‘Failed’ Gwyneth Paltrow Was Actually on Track to Succeed in ‘Food Stamp Challenge’
As yours truly noted on April 12, actress Gwyneth Paltrow made a bit of a splash earlier this month when she announced that she would add her name to the list of ignorant politicians, advocates and celebrities taking on the deceptively designed “Food Stamp Challenge.”
The idea is to “try to survive” eating for a week on the average benefit a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipient receives. The objective is to prove that it really can’t be done, thereby “proving” that food stamp benefits are too low. Of course, that’s what Paltrow claims occurred, with MSNBC.com hyping how she “succeeded by failing.” As was the case with an Indiana journalist several months ago, based on the spending figure Paltrow herself disclosed, she was not failing at all. Based on how the program really works, she would have succeeded had she stuck with it.
Pictured below is the collection of items Paltrow says she bought to start off the festivities:
Now let’s go to a bit of her pathetic narrative at goop.com, Paltrow’s self-described “lifestyle brand” site (bolds are mine throughout this post):
It cost $24.40 (plus a little olive oil and salt)—things like avocados and limes are cheap in Southern California.
As I suspected, we only made it through about four days, when I personally broke and had some chicken and fresh vegetables (and in full transparency, half a bag of black licorice). My perspective has been forever altered by how difficult it was to eat wholesome, nutritious food on that budget, even for just a few days—a challenge that 47 million Americans face every day, week, and year. A few takeaways from the week were that vegetarian staples liked dried beans and rice go a long way—and we were able to come up with a few recipes on a super tight budget.
Paltrow original tweet only referred to the challenge’s $29 benchnark (Aside: She should have indicated that the $29 is a per-person, per-week figure.) However, as noted in her more recent blog post, she really spent $24.40.
$29 is what challenge organizers continue to falsely insist is the average amount participants have available to buy food. As I have noted for eight years, according to the program’s rules, they are wrong.
The following table, converted to weekly figures from the government’s official table, proves it. I have changed the narrative to the right of the table from what was there a week ago to reflect what Paltrow now says she actually spent, and to demonstrate that she was on track to succeed:
As I’ve explained umpteen times over the past eight years, most recently a week ago:
If the $29 … is indeed the correct per-person per-week Food Stamp benefit in the US, the example that immediately follows the table at the linked Fact Sheet page — where a $649 Maximum Monthly Allotment is reduced to $308 based on available income — makes it perfectly clear that the $29 is what remains AFTER a person or family on Food Stamps has contributed what the Program believes they can contribute towards buying food from their own resources.
If Paltrow ate everything pictured above — which may not necessarily be the case, given that, to name one example, it contains seven limes, presumably targeted for one-per-day consumption — in four days (she claimed “about four days,” a curiously vague term for a supposedly rigorous endeavor), the $20.25 she still really had available to spend ($44.65 minus $24.40) would have carried her through the challenge week’s remaining three days.
Thus, Gwyneth Paltrow did not fail. Thanks to her ignorance, and the challenge’s deceptive design, she was on track to succeed, and quit.
If those advocating benefit increases have a point, it might be the one raised by a commenter at my week-ago post. That person claimed, in part:
The point you’re wrong in is that what the government THINKS someone on food stamps should be able to contribute to their own food budget has little basis in reality.
… There are absolutely people out there on partial food stamp benefit who have no cash at all that they can contribute to their weekly food costs.
Fortunately, I am not in the position of needing food stamps, but I’ve worked with people who are. You are completely out of touch with the realities of the situation. I challenge you to actually talk to some working single mothers – ask them to share their budgets with you, their daily schedules, their outstanding bills, the actual situation with their healthcare, and the kind of living situations they are in. Find out for yourself by actually seeing it for yourself – the details and the realities.
My response indicates why the Food Stamp Challenges have been counterproductive:
Assuming you’re correct, then the people advocating food stamp reform need to make the arguments you’re making and work to reform the benefit eligibility formulas to make them more fair and equitable.
But they won’t. They’re lazy. They just go for the hype with false numbers without arguing on substance. I would argue that many of them don’t really care about the situations you’ve described. If they did, they would behave differently.
Until they throw these deceptive Food Stamp Challenges overboard and get to work on substance, they’ll have no credibility, and will deserve none.
Sadly, the commenter then all too typically resorted to personally attacking and insulting me while claiming that I wrote things I did not write.
Note that challenge organizers and participants seldom if ever indicate even in general terms how much benefits should be raised. Apparently, their objective, which can never be satisfied, can be boiled down to one word: “More.”
The Food Stamp Challenge has done far more harm than good, has duped its well-meaning participants, and has shredded the credibility of the social welfare advocacy community. Though I’m fairly certain it will continue — after all, look at wha MSNBC claims about Paltrow’s “success” — it cannot end soon enough.
Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.
That one commentator (I assume the comment was on the NewsBusters post and not here as I don’t see it) resorts to a typical liberal stance when hard objective reality debunks their poverty fantasies: complain about how it’s still not enough and then resort to subjective emotional appeals. I don’t buy that a family that qualifies for food stamps can’t budget their money to pay for some of their food, regardless of how tough their circumstances are. He or she talks about bills, healthcare, and rent and such but ignores that families who qualify for food stamps also qualify for benefits (in many cases, too many benefits) in those areas too. But I guess poorer families are not supposed to contribute to their well being themselves in any way. Hard and impossible are two separate things.
This is what the welfare state has led to: a “it’s never enough!” attitude and “my life is hard, so to hell with me doing anything for myself, make it everyone else’s responsibility” type thinking.
Comment by zf — April 20, 2015 @ 12:53 am
Yes, it was at NB. It was very disappointing. Points you made were raised. The commenter’s counterpoint was that I needed to actually interview bunches of people in difficult circumstances before I could validly write what I did.
That’s BS. I was very careful to ensure that the government decides the reductions to the Maximum allotments based on income and assets (a lot of states don’t have such restrictions or have raised the income limits), not me, and that if advocates have a problem with that, they need to tell us specifically what’s wrong. They won’t. Instead they grandstand with phone “challenges.”
Comment by Tom — April 20, 2015 @ 9:46 pm
It’s called the moral sophistry of the self righteous (liberal) who seeks to garner praise (attention whore) for a proper display of concern (PC stance) for some manufactured injustice (cause de jour). Liberals are the modern day pharisees.
Luke 20 (NIV) 46 “Beware of the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 47 They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.” Parallel verses Matthew 23:14 and Mark 12:40
Comment by dscott — April 21, 2015 @ 7:36 am
It seems the British have a name for the moral sophistry of liberals: Virtue Signaling
Hating the Daily Mail is a substitute for doing good
Want to be virtuous? Saying the right things violently on Twitter is much easier than real kindness
http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9501282/hating-the-daily-mail-is-a-substitute-for-doing-good/
hat tip to Small Dead Animals. Pardon the numerous excerpts, the article is really that good.
Go to a branch of Whole Foods, the American-owned grocery shop, and you will see huge posters advertising Whole Foods, of course, but — more precisely — advertising how virtuous Whole Foods is. A big sign in the window shows a mother with a little child on her shoulders (aaaah!) and declares: ‘values matter.’
The poster goes on to assert: ‘We are part of a growing consciousness that is bigger than food — one that champions what’s good.’ This a particularly blatant example of the increasingly common phenomenon of ‘virtue signalling’ — indicating that you are kind, decent and virtuous…
…There are many ways to advertise your virtue. You can say ‘I hate the Daily Mail!’ to suggest that you care about people who are poor and on welfare benefits. You are saying that you respect them, care about them and do them the honour of believing the vast majority to be honest and in need…
…Virtue signalling crosses the political divide. When David Cameron defends maintaining spending 0.7 per cent of GDP on foreign aid, he is telling us that the Tory party, or at least he himself — as a rather wonderful, non-toxic part of it — cares about the poor in the developing world. The actual effectiveness or otherwise of foreign aid in achieving this aim is irrelevant…
…When Osborne says he wants a higher minimum wage, he is saying, ‘I am a good guy who cares about the low-paid and wants them to be better off.’ Never mind the unintended consequences. Just feel the good intentions…
…It’s noticeable how often virtue signalling consists of saying you hate things. It is camouflage. The emphasis on hate distracts from the fact you are really saying how good you are. If you were frank and said, ‘I care about the environment more than most people do’ or ‘I care about the poor more than others’, your vanity and self-aggrandisement would be obvious, as it is with Whole Foods. Anger and outrage disguise your boastfulness…
…No one actually has to do anything. Virtue comes from mere words or even from silently held beliefs. There was a time in the distant past when people thought you could only be virtuous by doing things: by helping the blind man across the road; looking after your elderly parents instead of dumping them in a home; staying in a not-wholly-perfect marriage for the sake of the children. These things involve effort and self-sacrifice. That sounds hard! Much more convenient to achieve virtue by expressing hatred of those who think the health service could be improved by introducing competition…
…There was a time when Britain had a form of Christianity in which pride was considered a sin. Maybe that is part of why some of us find all this virtue signalling obnoxious. It’s just showing off. For some of us it is both ridiculous and irritating that people who say that they hate Ukip actually believe they are being more virtuous than others who visit the sick, give money to charity or are kind to someone lonely. But the widespread way in which people now proudly boast suggests there is no shame, no reflection. And because of this lack of awareness, it is more common.
Virtual Signaling is how liberal moral sophistry becomes the excuse to be lazy and disconnected from those who are in need. It is the antithesis of charity by the individual. Now we understand why liberals want the government to do everything, they are simply too morally lazy to do it themselves and but in their vanity they don’t want to be noticed as such for their own lack of character. I do believe we have a highly effective tool here to bludgeon liberals, zero in on their laziness to actually help anyone.
Comment by dscott — April 21, 2015 @ 1:42 pm