Thursday, May 30, 2013

The Welfarians

The Welfarians:
THE SHOPPER IN FRONT of me in the supermarket line the other
night paid with two peculiar checks with the letters “WIC”
prominently inscribed on them. The acronym, which denotes a welfare
food-assistance program, stands for “Women, Infants, and Children.”
He was none of the above.
The elaborate tattoos on his arms advertised priorities. Tax
dollars that ostensibly allow him to feed his face, or the faces of
the women, infants, and children in his orbit, really enable him to
recolor his body. Perhaps my assumption rests on too many
assumptions. For all I know, he could have paid for the intricate
ink designs prior to losing his job at Lehman Brothers. Somehow, I
doubt it. The man’s expensive sneakers, designer T-shirt, gold
chain, and body art bothered me less than his reaction to the
clerk’s informing him that one of his items wasn’t covered by the
WIC program. Rather than retrieve an acceptable product, he
instructed the cashier to fetch it for him. She dutifully returned
with a gallon of milk. Whereas the first one presumably didn’t pass
muster with the government, the second one didn’t pass muster with
him. Flustered, she instructed another worker to exchange the milk
for his favorite flavor or brand or whatever. All the while, a
late-night line curled into an elongated “L” shape. As he waited
for his free milk, we waited at the one open register to pay for
our groceries, too, after we paid for his.
I envied the man enjoying servants without their expense. Sorta.
Kinda. Compelling your neighbors to spring for your midnight snack,
and imperiously commanding the minimum-wage cashier to shop for it,
that’s the life, right? Naturally, I searched the World Wide Web
for my eligibility in this World Wide WIC. I took a government
test—also available in Spanish and Chinese—indicating that, yes, a
child under five lived in my home, and no, I did not have EBT
benefits. The digital bureaucrat cruelly informed me, “Based on
your responses, you may not be eligible for WIC benefits.” With my
dream of a Welfarian tribal band—or perhaps merely a “WIC” tramp
stamp—dashed, I took heart in the site’s instruction to visit
another government site entitled, “Your path to government
benefits.”
Surely this wasn’t the path less traveled, with a record number
of Americans—15 percent of the U.S. population—currently depending
on food stamps to pay for their dinners (or their tattoos?). The
government’s long-winded questionnaire asked many prying questions.
“How many times have you been married? (0–10).” “Have you run away
from home or are you thinking about running away from home?” By the
end of the burdensome process, the site informed me that I may be
eligible for 78 federal programs. Among these were “Psychosocial
Rehabilitation and Treatment Program,” “Tax Relief for Divorced or
Separated Individuals,” and “Military Sexual Trauma.” But getting
addicted to narcotics, divorced, or raped seemed cost prohibitive
for any government benefit, however generous.
WIC isn’t cost prohibitive. Neither is an EBT card. That’s why,
presumably, nearly 50 million Americans—up from a modest 1 million
recipients in 1966—rely on Uncle Sam rather than their own labor to
provide this most basic need. Unlike a program for the sexually
traumatized, food handouts incentivize the condition they aim to
eliminate. As a result, the Welfarians may be the fastest-growing
demographic in Obama’s America. The catch-22 of the staggering
economy is that many hardworking people depend on food stamps for
lack of suitable employment opportunities, a burden on commerce
which in turn decreases suitable employment opportunities for
hardworking people. Even for Welfarians who didn’t join the
demographic through bad habits, isn’t government assistance habit
forming? Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your
country can buy for you.
Thieves exhibit ingenuity, embrace risk, and exert labor. The
permanent denizens of WIC America and the United States of EBT do
nothing for the fruits of their, uh, existence. In my urban New
England outpost, the more ambitious ones hassle drivers for spare
cash, a nuisance prompting the city council to outlaw curbside
panhandling. Their signs say they need food. Everything else about
them says, “I need crystal methamphetamine.”
Statewide in Massachusetts, the commissioner of the misnamed
Department of Transitional Assistance recently resigned in the wake
of a report that the state can’t account for 47,000 welfare
recipients and wastes $25 million annually in payments to
ineligible beneficiaries. Driving downtown, I spot a storefront
sign: “We take EBT.” Beneath it, another sign appears: “Elizabeth
Warren for Senate.” First rule of capitalism: Know your
customers.
Perhaps the patient cashier running in-store errands for the
tattooed ingrate understands this rule, too. After 10 minutes of
making others in the line wait, the consumer completed the purchase
without proffering a word of appreciation. Instead, the clerk, in
addition to bagging his groceries, issued a “thank you.” People
expecting society to give them groceries can’t be expected to give
back anything, not even gratitude. We resent our benefactors.
Meet the new normal, same as the old abnormal.