I came across an interesting article today about how legislators
in South Carolina are proposing to treat benefits payments. They basically want
to restrict food stamps to only be able to buy healthy food. For those of you
that are not aware, in the US, food stamps are how the most common form of
benefits are distributed. They are coupons with a monetary value which most
supermarkets accept and they are currently restricted so you can buy all food
and drink but not cigarettes or booze.
In the UK, the BBC had a poll last year where they asked people about this idea as with the soon to be introduced
Universal Credit could be used to bring something like this about using a
prepaid credit card. Generally, according to the poll, the majority of the
people favoured some sort of restriction on what benefits could be used on.
So the case in point with food stamp restriction. I think it
is a great idea. Three quarters of society in the US (and two thirds in the UK)
are obese. Obesity is more prevalent in lower income families. Billions of
dollars are being spent on trying to make people eat more healthily and
billions more on dealing with the effects of obesity. Obviously there need to
be safeguards over what constitutes “healthy” food but I think it could work. Some frozen and canned food would be acceptable, as only
fresh food means more trips to the supermarket meaning more in petrol or public
transport costs and time. The only issue is that all the big purveyors of
crappy highly processed food will lobby the hell out of not carrying it
through. Guess why? Fast food companies can accept food stamps!
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