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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25596 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 16, 2026

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Only about 13% of Californians receive EBT. You're probably seeing a lot of them because Grocery Outlet is, uh, a downscale retailer.

Another factor is that benefits are only sent out on certain days of the month. (Looks like in California it's the 1st through the 10th depending on your account number.) So you're more likely to see people using EBT on those days, or the weekends after those days, especially if people are doing the responsible thing and planning out a single big shopping trip to get all the stuff they need for the month.

"Only"

Wow I just learned how many Americans are on food stamps. Food is not that expensive...? How is this happening.

The income limits are fairly low - for a family of 3, the income limit is $53k per year. The benefits are a sliding scale but are capped at about $800 a month for a family of three.

$800/mo seems like a lot to spend on groceries for three people.

It's less than $10/day per person

If you're eating most of your meals at home, that's about $3 per person per meal. You can eat reasonably well on that, but it doesn't seem exorbitant. I spend about twice that for a family of 3 (because groceries are approximately free compared to rent and taxes, so why not optimize for quality rather than price).

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, for consumer units of three people:

Income (k$/a)Average expenditure on food at home ($/mo)
Any623
∈ [0, 15)416
∈ [15, 30)480
∈ [30, 40)507
∈ [40, 50)452
∈ [50, 70)576
∈ [70, 100)537
∈ [100, 150)641
∈ [150, ∞)799

$623/mo on food at home plus another $393/mo away from home. Even the <15000 group spends $625/mo across all food, $416 of which is groceries, so I stand by $800/mo not being extravagant if you cook all your meals. Probably a bit of room to budget but not that much.

You didn't take into consideration that food at home was on average only about 2/3 of a consumer unit's total food expenditures. Regardless of the reality that some food stamp participants are going to take some meals in restaurants, it seems disingenuous for the program to assume this.

Edit: I would also add that, this being a government chart that averages things out over categories, the results are weird overall. For instance, the average three-person consumer unit receives $108,468 in wages, $9,022 in self-employment income, $7,480 in retirement income, $752 in government assistance, and $821 in unemployment compensation. The average mortgage payment is $372/month, and people in the 15–30k range have an average mortgage payment of $ 83/month. The obvious explanation here is that people who rent or have their house paid off have a payment of zero, and this gets averaged across everyone, likewise for the income categories. The point here is that these numbers aren't representative of a typical household.

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