Not around me, KC metro area. Even 85% lean ground beef pushes five bucks a pound.
Thus, a cart with 50 lbs. of [expensive] steak is plausible.
If they burn up their entire food stamp allotment for the month, yes.
Wow. I would have thought beef prices in Kansas City would be better than that. Of course, my wife does most of the shopping, and she, being a cheapskate, always finds the deals. She got some ribeye yesterday for a couple of dollars per pound (they were getting to the sell-by date, and thus were marked down heavily, and then she had a coupon or something, and there was the bonus card, and frankly, I'm a little surprised they didn't pay her to take the steaks out of the store, LOL.).
There are certain establishments around us that seem to cater to those who rely on government assistance. We have sometimes made the mistake of attempting to patronize these businesses the first day or two of the month, only to find ourselves nearly stampeded by such folks as they make their purchases. Having seen this sort of behavior myself, I'm inclined to think that many recipients of government assistance do engage in a bit of binge shopping shortly after the funds are released each month.
As well, many yeard ago, my wife, as part of her dietetic fieldwork, worked with benefits recipients, and found it important to instruct recipients how to make their benefit last the entire month, as there seemed a bit of an urge to splurge at the beginning of each cycle. I'm not really sure what promotes this kind of behavior, only that it does happen.
Too, there are many of these households with more than four persons receiving benefits. So, $500 worth of steaks may not represent as large a percentage of total benefits as we're imagining.
I'm not sure that laws like this can do much more than shave off a few of the rough edges of the counterproductive behavior of the long-term poor. Sadly, those who receive this aid usually become morally bankrupt, without any sense of accomplishment, or shame from a failure to accomplish, without any feeling of obligation to make their own way in the world, without any empathy toward those who pay their way.
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