The US Department of Agriculture has spent the past week notifying people that the country is (allegedly) overrun by individuals who are fraudulently claiming SNAP benefits, while (allegedly) driving luxury vehicles.
“In just ONE state, 14,000 individuals receiving SNAP benefits were driving LUXURY VEHICLES!” Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins posted on X last week. The official USDA account made similar claims, which were then amplified by figures like Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Rand Paul.
Those numbers are questionable at best. For one thing, the report they come from doesn’t name the state where thousands of people are allegedly buying Ferraris while using government money to buy food. For another, that report doesn’t include any explanation of its methodology.
The good old “oh you’re poor? How come you have a phone then?”
Yeah that argument is so ridiculous.
You can buy lightly used phones on Swappa for a large discount even when we are talking about flagship phones. There are also situations where someone could be poor but have enough credit to get a phone financed with monthly payments that they can afford.
There are pre paid MVNOs in the US where you can get unlimited talk, text, and on device data, that also includes unlimited hotspot at fairly decent speeds (plus there are ways of bypassing hotspot speed caps, TetherFuseNet is an example open source app) for less than 30$ a month taxes and fees included. For about 30$ a month or so plans exist with QCI priority that are the same priority as premium post paid plans. I have known people who have used their unlimited hotspot as their only internet at home.
Just because some of these people making these types of comments may have a high cell phone bill does not mean everyone else does.
I think it’s because a lot of people are like Mother Theresa. They’re of the belief that if you’re poor, you should suffer, because not doing so would be a moral failing. Being poor makes you a bad person.