I struggled like this on $1500 a month. I’m sure my rent was much more than the average rent in Kansas, since I live in Chicago. *After *rent (assuming I could pay it on time), I had $400 a month. I received $95 a month in food stamps for a family of 4 (I hear there have been cuts there since I stopped taking benefits). The maximum TANF benefit is $429 a month. Trust me, they’re struggling. And apparently, most of them *are *learning, as, again, the average time spent on TANF is under 2 years. There’s no need to torture them further while funneling taxpayer money to the banks and EBT agents.
Except the fees don’t need to be $40 in the first place. If the state allows larger transactions, the state can give for example $410 to the recipient and $10 to the EBT vendor. The vendor has apparently had a profitable contract all along without needing such high fees (E Funds Corp. has had the contract for at least a decade); the fees are increasing now solely because the state is requiring lots of little transactions.
As I mentioned earlier, the State of Kansas has an EBT contract with a different vendor (Bank of America) for a different program, unemployment benefits. That program has substantially lower fees for the beneficiary, and the state is not paying substantially more. (At one time, the BoA contract was actually cheaper, although I don’t have current figures.) Why does this contract need to be so much different?
The State of Kansas doesn’t need to require lots of little transactions and lots of fees. They could run the program differently and put more money in the hands of their beneficiaries. They don’t. THAT is the crux of the complaint.
How should the banks and EBT agents be compensated for their services?
However, opening a bank account doesn’t actually avoid these fees anyway. Did you overlook that point?
You cannot have your benefits direct-deposited into a bank account, and you can’t get the funds from the card into a bank account without paying cash withdrawal fees. What then is the point of the bank account?
The most objectionable part of this bill is the lifetime bans on benefits for drug offenders and those living in the same household as someone who committed fraud. Why doesn’t anyone care about that?
Did you even read what I wrote?
I already answered this in post #96.
ONCE AGAIN, the argument is about the size of the transactions. If transactions of reasonable size are permitted, the banks and EBT agents are compensated for their services. I make four withdrawals; I pay four sets of fees.
By mandating that I make twenty transactions to withdraw the same amount of money, the state mandates I pay twenty times as much in fees. That generates more profit for the banks and EBT agents, and reduces the amount I have, for no good reason at all.
Can you answer this: what is the point of mandating I make TWENTY transactions and pay TWENTY sets of fees instead of four?
You struggled, now you don’t need benefits. Couldn’t there be a connection?
Yes, I did. Do you even understand how these cards work?
Whether or not you have a bank account does not affect the fees you will pay under this law. Do you grasp that fact?
So people will struggle harder and need benefits for longer because they are being nickel-and-dimed on all these petty fees. Do you see that connection?
No, and unless you provide a cite, I will continue to believe the implications of the ones I have read. I’m not going to read the actual bill to get a definitive answer assuming it’s even in there, but feel free.
I see that that’s your hypothesis.
So why are you arguing for it if you don’t even know what it says?
You made a mention about Netflix earlier. Care to elaborate?
Mostly 'cause this is the first I’ve heard of it. But sure, I’ll join you on the Outragematron for that part was well.
For me? No, not really. I needed benefits because I couldn’t find a job while I was going to school and taking care of my then-invalid husband. Luckily, being female with children got me food stamps (it wouldn’t have if I was a childless male.) I pulled money out of my 401k every month to support us during that time (and drained it 1 month before I got my first job out of school.) But finishing school with an employable degree was always my plan. I didn’t need to be scared straight.
For some people? Sure, I guess there may be a connection. I think not for most. Most of them are exactly like me, and need a little temporary help through a rough patch before we get our skills, education, health or family relationships in order so we can support ourselves. But, as I’ve said several times, if there is a connection, people are getting it already, as evidenced by the short tenure of most TANF recipients. Unless you have some evidence that further inconveniencing and impoverishing them is going to get them off faster, I don’t see the need.
They can’t withdraw another $5. Very few ATMs dispense anything other than 20 dollar bills (some also dispense tens).
I’m not arguing for the bill–the bill sucks from what I gather.
The articles I have seen quote people that ought to know saying the crap about bank accounts. Until these policies are put into place, exactly how they will do it is probably up in the air to some degree anyway.
Bills are like 20 million pages long and Kansas is a strong contender for worst state. Feel free to cite the relevant passage.
I already said what post I was referring to: it was only a response to that.
No, actually, you did not.
The “state pays the fees” isn’t a practical example.
States have limited resources. What is the difference between these two scenarios?
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State pays for benefits of $420, $0 to the provider.
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State pays for benefits of $410, $10 to the provider.
I understand that you prefer #1, but they’re the same end result.
Look at the example I gave above about the rent. In that scenario, I’m out $34 more because of this law. It’s simply gone. The bills I could have paid with that money won’t get paid; the food or other goods I could have purchased won’t get bought. The money simply vanished into the ether.
If my total household income is only a few hundred to a thousand dollars in the first place, $34 represents a measurable and significant amount of money. Do you disagree with that, or do you simply not know enough about life in poverty?
The policies are already in place. The cards exist now. The change is in the daily disbursement limit. What do you think is “up in the air”?
The old version of the Vision Card manual is at the Wayback Machine; DCF has taken down the current version and it doesn’t appear to be archived anywhere. Read the booklet. There’s nothing in there about making a withdrawal using the card at the bank teller’s window. In fact, they specifically instruct you to use ATMs or the POS machines (both of which charge fees).
This isn’t a Visa or Mastercard; it’s not even a Visa debit card. It is a card specifically for use on the Star, Pulse, and certain other ATM/POS networks. ATM-only cards are kind of rare anymore, but that’s what the state of Kansas picked.
Not to the beneficiary, they’re not the same end result. That’s the argument here.
Moreover, the scenario that’s actually going on with these new transaction limits is more like State pays for benefits of $410, plus $10 to the provider, plus the provider and the ATM owners take another $50 out of that $410, leaving the recipient more like $360.
$360 < $410.