I am, by no means, agreeing with Abby, but there will always be people working the system. Are they a problem? Yes. Are they the average recipient? No.
I had a coworker back in Tennessee (I'll call her K) who had the same job I did. I lived in an apartment with a roommate and some months were tough, but we got by. K, however, lived in an apartment with her boyfriend, the father of her two kids. On paper, he didn't live there. She collected so much in food stamps that she was able to buy all of her groceries for the month and then have enough left over to let her mom shop, too. One Thanksgiving, we had another coworker who lost her home in a fire. We decided to take up money to buy them all the fixing for a big dinner. We took up the money and K said that she would be happy to do the shopping. Well, yeah. She took the cash and bought the food with her food stamp card. She took advantage of a program for tuition for single moms. She called it "free mommy money". Finally, one day, after talking about going to school to spend that "free mommy money," we all snapped on her. She honestly had NO idea how offensive her behavior was. She wouldn't have gotten those benefits if they knew her boyfriend was living with her and supporting their kids and paying half the rent. They didn't marry for that very reason. It was sickening. Meanwhile, there are people who actually NEED it, who can't get approved.
Pretty pretty please don't you ever ever feel like you're less than
f**ckin' perfect!