Service-members on Food Stamps

i use to be on WIC when i was a SPC but it only paid for formula and later on milk and cereal. after i made SGT and my wife started working we no longer need it and removed our selfs from WIC. It helped out a lot, my wife was able to stay home with our new born and we did not have to live paycheck to paycheck.

We always qualified for WIC and with 6 children, I had no qualms with partaking of this program. I never envisioned it as a hand out but more of hand up. Have you seen the price of baby formula? It's almost criminal! And one of sons had to be on a special type of formula, which also happened to be the most expensive. And every federal gov't program takes the "total family income" into consideration, so yes, they do count your BAS and BAH. The "food stamp" is run by each state, so that may differ but WIC is federal. It only goes until the child 5yrs old and every 3 months my wife had to turn in a copy of my LES to verify our eligibility.

Me personal y no. Our unit went to Bliss 3 years in a row for our AT back in the 90s and I used to see it at PX. It was always young soldiers with young families. Looked like they were barely out of high school let alone basic training. It killed me too see it because these kids are defending our county but couldn't make it on a military salary & benefits??

Granted people all around get in financial trouble due to some bad decisions or vices and granted some of our young soldiers may not have proper guidance on family issues, after all, we all come from different walks of life From my point of view, this was not what I was seeing here. What I was seeing was the system failing our soldiers.

No never but then again I was a CTO2 When I got Married and Had Children. I can't imagine how in hell anyone below E-5 can Manage. It was tough and tight as an E-5. Sad that despite all the wonderful talk about "Supporting our Troops" No one really does. Just another Stupid Catch Phrase.

Fortunately for myself and my family, we have never needed either program, so no direct affect on me.

We were supposed to be going from a conscript Army to a well paid all volunteer force. What we got is an impoverished force dependent on Charity.One sure thing is that the gap between ranks has grown every year until it has become obscene. Raises should be so many dollar per year at all ranks.
Another thing is the Carpetbaggers who leach the life out of the force. Prices have risen to the point. Our troops need to be able to afford better

If you look at today's' base pay, an E-2 makes about $1,500. Add in BAH, and all the other special pay, they are closer to taking home $2,000 or more. Not to mention junior enlisted are usually living on base so deduct BAH. Even if they have family they could still have on base housing. I can only see a person qualifying today if they either have a lot of kids, or are just lying on the forms just so they can qualify. When I first joined in 2000, I did not qualify because I lived on board the unit and was provided three meals a day. Anything other than that, I had to pay for. So it seems like something fishy is going on here that is making active duty service people qualify for food stamps.

No but I do recall service members back in the 1980's being on food stamps, standing in line getting government cheese from the Chaplain.

I can understand getting food stamps or other support programs because the SM is an E-1 with three kids and two car payments. However, if even after all that support and the SM is still not stable, then I have no sympathy for the SM wasting the help away.

Never got it, but did need it at a time. It's more common for those of us on the Reserve Component side. I came back from BOLC to no job, height of recession, and bills piling. Bills came first, then figuring out how much you can eat the rest of the month. Did try applying for unemployment since I had been working since the age of 16 but was denied. Never liked asking the government for help and hopefully it'll be the last.