Economy Should junk food be allowed on EBT?

[Long Dark Blues]

You also made a good point - depending on where you live, getting access to these healthier items may be more difficult and I could see that also causing other issues, like transportation costs, etc.

It is definitely an issue as you get out further from urban centers, but I'm not entirely sold on the definition of what constitutes a food desert in modern times; for instance, in urban settings it is supposedly that a "substantial share of low-income residents live more than 1 mile from a supermarket or grocery store."

For my closest major city, the county I live in, and the county I frequent upstate, the numbers are:

Philadelphia, PA (100% urban) is 143ish square miles with 962 grocery stores, that is like 6ish per square mile on average.

Bucks County, PA (a mix of suburban and rural areas) is 622 square miles with 115 grocery stores, last time I looked, which averaged out to 1 grocery store per 18ish square miles.

Sullivan County, PA (100% rural) is 452 square miles with only 2 grocery stores

These are figures for full-blown grocery stores, not counting Dollar General type stores and whatnot.

 

[IDGETKTFO]

Heck yeah, it should
I trade drugs for EBT cards all the time, I aint trying to be stuck with a cart full of broccoli and apples, dog!

Fixed your typo.

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

yeah, why shouldn't it? "poor people don't deserve to eat food that tastes really good" is the kind of shit a child would think

 

[USA!USA!]

I appreciate your acknowledgement of my reasoning. But I don't think it's complicated so much as the result of deliberate demonization of poor people due to some people's need to have an "other" to pick on and distract from their personal selfishness, and/or an excuse for racism--not saying that applies to you BTW, please see below.

I'm not American, so I can't claim to know much about it either aside from what is posted in the WR. But I pretty much only ever see whining about poor people and not solutions to make things better for them. Food deserts are real, and the poorer nutrition people suffer as a result impair their ability to ascend the economic ladder and escape their circumstances. Schools in poorer areas being underfunded because they're primarily funded by property taxes are real, and disadvantage the kids who live there, and again, as a result their ability to go on to higher education and ascend the economic ladder is impaired.

Miserable shitbags like TS give zero fucks about any of that.

I don't disagree and didn't mean my initial post to come off like that if I did.

People are people. I've met people who are poorer than me who were smarter than I am. I've met people who are much richer than me who are some of the stupidest humans I've ever seen.

I don't judge anyone. Everyone in life has their own battles. Mental illness is real. Trauma is real. Circumstance and luck ARE REAL. People react to things differently. People are RAISED and EDUCATED differently.

There are so many factors to all of this. Circumstances are different for everyone.