Wyatt earp
Diamond Member
- Apr 21, 2012
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This is one thing I never could understand, if a parent could buy baby food and formula on food stamps how come they couldn't buy diapers??????
The cruelest thing about buying diapers
Walmart within walking distance of Nuri Mora's home in South Central Los Angeles, where a 74-count box of diapers sold for $28, closed in January. So now she boards a bus. It runs only every half-hour, and catching it means trailing a toddler, a stroller and an 8-year-old. It also means adding bus fare to the cost of the diapers — which are more expensive at other stores anyway.
Cheap diapers are hard to come by for the families that have the least to spend on them. Mora, 27, scans coupons and travels for bargains. She tells her children "no" at the grocery store, when she has to choose between the kiwis they want and the diapers 2-year-old Nathan needs. Then, sometimes, when she finds a good deal, it comes in the wrong sizes.
"Sometimes you have to decide between 'Okay, this box has 120 diapers, and this is the size that he doesn’t use. But if I get the size that he’s using, it’s just 70 diapers, and I have 50 diapers more. So what should I do?' " she says, knowing that a too-small size might chafe her son's skin. "You just have to make things happen."
Federal aid to low-income families has a "diaper loophole," as Luke Tate, a special assistant to the president for economic mobility, puts it. Food stamps can't be spent on diapers. Medicaid doesn't cover them. Special nutrition benefits for mothers and infants don't come with diapers, either. Federal assistance is designed to help poor families with nearly every essential need from housing to health care, but diapers — a product fundamental to child health that no baby can do without — aren't included
The cruelest thing about buying diapers
Walmart within walking distance of Nuri Mora's home in South Central Los Angeles, where a 74-count box of diapers sold for $28, closed in January. So now she boards a bus. It runs only every half-hour, and catching it means trailing a toddler, a stroller and an 8-year-old. It also means adding bus fare to the cost of the diapers — which are more expensive at other stores anyway.
Cheap diapers are hard to come by for the families that have the least to spend on them. Mora, 27, scans coupons and travels for bargains. She tells her children "no" at the grocery store, when she has to choose between the kiwis they want and the diapers 2-year-old Nathan needs. Then, sometimes, when she finds a good deal, it comes in the wrong sizes.
"Sometimes you have to decide between 'Okay, this box has 120 diapers, and this is the size that he doesn’t use. But if I get the size that he’s using, it’s just 70 diapers, and I have 50 diapers more. So what should I do?' " she says, knowing that a too-small size might chafe her son's skin. "You just have to make things happen."
Federal aid to low-income families has a "diaper loophole," as Luke Tate, a special assistant to the president for economic mobility, puts it. Food stamps can't be spent on diapers. Medicaid doesn't cover them. Special nutrition benefits for mothers and infants don't come with diapers, either. Federal assistance is designed to help poor families with nearly every essential need from housing to health care, but diapers — a product fundamental to child health that no baby can do without — aren't included
