"I was more grateful to qualify for a social program [SNAP] that could bridge the gap until I was self-sufficient than I was worried about stigma or people thinking I had gamed the system somehow.
Sometimes I wonder if these people realize the 49 million of us living with food insecurity in this country can hear them debating how we should ration our rations. What do you — any of you! — care if I use $9 of my allotted $140 per month to occasionally buy food I like? It might be my only entertainment that week, and it might be worth eight Ramen lunches in a row to reward myself.
If we can get you, the 86% who know where your meals are coming from next week, to see us as people, it becomes less necessary to continually explain that every dollar invested in food assistance creates $1.84 in economic stimulus, or that only about 1% of welfare and food stamp recipients are gaming the system. Even if Medicaid fraud were perpetrated by beneficiaries rather than providers, the net good of helping people maintain a base level of health far outweighs a few percentage points in the federal budget."
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