SNAP and Underemployment

Food stamp use shows continued ‘underemployment’ pain, By Tim Henderson, August 15, 2014, USA Today: “Luxuries were affordable for Linda Fish before she lost her job in retail management in 2009. ‘I won’t lie. The dinners out, the perfect martinis, the salon visits with a master stylist, and the rooms at nice hotels when I was too lazy or tired to do the long commute home—these things I could afford and they made me very, very happy,’ the Chicago resident wrote on her blog soon after she became unemployed. But in the years after she lost her job, Fish “learned to stop worrying and love minimum wage.” She gained a new appreciation for beans, pasta, and oatmeal when she took a $9 per hour job as a bookstore clerk. It was a shock…”