Comments about ‘Thousands of Utahns must choose between buying food or paying rent, study shows’

Why don't they apply for gov assistance?

They probably qualify for food stamps.

No true.... I went for several weeks without buying groceries after work cut my hours dramatically due to the economic situation. Living off of the ramen I had stashed I decided finally to apply for food stamps, but was denied because I was a student who worked under 20 hours a week. Basically if I dropped out of school and quit my job I would be taken care of. They told me to go to the food bank instead. How in the heck is that helping citizens to better themselves.

Maybe we should drop our subscription TV service, cell phone, and other electronic toys. Perhaps it would do us some good to start using walking & biking as one of our primary means of transportation. Perhaps we could get up off our couches and make our own healthy meals instead of paying others to make us unhealthy meals. I'm clearly far from a genius, but perhaps we could rent a smaller apartment or home. Perhaps we could get our clothes from Deseret Industries. Perhaps we don't need to keep up with the Joneses. Maybe I can drink water instead of soda pop. Maybe I can stop going to the movie theater and rent a Redbox. Maybe I can drop my gym membership and just get a part time job or volunteer doing something physical. Maybe I really don't need to waste all my time buying & playing video games. Maybe I really can educate myself or entertain myself by reading a book from the library. Maybe I don't deserve everything I want. Maybe I can work harder and earn even more money....

In a Conservative State, I expect this to dramatically increase as the months go by.
Republicans want this kind of data out of the print to Gear up for their multi million dollar event, Republican National party Rally
Ok so Bennet only paid $330,000 to fund his campaign this year!

I had no idea, I take these things for granted. I have never had it so good...

With rising inflation, corporate profits, more taxes and fees, higher utility costs, cuts in wages and incomes, the working poor or those on fixed incomes don't have a chance.

Then you add in the working illegals who can lie about no incomes or job who are looting and pilfering from the real poor doesn't help americans at all. I'd bet that all those workers in the welfare offices have never checked on illegals and their illegal jobs getting under the counter tax free incomes pilfering the system. This is why illegal aliens and their families should be expunged from any welfare or food stamps. Nothing can be verified about them and their real incomes so looting and pilfering of the american poor is a walk in the park robbery.

We americans are not paying taxes to benefit illegals, they are for american citizens who can be verified and documented. State and federal assistance should be restricted to citizens only and exclude anchor babies.

As a wise Republican friend of mine pointed out when discussing Health Care reform, these people should get a job. A job would feed them.

I also don't understand why these people have kids if they can't afford to feed them or take care of them. Kids are a bit young to get jobs, so they should have considered that. That is why we teach abstinence only in our schools. Even if they are married, if they are poor they should not have sex if they can't feed the kids.

We need to stop giving everything away. No one in Utah should just get food stamps or rent support. Even kids. They should get jobs too. It seems to be the Republican answer to everything.

At one point I was a single mom (1 child) working 65 hours a week to pay the bills and buy groceries. I decided to go to college so I could improve my life and the life of my child. I was attending school full time and working 35 to 40 hours a week. I was having trouble paying all my bills and buying groceries so I applied for food stamps.

I qualified for $10 per month.

I would not have made it if it weren't for help from my parents.

Become an illegal alien. Great health and education benefits and of course plenty of food stamps to go around.

As in Arizona the food banks are visited by the "undocumented workers". These people do not qualify for food stamps as a rule, but their US born children do. Also they use the food banks as well as the food stamps.
I know this because I have association with many "undocumented workers" Utah is a sancuary state.

Actually we are not the wealthiest country in the world. That would be China. In fact they almost own our president.

From 5:43

I needed my car to get to and from work (public transportation is a joke in this state). So I had to keep paying car insurance and buying gas for it. The car, however, I bought extremely cheap so it was paid off.

I didn't have a TV, a phone, or a computer. I was living in the cheapest apartment I could find that was in a safe neighborhood for raising my child. (Which, unfortunately, was not close to my job, so walking to and from work was out of the question - hence the need for the car.)

Maybe you should get out of your safe little world and see what life is like for the rest of us before you cast judgement.

Illegals don't qualify for welfare.

from 5:43

I had no intention of getting pregnant. Unfortunately, by boyfriend at the time had other intentions. He sabotaged my birth control and then all but raped me. I left him and, in order to protect myself and my child, I also left my job and moved to a different city where I ended up getting a job that paid less - but that was what was available and I would rather work....

It is so easy to cast judgement when you are sitting safe and secure and have never faced any of these issues up close and personal.

Something is going wrong , blame it on the Illegals! It's the easiest thing to do!! oh! My kid, was not choosen, why? Because , of the Illegals! I am not saying there is no problem in that area, but, come on cut me some slack!!
We need to take responsibility!!

I think it is very well clear that we have a system that is not working as well as it should. Just providing food assistance or rent assistance won't change situations. The human response when given help after help becomes reliant on that subconsciously. The states need to supply qualified financial advice and counsel to those individuals who use the system over and over again. Most individual rich or poor spend what they make, until that individual creates a sound financial plan and executes it plan on them being in the system for a very long time.If you don't know where your pipes are leaking they will continue to leak...

And once those things are gone -- or if they never existed in a household -- sometimes it's still a choice between needs. And providing wants sometimes is necessary -- the "have nots" can really not stand to live that slower lifestyle (because walking v. driving takes a lot of time, as does cooking from scratch and gardening) among the faster paced "haves" without some reprieve once in a while.

Pay your rent. Get a job. Vote Republican.

"Become an illegal alien. Great health and education benefits and of course plenty of food stamps to go around."

This person has bought into a lie that feed the prevalent racism of many Utahns. How do the 12,000,000 heads of lettuce get harvested around Yuma? The same workers that pick your fruit and put food on your table do this.

I live in California were the white kids are lazy on parental welfare and the Mexicans work 12 hour days in brutal conditions. This Utahn whose family lived in a Mormon colony in Mexico near Mitts family has most respect for these Mexican workers than the bitter old men that whine about them.

This message is for the managers of the different food chains who make donations to the Food Banks - Stop donating food that is past its expiration date - especially the dairy products. Are you trying to kill people. Two months in a row the dairy items that were in our delivered food box were spoiled. How can you like yourself and take a tax credit at the end of the year when the stuff you unload onto the food banks is bad? PART 2: Private citizens - stop getting rid of the canned goods that are also past the expiration date. Canned milk is gross after the expiration date. Last month we threw away from our foodbox - cottage cheese(3 weeks past), peanut butter(a year past) pears(mold growing on it). There were a few canned items also.