A few months back it was a big deal (at least for those who rely on their ebt card for survival) that amazon was going to start accepting ebt/snap for food items. I mean, fuck amazon of course, but especially during a pandemic when it's taking a risk going to a grocery store, this could be a massive help to particularly vulnerable ebt-reliant people, like the elderly or immunocompromised. But if you look, most food on amazon is not ebt eligible. 90% of what is eligible, is junk snack food. There's tons of variety packs of single-serving cheese-its flavors and bulk snack bars but only a tiny amount of anything that could be considered moderately healthy with nutritional value.
So it's great the "food deserts" that poor people are already subject to (and then blamed for) are extending even to online shopping!
It would be a very fitting irony if it was made so only "healthy" food could be purchased with ebt. Then ebt users who couldn't make it to a physical store could at least stock up on olive oil and dried seaweed flats, I guess.
A few months back it was a big deal (at least for those who rely on their ebt card for survival) that amazon was going to start accepting ebt/snap for food items. I mean, fuck amazon of course, but especially during a pandemic when it's taking a risk going to a grocery store, this could be a massive help to particularly vulnerable ebt-reliant people, like the elderly or immunocompromised. But if you look, most food on amazon is not ebt eligible. 90% of what is eligible, is junk snack food. There's tons of variety packs of single-serving cheese-its flavors and bulk snack bars but only a tiny amount of anything that could be considered moderately healthy with nutritional value.
So it's great the "food deserts" that poor people are already subject to (and then blamed for) are extending even to online shopping!
It would be a very fitting irony if it was made so only "healthy" food could be purchased with ebt. Then ebt users who couldn't make it to a physical store could at least stock up on olive oil and dried seaweed flats, I guess.