity and have since I was a child. I lived with my older sister and my single mom in a trailer that didn't even have a working fridge so we didn't have the option to store healthy options for long period of times, and we lived in a rural area far from a grocery store because my mom split her time working as a farm hand and a waitress. Sometimes she would bring home leftovers from her job but it wasn't really enough for three people and it definitely wasn't what you would consider healthy.

Food stamps are much harder to qualify for than you would expect, at least in my state. "Fairly inexpensive" to you is not the same as "affordable" to other people. You also have to consider the sheer amount of time and management that goes into cooking and planning "healthy" meals. The majority of households in the US don't have the luxury of someone with the time to manage that because everyone is working, at least full time if not more and trying to live their lives on top of that. You also need to consider that there are people who live in food deserts who may only have access to stores with limited inventories, and don't have access to cars or even public transportation.

Oh absolutely, there are a lot of people like your single mom who work overtime and don’t have time for food planning. There are also a lot of people living off unemployment benefits and can’t be bothered to get off their couch, unfortunately. I know people from the latter kind of background, too.

Also, try to talk to people from places where a good day’s wage is less than U.S. federal minimum hourly wage and where food price is about the same or even higher than the U.S (yes, industrial farming does wonders).

> Oh absolutely, there are a lot of people like your single mom who work overtime and don’t have time for food planning. There are also a lot of people living off unemployment benefits and can’t be bothered to get off their couch, unfortunately. I know people from the latter kind of background, too.

Do you know people from the latter kind with multiple kids? Or even with one? Because i don't. So giving free meals to kid should not have any impact on them, yes?

Another Falsehood. Food stamps don't provide enough to live on in the U.S. if buying healthy foods.

https://sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170907125642.htm

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/nine-out-10-peopl...

https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/more-adequate-...

You're making a lot of generalizations that are objectively false, and yes you can blame this outcome on society. Society has just as much an obligation to ensuring the well-being of children as parents do. That's why schooling exists in the first place, and is why schools should be the ones to provide healthy food.

And food stamps barely cover anything for families these days. Considering I've had first hand experience with that and my family, I know it to be true.

Society has an obligation to ensuring the well-being of grown ups. Maybe start allocating and rationing food for everyone so that everyone is on a healthy diet.

Also, the average SNAP benefit per person per meal in 2019 was ~$1.40.[1] That’s not “barely anything” for a home-cooked meal. It should cover about half of a reasonably good meal.

[1] https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-...

I'm curious to know what what "reasonably good" meals you're making for less than $3. That would cover pretty close to nothing in Canada. If such meals exist I'd be happy to learn more about them, feeding a family of four costs me around $1k a month.

It’s $3 per person per meal. Which is $1080/30 days for a family of four. Your budget just validates it.

And where do you expect the rest of the money for said 'good meal' to come from, exactly? You do realize how far into poverty you have to be to even qualify for SNAP, right?

Considering when I was in highschool my parents were disabled and received food stamps averaging around $200 dollars for three people, there was no affording 'good' meals. Most of what I ate was because I qualified under the poverty line and could get free lunches from school. Food stamps had to be stretched far out, since the rest of the assistance they got had to go towards power, rent and other utilities.

I sincerely hope you never have to experience being poor and understand how awful your advice is first hand.

I don’t know when you were in high school, but if it’s very recent, $200 for 3 is way below the average quoted in my linked report. If it’s not very recent, then you didn’t have access to the program being cancelled in TFA in the first place.

This was in the mid-2000s. And your second point has zero relevance because my state (WA) had a separate program for reduced / free lunches for children in poverty. As a result of that, I believe free school lunches should be universal, per the program being cancelled.

Do you have any more assumptions you'd like to make?

The second point is relevant because smaller scale, more targeted programs existed before and can continue regardless of this sweeping program.

Except the smaller scale programs are less funded and have to make specific concessions to exist. Most of the lunches served at my school were unhealthy and everyone had to eat the same thing regardless of allergies or other problems. So you had poor kids being stigmatized because they would get a free lunch or trade their lunch with someone else because they were lactose intolerant. You could ask pretty much anyone that grew up in that time and they'd talk about eating things like cheap hamburgers or pizza squares.

That's why this sweeping program was important because food costs money, and giving schools more money for food means better and healthier selections for kids.

I'm getting the feeling you never dealt with this problem growing up.

Sincere question: Where would you rather have that money spent, if not to provide healthy food to school children?

Better infrastructure (so that people don’t have trouble getting to grocery stores)? Better education (e.g. pay teachers more so public schools can attract knowledgeable people instead mostly people who can’t find other jobs)? There are many nice things you can fund, but very few of us want to pay more from our own pockets, either directly in taxes or indirectly in inflation.

It's hard to argue with this stance. What you're saying seems reasonable, although it's clearly a solution that wouldn't pay off immediately.

But if the goal is to get better nutrition to children more assuredly, doesn't the direct solution make more sense? Just give the children better nutrition for free in the place they're forced to go to each day.

Maybe your mindset is geared towards solving more over-arching problems than that. And I completely agree with infrastructure and (especially) higher pay for teachers to increase the quality of education. I'm just musing out loud.

This train of thought is maddening. The average poor person has such a volatile life it's amazing that the problem isn't worse. We as a society allow their conditions then tut tut them when they fail - like they were set up to.

https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/most-wo...

In this case we're talking about a program that directly feeds children who are, I hope we agree, the victims of and in no way responsible for any negligence due to "poor people [who] can't be bothered to prepare food." In fact the more we assume that "poor people" are lazy or whatever you want to say, the more vital free school lunches become.

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