Amerika’s Dependent Class of Midnight Shoppers

October 10, 2010
by Eowyn
56 Comments

For once, I find myself lost for words.

This is happening in America: People so dependent on food stamps and other welfare monies, who live from handout to mouth, that they do their grocery shopping at the stroke of midnight when those government-issued electronic checks are paid into their accounts.

~Eowyn



Midnight grocery runs capture economic desperation http://tinyurl.com/232z9fo

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO and DENA POTTER, Associated Press Oct 6, 2010

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. – Once a month, just after midnight, the beeping checkout scanners at a Walmart just off Interstate 95 come alive in a chorus of financial desperation. Here and at grocery stores across the country, the chimes come just after food stamps and other monthly government benefits drop into the accounts of shoppers who have been rationing things like milk, ground beef and toilet paper and can finally stock up again.

Shoppers mill around the store after 11 p.m., killing time until their accounts are replenished. When midnight strikes, they rush for the checkout counter.

“The kids are sleeping, so we go do what we’ve gotta do. Money is tight,â€