New welfare restrictions target booze, tattoos, By Shannon Young (AP), July 18, 2012, Boston Globe: “Taking aim at what they call an abuse of the taxpayers’ money, a growing number of states are blocking welfare recipients from spending their benefits on booze, cigarettes, lottery tickets, casino gambling, tattoos and strippers. ‘If you’re not abusing the program, then you should really have no problem with these reforms,’ said state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell, a Republican pushing for restrictions in Massachusetts. While the crackdown has strong populist appeal in Democratic and GOP states alike in this era of tight budgets and tea party demands for fiscal discipline, advocates for the poor argue that the restrictions are based on stereotypes about people on welfare, and they say the notion of any widespread abuse is a myth. Most people on public assistance, they contend, are single mothers struggling just to get by…”
Tag: Electronic benefit transfers (EBT)
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
- Va. to stagger food-stamp payouts to ease crowding, By Jennifer Jiggetts, July 2, 2012, Virginian-Pilot: “The first of every month, about 440,000 households in the state get their monthly allotment of food stamps – now known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits – and many promptly head to their local grocery stores. Checkout lines can be much longer. Items such as Cheerios and broccoli can disappear from shelves. Some stores bring in extra staff. Only nine states do business this way. Now, that’s about to change in Virginia, as the state Department of Social Services will begin to alter the way it issues SNAP benefits in September. By October the benefits will be dispersed on the 1st, 4th, 7th and 9th of the month, based on the last digit of the recipient’s case number…”
- Funds at risk: Once known as food stamps, SNAP provides food to poor, By Melissa Miller, July 1, 2012, Southeast Missourian: “She used to work two jobs and made good money. Now a health condition keeps her from working full-time. So a 32-year-old Cape Girardeau single mom depends on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, to help her take care of her 3-year-old son. The $342 a month the woman, who asked not to be named, receives from the SNAP program could be cut as part of a plan to save taxpayer dollars and reduce fraud under the 2012 Farm Bill approved in June by the U.S. Senate. The bill, known as the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act, provides subsidies to farmers and funds the USDA’s nutrition assistance programs for low-income Americans…”
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – Minnesota
Minnesota targets food stamp fraud, By Maya Rao, June 1, 2012, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “It’s simple to scam the food stamp program in Minnesota: Sell a benefit card for cash, walk into a county social services office, report the card lost or stolen, and get a new one on the spot. The state issues so many replacements — ranking fourth in the nation for the number of food benefit recipients requesting at least four new cards in a year — that the federal government sent a letter to the Minnesota Department of Human Services this spring highlighting the high numbers as a sign of possible illegal behavior. Minnesota is moving to address the problem. By September, the state will ship food benefit cards by mail — rather than providing them over the counter — and those cards will include the recipient’s name. The state also supports the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s proposal to allow states to more closely monitor recipients who ask for an excessive number of replacement cards, known as EBT cards…”