Please Clarify

Do I actually qualify for food stamps? Not that that's so hard to believe or anything, but the issue came up in conversation at work the other day.

[I don't actually know the prevalence of government assistance at the Strand. People make me uncomfortable, and I tend to avoid conversations with any degree of personal intimacy beyond whether or not I should grow a Tom Selleck moustache. For the purposes of this discussion, let me make it clear that I'm addressing this issue only in regard to the young twenty-somethings that float in and out of the Strand within a few days, weeks, or months, and not longer-term workers with, oh I dunno, kids or spouses or that kind of thing. You know, people that capriciously spend their money on trivial matters like shoes and diapers, as opposed to, say, jug wine and Interpol tickets.]

So within that demographic: is it clever maneuvering to suck off that fat, milky-white government teat, or just time to get another job? It seems like in the time it would take to file the necessary paperwork, you could just fill out a few applications to Urban Outfitters and Starbucks (I say this with minimal irony-- you get benefits a lot quicker, and unlike Strand, you get to wear a sweet apron).

Oops, almost forgot-- blah blah blah I hate my job blah blah grrrrr blah fuckshitpiss BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. Blah.