Sure.. is it anywhere near the normal situation? Fuck no

I would argue the opposite. Where i live it's absolutely the norm. People texting on their iphones while buying candy and soda with their food stamp card. It used to be a "wow look at that person with an iphone using ebt that's crazy" to just "yeah, seems about right". I personally know people who drive 25k cars and own 70 inch hd tv's using food stamps and getting section 8 housing. Hell, my neighbor has a bmw suv and a 500 dollar beater car in her driveway. She drives the bmw daily and drives the beater when she goes to the cfs building because "they sometimes watch you pull up" as she puts it. I can't really blame people because i abuse the unholy fuck out of the system when i can... But to act like it's not normal is just being blind to the situation in my opinion.