I receive 281 a month. For awhile they were adding 100 because of covid.
For a few months in 2021 I was working as my exes home aide and making about 1600 a month, that didnt affect it.
Tomatos are inexpensive, as is spaghetti.
A $6 smuckers natural peanut butter can last me a week.
I am so glad you are getting food stamps, and also that they have gone up so much from when I left the job. When you posted that you were 62 and couldn’t afford to go out to breakfast once a month, it really hurt my heart. I sure do wish things were better for you.
Thanks very much for doing that work. Yes, everybody I dealt with seemed both overworked and very kind. I had heard of some bad stories, but suspect they’re uncommon – any group of people is going to have an occasional one who’s hard to deal with.
The problem with the cell phone is that I need to have one that can survive a day with me in the field, which may involve being banged around and//or spending several hours soaking wet; and which actually fits securely in a pocket, allowing for the fact that my pockets are often also full of tools. So basically unless the program will work with the one specific phone I know of that’s designed for this use, it doesn’t help me – I really want to carry the phone, these days, because I’m working alone out in the fields and while I don’t expect my heart or a bad fall to leave me alive but unable to get back to the house, I feel a lot better knowing I can call for help if it happens.
There are definitely local food banks and other food giveaways; but I eat a fairly specific diet that doesn’t include a lot of what I think is usually available (for instance among other things I can’t stand most pastas), and do grow a lot of my vegetables, and I can manage pretty well on the $281. So I hate to take food bank stuff that others do want and probably need worse than I do; and I really don’t want to stand there and take half the stuff back out of the bag and leave it there, it seems ungrateful.
Why’s that? That’s a curious tie-in.
TRIGGER!!!
Food banks tend to be run by volunteers. They WANT to help! They are getting dressed (and many of them wear bras) and going out just because it is very fulfilling to hand out boxes of food. Most of them are retired and find personal gratification volunteering to help the community. A whole bunch of them were raised by Depression parents so don’t want food to be thrown out, so would rather you gave it back instead of taking it home and throwing it away.
We have a food bank for low income folks here and I am friends with one of the head volunteers. He has told me often that they customize boxes for folks because making people take food they don’t want leads to food waste and is just plain mean.
Sorry for yelling, but that is a very sore subject with me.
People want to help, it is ungracious to refuse them.
I never really did know to be honest.
I walked out of that job shortly before I was eligible to retire so the first thing I did during my short window of eligibility was to apply for food stamps because I wanted the half off on my card and the discount on my electric bill…which is actually 25%. A couple of months later, my income went up and I got a letter about the food stamps saying that I was cut off with no recourse and to never darken their doors again. (well, not in those words, but yanno). It’s been over 5 years and we are still getting the 25% off of our electric bill which is pretty nice.
I work in a grocery store, so here’s my take on a few of these questions;
You can buy just about anything that’s considered “food”. Some products, like certain herbal teas and energy drinks, are classified as “supplements” and can’t be purchased with EBT. If the label on the back says “Supplement Facts” instead of “Nutrition Facts” it’s not covered.
At my store EBT is usually about 20-30% of our daily sales. Back during the recession in the early 2010s it would get as high as 70% at the beginning of the month when everyone’s accounts got reloaded. No stigma to speak of.
People have been known to sell their EBT to friends or relatives for cash, usually offering $2 worth of EBT for $1 in foldin’ money. We’re supposed to refuse the transaction if we know such a thing is going on, but there’s usually no way to tell, since we don’t card people for EBT and the cards often don’t have the account-holder’s name on them anyway.
A store has to apply with the state to be able to accept them, but it’s mostly a rubber-stamp process. That right can be revoked if the store isn’t following the rules, e.g. letting people buy non-approved products, or letting them buy something with EBT and then return it and get a cash refund.
Personally, I view it as a kind of federal subsidy on food prices overall. Grocery is a low-margin business - the price we sell products for is usually just barely above cost, and in the end we wind up making maybe 2-3 cents profit on the dollar. If the program didn’t exist, we’d have to charge more for products in order to make a profit, so in a way they help everybody spend less on food, not just the people on the program.
I don’t know exactly how this program works since my store isn’t eligible for it, but some EBT users also get vouchers specifically for buying fresh produce from farmer’s markets, of which we have one downtown. There’s also WIC, a separate program specifically for pregnant/nursing mothers and their children under the age of 5, which gets them a monthly allowance of certain staple foods including fresh produce. WIC benefits mostly aren’t delineated in a dollar amount - instead your monthly benefit is for specific products. It used to come in the form of vouchers that had a specific list on it of what it could be used for (for example, it might say 1 gallon lowfat milk, one dozen eggs, 1 lb. cheese, 1 lb. dry beans, 18 ounces no-added-sugar breakfast cereal, 64 oz. apple or grape juice, and 32 oz. wheat bread), but now it comes on a swipe card that works the same way. The user gets a booklet that shows what specific brands and products they can choose from for each item. For fresh produce, they are given a dollar amount that they can use to buy pretty much any produce they choose except for herbs (potatoes used to be excluded but they’re allowed now.) When the pandemic happened, they made a lot more items WIC-eligible and people could also get canned or frozen produce, but I’m not sure how much of that is still in effect since I don’t cashier very often these days.
I have food allergies that restrict my diet, and my spouse had dietary issues due to diabetes - the few times I had to visit food banks and the like and we were handed bags I did, in fact, wind up leaving about half the bag of food behind because I would not have been able to use it. It didn’t seem to be a problem and presumably it went to someone else. Poor people have health conditions, personal preferences, and in some cases religious requirements just like wealthy people.
Other times the food pantry is like a small store - you go in and take what you want. Some items are limited in quantity, so, for example, if they had canned hams you might be limited to one per “customer” but other items had no limits.
Food pantries/banks these days also often have toiletries and cleaning supplies like dish soap, usually in small portions (travel size for deodorant, for example).
You might want to check out those in your area at some point. If you don’t find them useful that’s fine, what’s in them will go to someone else. If you do find them useful for one thing or another that’s great. They are there to help people and if you qualify you can use them to the extent you find them useful.
Commissaries (grocery stores on military bases) accept SNAP:
Payment. Commissaries accept cash, personal checks, traveler’s checks, and debit and credit cards. Electronic benefit transfer cards for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (formerly the Food Stamps program), as well as WIC vouchers, are accepted in the U.S., including Puerto Rico and Guam. Commissaries overseas accept the overseas military-issued WIC vouchers for military families.
Another thing is that it is legal for someone other than the account holder to shop for groceries for that person if they are unable to do their shopping (elderly, disabled, medical reasons - we have some customers who do not come out in severe winter weather, etc.) So we have “kids” in their 50’s shopping for mom and dad in their 70’s or 80’s.
I suspect when there is fraud it usually involves the application process or some sort of organized crime thing.
And thank Og for that - those paper vouchers were a pain in the ass. The swipe card makes it soooooo much easier to ring up these customers. Although it doesn’t eliminate the problem of “no, that container is 1 oz too large/too small so even though it’s the exact same thing it doesn’t qualify” or “no, you can’t substitute two 8 ounce containers of this for a 16 ounce container”.
At my store the cashiers get a copy, too.
If I get a chance today at work maybe I can take a look at our info and see if that is still the case or not.
Indeed. When WIC was on paper checks, we had to run each check as a separate transaction, and people would be using as many as 10 checks at once, meaning they had to separate their cartload and it took AGES to deal with it all and held up the line while we verified everything on the check and had them sign and date it, and that was assuming they had all the right stuff as opposed to the times when the woman sent her husband to do the shopping and he had NO IDEA what he was supposed to get. These days we get to ring up all their stuff together, they swipe the WIC card, it takes the WIC-eligible stuff off the bill, and then they just pay for the rest.
The fruit juice was absolutely the WORST in the paper check days, because WIC had “juice for children” and “juice for mothers” as two separate benefits. Lots of juices (in 64 oz. bottles) were covered for kids, but the benefit for moms ONLY covered apple juice, tomato juice, or V8 (in 46 oz. bottles or cans). I lost track of how many arguments I had to get into with people who had the juice for mothers on their check who were trying to buy cran-grape or pineapple or OJ because “it says juice!” and then not understanding when I tried to explain that they had the 46 oz. and not the 64 oz., and showing them the difference in the booklet. Recently, one of the dairies that supplies us with milk downsized their half-gallons to 59 oz., which means they’re no longer covered by WIC, and that’s caused a LOT of problems with customers used to getting that band.
I don’t know if that’s still the case, but I haven’t had to argue the point once since we switched from checks to cards.
Also true. When I was a teenager, my mom often sent me to the store with her EBT card. I’d get a suspicious look from cashiers now and then, but when I explained it was my mom’s card they never had an issue with it.
This completely skips over the question of what an “MMJ card” is. Please enlighten the clueless amongst us.
Back in the day when “food stamps” were really stamps (a small booklet of scrip akin to Monopoly money actually) selling some or all of your booklet for real US cash was a lot easier. And nearly impossible for the stores to detect. As was the opportunity for organized crime to counterfeit the booklets and sell them for well below face value. The scrip had some security features, but nothing compared to what was done for US currency.
Another common scam in those days was to buy an apple or other small item, proffer a $20 food stamp coupon as “the only denomination I’ve got”, receive e.g. $19.50 in change then buy a pack of cigarettes or other non-covered goods in a separate transaction with the US cash change. There were eventually some limits put on how much change could be given, and how much stores had to police against this scam, but it still went on a lot more than it does now in the EBT era.
Medical Marijuana, I believe.
Also, I want to thank @JaneDoe42, @Broomstick, @Smapti, and everyone who’s shared some really good, interesting information in this thread. I feel like I’ve learned a lot.
Apologies!
but that’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid doing?
Yes, I wouldn’t want to take food home only to throw it out! – and see my reply to Broomstick later in this post.
The Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program gives coupons good only on fresh produce at farmers’ markets to income-eligible seniors and to WIC recipients. They haven’t changed the amount per person in some years – it’s only $20, in the form of $4 coupons – so it doesn’t go very far; but they’re a lot better than nothing, and we get customers waiting anxiously every year for them to come out. Usually all our produce vendors take them – they’re much simpler for the farmers to deal with than any of the SNAP setup; and the SNAP setup requires you to give SNAP access to your bank account from which they can take funds back out without notice, potentially causing huge problems to anyone whose account sometimes runs low.
There’s a different SNAP setup for markets as a whole involving tokens, but there has to be somebody at the market to administer that. Larger markets have paid managers who can deal with this, but ours is all volunteer labor from vendors many of whom run out stalls alone, and nobody’s able to guarantee to have the time at market to deal with this process.
I’ve been at the local food pantries on the other end – delivering produce while they’re setting up. (I sometimes have produce left over from market which won’t keep, doesn’t freeze well (or my freezer’s already full of it), and is more than I can eat – extra lettuce, for example.) The produce is set out on tables for people to choose what they want; but other items go into pre-filled bags. And most of what I see going into those bags is things that for one reason or another I can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t want to eat. Much of it is things I’d eat if I couldn’t get what I do usually eat – but what I do usually eat I can grow or get with SNAP. And the food pantries have long lines – they’re definitely not short on people who do want and need what they’re giving out.
Wow, that is not thought through at all. Half of the 16 oz container may go bad before that particular customer will eat all of it.
Nowadays when they have canned food drives, I’ve seen them say that they also take toiletries. These can be just as important.
The church that I attend regularly holds food drives in support of a local food pantry; that pantry’s website lists a range of personal care items (toothpaste, shampoo, toilet paper, etc.) as among the items for which they have the greatest need.
The program is monitored in a lot of ways. Posters have already mentioned that applicants are required to submit a wide range of documentation to verify their household circumstances for eligibility determination and benefit calculation. Eligibility workers often have a range of other resources to use to verify aspects of the case, like access to various databases to verify earnings, income from other government programs, citizenship, whether you’re still alive and not in prison, etc. As Jane Doe described, multiple workers touch every case.
The official payment error rate and other metrics are determined through the SNAP Quality Control process. Each state randomly samples about 1000 cases each year and does a very thorough examination of all case elements. They also re-interview the household. If the case is found to be receiving more than $54 too much or too little, the case is deemed to be in error. The federal government re-reviews a subsample and uses a combination of state findings and federal findings to calculate official rates. The most recent published error rates are from 2019 because of COVID. Cases that are found to be in error will receive additional funds to cover a shortfall or will be required to pay back any excess benefits they received.
Retailers are also highly monitored. There are many requirements to be a SNAP authorized retailer, especially around minimum stocking requirements for a range of staple foods. All stores are inspected as part of the application process to ensure they really exist and they have the required foods on their shelves. All SNAP transactions go through the federal government. USDA has a data analysis team that monitors transactions and looks at the data for indicators that something suspicious is going on at a specific retailer. For obvious reasons, they do not share the specifics about what they’re looking for, but you can imagine that some things look dodgy, like a wildly disproportionate number of transactions for exactly $100. If USDA finds something suspicious, they may send investigators to the store, they may just send a letter describing their concerns and expectations to the store, or they may work with local law enforcement. Stores found guilty of trafficking or selling unapproved items are typically fined and/or removed from the program, at least temporarily. Individual employees or owners may be arrested.
States have staff who investigate program participants who are suspected of program violations. Households may be referred to investigation if a tip comes in through a hotline, if an eligibility worker finds something they suspect is fraudulent, or based on a federal retailer trafficking/fraud investigation. Participants found guilty of intentional program violations are typically removed from the program (temporarily or permanently) and expected to pay back benefits they should not have received.
All that being said, the scope of fraud/trafficking in SNAP is really low. If you want to see big dollar fraud, you need to go to Medicaid. But, because SNAP is politically sensitive, legislation and regulation require all this time and expense so we can be pretty confident taxpayer dollars are going where they’re intended.
To be eligible, households must receive less than 130% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines in gross income, less than 100% of the FPG in net income, and have relatively few assets.
A household is a group of people who live together and purchase and prepare food together. Spouses must be in the same household if they live together. Children must be in the same household as their parents if they live together and the kid is younger than 22. “Purchase and prepare” is not all that well defined.
Gross income is cash income from all sources: earnings, disability, social security, whatever.
Net income is calculated by deducting several things from gross income. All households receive a standard deduction, currently $193 for a household of 4. 20% of all earned income is deducted. Some shelter costs, dependent care, and medical expenses may be deducted. The treatment of child support is complicated and varies by state.
Asset limits are currently around $3500. Cash accounts are typically considered assets. Vehicles are, too, with a ton of caveats.
Many states have selected a policy option called broad-based categorical eligibility that allows them to waive asset limits and increase gross income limits, so the above only applies in some locations. Those rules are also tweaked to be more generous to households with elderly or disabled members.
Maximum benefit levels are based on the Thrifty Food Plan, published by USDA. The Thrifty is intended to be a set of foods that provides a low-cost but nutritious diet. USDA updates the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan market basket routinely. This is used to adjust SNAP benefit levels each year. Right now, a 4-person household receives a maximum of $939.
The bottom line: A household’s benefit level is calculated by subtracting 30% of their net income from the maximum benefit level for a household of their size.
Legislation imposes several types of work requirements on certain SNAP participants. Work requirements are popular with certain political types, but there’s no real evidence they’re effective at getting people into long-term employment. The requirements also increase the costs of administering the program and they prevent some people from accessing benefits. I’d get rid of them.
@BetsQ
It’s obvious you’re “in the biz” as we say. Thanks for your expertise.
@LSLGuy , my particular area of expertise is so rarely relevant around these parts!