I'm old enough to have used the fucking stamps in the store because trailer parks are fun places to grow up. Holy shit were those fucking crushing to use.
I'm also old enough to remember how using food stamps and welfare was embarrassing.
Eddie Murphy did a whole thing on "Your poor and on the welfare cause your daddy's an alcoholic and you ain't got no McDonalds!"
Around the 90's, shit changed. Clinton and Reagan both tried to reform welfare, only to have a lot of it gutted by states and the like.
Washington State, for example, once had it where you only received 12 months of cash assistance for YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. When you got assistance they told you exactly how much time you had left. Food Stamps were 3 years max.
The EBT card changed a bunch of shit. You didn't worry about someone spotting your stamps. Didn't have to worry about the neighbors. But the 90's was also the rise of nigger/thug culture. It went from "ewww... food stamps..." to "This our shit."
Take a look at the Chris Rock skits about "THEY TAKING OUR SHITTTT!" sections.
Food stamps have always been a second shadow economy. (In Killeen you could easily buy a gun with food stamps from behind the 7-11 on MLK) Cards added a whole new thing.
But the lack of shame was the big one. Some people started looking at it all as their entitlement just for being alive.
Section-8: Free house
Utility Offsetting: Free electricity, gas, water, trash, sewer
Obamaphone: To talk to all your fellow Gibsmedat Americans
EBT: Your food needs
TANF: Money to spend on your weaves
There are a ton of people who work just under the line or just put in applications at places they'll never be able to work at. Believe me, nobody is more shocked than a Gibsmedat American when they get hired at someplace as a manager based of an application full of misspellings and a poem about your dick that you then wrote BLACK LIVES MATTER on every other question. They didn't do it intentionally, the did it to make it look like they were looking for work. (3-5 places a week)
Back when I had to use it, a family of 5 white people that were in marriage qualified for $400 in stamps. Now, seeing as I'm a decent person, we used on stuff to make more stuff, with some treats and sodas.
But, it was disheartening to see my fellow Americans abuse this shit and laugh about it. Buying $200 in soda (back when a case was $5) to pour out the soda and take the cans in and get the rebate. Selling their cards for 10 to 50 cents on the dollar.
Do you know why they lock up detergent first? It's used as money on the black market.
BUT, at the same time, Corpo America kept running their spreadsheets and algorithms to take as much of America's paycheck as they could while paying out the least they could. Your power bill goes up to build green power generation and never goes back down. They bring in new businesses but hire pajeets or freeloaders. Fast food has pretty much priced itself out because why should I pay $80 for fucking crap when I can spend half that amount and just microwave that shit?
Big realty companies like John L Scott adjust the price to what you show you have. It's why they make you show income before they even talk to you. They got busted in the early teens for showing the same house for different amounts, always "1/3 of your takehome pay", depending on how much the person made. It got dropped because that's not illegal.
The fucking US Army told their lower enlisted "We know we don't pay you dick if you have a family. Go apply for food stamps."
Companies made it so if you're at the bottom of the income pyramid and have a family, well, you can either live like a monk and eat your pride every day or you can just get the gibs and say fuck it. Everyone else does it, and you ain't getting out of this shit.
Section-8 lasts forever. It used to be pretty strict but about the 90's it got easy for spics and camel jockeys, then blacks, then everyone.
The whole thing is about CONTROL. That's why the Dems are acting like this is good for them but they're shitting their pants. People aren't supposed to see the carrot and the stick. Touching those entitlements are a no-no. That's why they were always able to pull this shit before. The Republicans were always "Well, we don't want to look bad because we made the darkies ook and eek and made the career poor sad..." and signed whatever shit-heap bill the Dems provided with a shit eating grin.
Worse, is the system is designed to keep you on the system. Unless you get a huge windfall or get a super-job, you have to replace all that shit instantly. It doesn't taper off.
Make $1600/mo? BOOM! ALL GONE! Now, pay your rent, groceries, utilities, blah blah blah.
Oops, now you're in debt. Lost your job because you couldn't afford a car payment and insurance.
Welcome back, valued citizen!
But the biggest problem is that there's not a bit of social stigma connected to it any more.