- Rules tighten on TANF recipients, By Scott Rothschild, May 1, 2013, Lawrence Journal-World: “Low-income mothers in Kansas will have to participate in a work program sooner after giving birth to receive cash assistance, according to new rules by the Kansas Department for Children and Families. The changes will ‘bring expectations more in line with what the expectations are in the private sector, since that is what an employee can expect to receive from an employer,’ said Angela de Rocha, a spokeswoman for DCF. The changes deal with a program called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families…”
- Committee approves welfare bills to drug test some recipients, prohibit purchases of alcohol, tattoos and tobacco, By Kim Chandler, May 2, 2013, Birmingham News: “The House State Government Committee today approved a bill to drug test welfare recipients with a history of drug offenses. The committee also approved another bill to prohibit people from using welfare benefits to buy booze, cigarettes, lottery tickets or advice on the psychic hotline. Both bills now move to the floor of the House of Representatives. The bill by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, would prohibit recipients from using benefits to purchase alcoholic beverages, tobacco products, lottery tickets and from using those benefits in bars, casinos, tattoo facilities, psychic parlors or strip clubs…”
Tag: Electronic benefit transfers (EBT)
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – Rhode Island
Food stamps put Rhode Island town on monthly boom-and-bust cycle, By Eli Saslow, March 16, 2013, Washington Post: “The economy of Woonsocket was about to stir to life. Delivery trucks were moving down river roads, and stores were extending their hours. The bus company was warning riders to anticipate ‘heavy traffic.’ A community bank, soon to experience a surge in deposits, was rolling a message across its electronic marquee on the night of Feb. 28: ‘Happy shopping! Enjoy the 1st.’ In the heart of downtown, Miguel Pichardo, 53, watched three trucks jockey for position at the loading dock of his family-run International Meat Market. For most of the month, his business operated as a humble milk-and-eggs corner store, but now 3,000 pounds of product were scheduled for delivery in the next few hours. He wiped the front counter and smoothed the edges of a sign posted near his register. ‘Yes! We take Food Stamps, SNAP, EBT!’ ‘Today, we fill the store up with everything,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, we sell it all.’ At precisely one second after midnight, on March 1, Woonsocket would experience its monthly financial windfall — nearly $2 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps…”
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
Food stamps and the politics of poverty, By Shereen Marisol Meraji, October 30, 2012, Marketplace: “Andrea Waterstreet is 44, single and doesn’t have children. She grew up in middle class suburbia and worked for 25 years, mostly as a waitress. But when she was diagnosed with a chronic illness and became too sick to work, she quit her job. That was in 2008. ‘I’ve been working since I was 14 or 15,’ says Waterstreet. ‘And this is something I never thought would happen.’ She covered her bills using unemployment benefits until they ran out in 2009. Waterstreet says she lives simply in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco with roommates, doesn’t have a car and has a pay-as-you-go cell phone. ‘It’s been a couple of years of living off nothing at all,’ she says. Nothing but a few hundred dollars from her parents for rent. And food stamps, though she doesn’t use that term…”