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Showing posts from November, 2009

The Food Stamp Stigma

--> Is it me or does this article (" Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades "), while seemingly innocuous, seem rather anti-poor and anti-minority? Frequently, the statistics in the article related to blacks, Latinos, children and the poor, and then would quickly shift to statistics for whole sections of states, counties or sections of the country. But then to counter those claims, the article would offer an emotional tale of some family who used to be middle class and is now struggling and accepts the fact that food stamps are not for "lazy people" who don't want to work and who are up late at night shopping. Where's the true depiction of everyone receiving food stamp benefits? I wonder if Mr. Dawson considered that those people who are up so late shopping are doing so because they are ashamed to have to be shopping with food stamps--not because they don't want to work and are up to no good. Did he ever consider that they