Annie Crist says she dreads telling her two daughters that cuts in food-stamp benefits taking effect today means less chicken and fewer hamburgers for dinner.
And with deeper cuts looming as part of a possible U.S. budget deal, Crist and other recipients may feel an even greater pinch — along with retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and Kroger Co.
“I don’t bother them or worry them with adult issues or adult problems,” Crist, a 30-year-old self-employed babysitter in Lancaster, Ohio, southeast of Columbus, said in a telephone interview. “But if they ask me, ‘Well, why can’t we get this? We always get this,’ how am I going to explain that?”
Food-stamp spending reached a record $78.4 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, due in part to a temporary boost in benefits passed as part of the 2009 economic stimulus that expires today. Lawmakers battling over U.S. farm and budget policy are looking to cut deeper by tightening eligibility rules that could drop as many as 3 million people from the program.
I’m just a little curious what a “self-employed babysitter” makes, and why a woman Crist’s age can’t seem to find a real job during the day when the kid’s are at school. She could even work a second shift job with a 13 year old at home to watch the 8 year old after they get home from school.
Actually, couldn’t the 13 year old be supplementing the family income doing some babysitting too?
Maybe I’m just too independent and opposed to the redistribution of wealth model, but it reads to me like substantive income would be an impediment to all that easy “chicken and hamburger” money.
Not judging mind you, just considering options that somehow seem to elude the cognitive skills of the increasingly welfare dependent.