Food, Home and Style

Middle Class Guilt Attack? Yuppies and Food Stamps, Part 2

Our recent post on yuppies and food stamps generated a lot of lively discussion, both on and off-line. My own first reaction to my colleague Sara’s question of whether yuppies should take food stamps was a resounding “no” coupled with a feeling of indignation. But when I started asking around, I found that lots of smart people had a wide range of views on the subject. A British friend surprised me by saying: “Oh, that’s just your middle class guilt. You should examine it.” Living through a crisis has the fortunate byproduct of getting all of us to ask ourselves questions and consider why we think the way we do. So examine it I will.

As the child of two North Carolina college professors, I’m definitely a product of the middle class. My liberal parents did not teach me to see folks struggling financially as “those people.” Quite the opposite – disdain in our house was reserved for rich people who didn’t use their money to benefit others and objected to paying taxes. The late W.W. Finlator, the activist-pastor of my liberal (Baptist!) church, preached frequently about our collective responsibility to the poor, a lesson drawn from the teachings of Jesus.

So it’s no surprise that the idea of yuppies receiving food stamps sounded like fingernails on the chalkboard to me. When I started my examination, I had to think of what the word “yuppie” meant to me. Beyond prejudices involving things like entitlement and Pottery Barn outings, I found that I was basically imagining a well-off young person, like so many I know in New York. By “well-off,” I don’t mean “formerly well-off,” but currently well-off. If you lost your job to the downturn and are facing foreclosure and decimated savings, then I agree with what many have pointed out – it doesn’t matter how much you once made. You are entitled to get your basic needs met and should apply for food stamps without shame or guilt. But what if you lost your job, but you have a healthy savings account, a retirement fund, a nice car, and a vacation property? In some states, people with a large amount of equity who are also unemployed are in a situation called “Categorical Eligibility.”

Categorical Eligibility has caused a ruckus in Ohio. Following federal guidance aimed at getting newly laid-off workers benefits faster, the state made a decision in October to give food stamps to anyone receiving unemployment benefits and whose income qualified them. Gone were the interview and review processes that examined assets beyond the applicant’s actual income. The state was trying to do a good thing by removing hurdles, but the reviews excluded out-of-work people with substantial assets. Previously, you couldn’t get food stamps if your financial assets beyond your home totaled more than $2,000. Now, all you needed was to have temporarily lost your job.

I imagine that most well-off people wouldn’t engage in exploitation by applying for food stamps. But a few would, and have. That’s why commissioners in Warren County, Ohio, have pushed to exclude applicants who have more than $400,000 in assets (including equity in a home, cars, savings, retirement funds, etc). That’s very generous compared to old restrictions, which unreasonably asked people to have their assets winnowed down to a measly $2,000 in order to get help.

But why have a limit at all? Some point out that paying taxes is a kind of investment. After all, that’s how Social Security works. If you’ve earned a lot, the thinking goes, then you’ve paid a lot in income taxes, and ought to be entitled to benefits commensurate with what you’ve put in. But what if, through no fault of your own, you aren’t able to pay income taxes? I have a friend who suffers from the most debilitating form of diabetes and has never been able to have a job. Each month, she receives a disability check for $600 and a food stamps allowance – $16 worth. She’s done the Florida calculator over and over, but that’s all she gets. Period. Because she does not receive enough to live on, she has to rely on the support of family members to put food on the table. The yuppie with the fancy car who applies for food stamps isn’t literally taking money from her, but that yuppie is depleting money from a fund that offers a shockingly low minimum benefits to people in my friend’s situation (the minimum benefit for households with one or two persons has just gone from $14 per month to $16 per month).

Why is this? If certain conservatives had their way, there would be a lot more people like my friend. Conservatives have consistently fought for cuts in the Farm Bill, which funds food stamp programs. Last April, President Bush attempted to veto a Farm Bill with increased funding. Congress overrode his veto, and the bill passed into law. The law passed, but there is a culture in America that most certainly does view poor people as “those people.” The good folks at the Heritage Foundation have warned that providing food stamps to poor people will only serve to make them fatter, because all they do is gobble up high-calorie treats. In reality, the average food-stamp recipient is a single working mother with two children and an average weekly benefit of $37. What that mother is trying to do with her food stamps in many cases is keep her children from starving.

So, am I just letting my tender feelings get the best of me? Maybe. Frankly I’ve never minded being called a “bleeding-heart liberal,” because it has always struck me as perverse to consider compassion a source of shame. In any case, we don’t have to rely solely on our feelings to make moral decisions. Moral questions are matters of the head, as well as the heart. Thinking of Categorical Eligibility makes me think of the Categorical Imperative, Emmanuel Kant’s elegant formula for deciding whether an action is moral or immoral. All you have to do is ask the question: What would happen if everybody did it?

If everybody who is well-off (i.e. possessed substantial assets) in America but who doesn’t currently have a job or a salary rushed out to get food stamps, then the system would be overwhelmed. From a broader perspective, if everyone looked for loopholes to line their pockets, our social and economic systems would break down. Social systems, and even capitalism, require trust and good faith in order to operate effectively.

If having middle-class guilt means that I feel a sense of responsibility toward my society that would prevent me from applying for food stamps if I didn’t need them, then I guess I’m guilty as charged. That said, I’ve been reminded in the exchange over our recent post that we need to extend our support to those who are truly in need, no matter what their income level was before disaster struck. Food stamp programs (SNAP as they’re now called), began in the 30s and fed 20 million people during the Great Depression. It is vital for those with real emergencies to apply for such programs and do so without any guilt or feelings of shame. CNN Money reports that one in ten Americans is currently receiving food stamps. “Those people” are our people. They are us.

Tags: entitlement, food stamps, guilt, middle class, yuppies