Food Stamps

[MadMike]

I don't know if this has changed but one thing I hated as a cashier with foodstamps was the people who would send their kids into to the store with a fist full of one dollar food stamps.

I believe that in most, if not all states, recipients are given a card, much like an ATM card, instead of paper stamps these days. Amounts are deducted electronically on the card, and no actually change is given these days.

If I'm wrong, anyone is free to speak up and correct this.

[AFpheonix]

I don't know about other states, but mine does an Oregon Trail card. They can use it as food stamps or as a debit card of sorts.

I don't see them that often in my area and in my line of work, but occasionally I do when they use the cash side to buy some meds, or occasionally there's a lady who's obviously going through cancer treatment who is using it for Ensure until her doctor can get a prior authorization for medicaid to cover it.

While I don't see food stamp abuse, I do see a lot of Medicaid abuse, and let me tell you, it steams my hide when I see someone with a brand new BMW, gabbing on a super-fancy cell phone in brand name clothes toss their Care Oregon card at me. It's one thing if it's just for their kids, and I can try and hope it's for a foster kid, but if it's their name on it, I hope for terrible things to happen to them.

[blas]

I love the EBT card. It's not totally fool proof, but my mother said that it's made scamming and abusin a lot harder. However, with a pin # like a debit card, people can still borrow each other's cards (like, in lieu of drugs and stuff, ya know, if you give me a bag of weed I'll let you buy $20 worth of free food).

I'm a bit jaded because I did get suspended from my job at the grocery store by a woman on Foodstamps complaining about me. She was trying to scam the store with those coupons, accusing me of taking the food right out of her children's mouths and thinking I was evil incarnate for enforcing policy........blah blah blah blah........

[ShortTemperHatesStupidity]

I honestly don't understand this then... I was under the impression that food stamps were paper so you could keep track of what they were actually buying. When ATM cards replaced it, shouldn't they have some sort of itemized receipt to verify what they bought was legit? Not that I'm bitching at any of you, I just don't understand why these people aren't being followed up on, or how things like this could fall through the cracks. I have a flex-spending account for my medical expenses and you better well believe they keep track of what I spend. If it isn't expressly stated that the purchase was from a pharmacy they request receipts within days of the purchase.

This infuriates me to no end. A friend of mine hangs out with this guy who is on disability-goes to the gym a few times a week-he's fine by the way, lives with his parents because he (and I quote) "likes that they take care of him so well"-read brand spankin new car!!, and doesn't bother with a job because "it would reduce or even completely negate his benefits". People like that piss me off... here I am making an honest living, paying my own bills, and the punk down the street is mooching off my hard-earned money.

[Dave1982]

I did love the WIC program...no room for abuse there.

Yes, but WIC has its own set of frustrations. When I worked at a supermarket, 9 out of 10 WIC transactions requried supervisory assistance because people would constantly try and get non-WIC items using a WIC check.

For those of you who dont' know, WIC basically spells out in writing what you can get with the voucher, such as "Deli cheese, up to 1 pound" or something like that. That means exsactly what it says. Not 2 pounds, not even 1.01 pounds. And not the very expensive pre-packaged cheese imported from France.

We had a great big list that had every qualifying item on it. The arguments never ceased.

And then - as has aleady been pointed out - more than a few of these peope would turn around and then purchase vast quantities of cigarettes and/or scratch tickets.

[Ljt09863]

Dave1982, in wisconsin, you can't get Deli cheese. WIC is still VERY strict. you can only get healthy cereals on it. you can get Cheerios, but not Honey Nut Cheerios(hee hee...i have honey here at home, ill add my own!)

i have both WIC and food stamps. i didn't know i could use food stamps for formula till i was being approved for WIC. i formula feed AND nurse the baby, so i guess thats why i get both like i do.

and no,i wouldn't normally get filet mignon and such..lol. id be afraid to buy chips....

but one thing i feel bad about, is that i do have a 2006 dodge stratus. but the deal with me, is we got the car when both of us had jobs, and could afford it. since then, my fiancee lost his job, and things got tighter. if we had seen him losing his job, we never would have gotten the car. personally..i had wanted a used car, but he wouldnt go for it.

i was going to write more, but baby is crying wanting to eat!

[Dave1982]

Dave1982, in wisconsin, you can't get Deli cheese.

Ah. That was probably the case at my store, but it's been over 5 years, so I didn't recall for certain. Still, it serves as an example.

[Kara]

This was one of my constant gripes when I worked at Kroger. Food Stamps and WIC are really great services, the problem is that it's a service people abuse. We would have families come in that had enough kids to constitute a litter, and they would buy KC Strip and Ribeyes, live lobster, imported cheeses, pounds and pounds of select meats from the deli, even caviar (yes, Kroger sold caviar. It was about as good as one would expect from them). Then they would run their Vision card (it's like a debit card with the foodstamp balance on it) and not pay a dime.

Same as WIC. People come in, get the free milk, cheese, eggs, cereal, and so on, then proceed to buy $200 of junk food. WIC is a program to help mothers and children get the nutrition they can't afford on their own, not so the parents can have extra beer money.

My family wasn't dirt poor, but mom and dad had trouble making ends meet, and dad was too proud to ever seek the help of these programs. Sometimes I wondered what kept us going, and I later found out that my parents would go without to make sure my sis and I were taken care of. I've struggled in my life, and some of my friends struggled even more. Services like these are there to help people who need it, but the government only has so much money in the programs to go around. I've seen people who truly need these things denied because there wasn't enough money available (or given only enough to keep their families barely above starving), and it was all because of the ones who decide all they have to do is not work and the government will take care of them.



I have something in my eye, I should probably get down now. Sorry for the rant.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I just don't understand why these people aren't being followed up on, or how things like this could fall through the cracks.

The short answer to that, of course, is "because the government runs it." And because of the millions of people relying on an overloaded system. If your flex account is administered by a private company, they probably have more of an incentive to keep an eye on what's being spent, and frankly more resources to put towards monitoring it.

I've been lucky I've never needed to use any of those programs, but my best friend's sister was on WIC when her daughter was young. She's 6 now and healthy as a horse.

[ShortTemperHatesStupidity]

Damn our government is so lacking it makes me sick! If it weren't for the fact that I have waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many skeletons in my closet I would run for president and fix that.

[musicphreak]

WIC is a good deal, but I've seen it abused a lot and I've learned it does have its loopholes. My bf's sister just had her second kid and is on WIC. Whenever we go visit, she offers to give us about five boxes of cereal and 4-5 jars of peanut butter, sometimes other stuff as well. She told us how much she gets, and if I can remember it's five jars of peanut butter a month (for a two year old and a five month old??) along with 7-8 boxes of cereal and so on...turns out she uses all of her WIC coupons each month and gives us whatever they don't use by the time they get their next batch of vouchers. We're both the typical poor college students so we gladly take it. They also qualify for food stamps, and this weekend she offered to go buy my boyfriend and I some Oreos with them. I scratched my head at that. I tried to apply for food stamps a few months ago (lost my second job, going to school full time, and had $125 in the bank) and was told that since I only worked 14-16 hours a week at my current job AND I'm attending school I didn't qualify (current job isn't set hours, it depends if I get a project to work on or not and I get paid once its done. Some weeks I work 35+ hours, some I work 0 if I don't have a project...it averaged out to the above). If I got another job to boost me up to 20 hours a week work or quit school, then I'd qualify in an instant. If I was working two jobs...I think I'd be able to make enough money so I didn't need food stamps. It made me feel *so* much better when I went grocery shopping a few days later and saw a situation that's been mentioned on here plenty of times...ugh.

[ladylabyrinth]

Damn our government is so lacking it makes me sick! If it weren't for the fact that I have waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many skeletons in my closet I would run for president and fix that.

Heh, I have skellies in my closet too, ain't gonna stop me from running in 2016. I'll get up in front of the podium, throw out ALLLLL my dirty laundry, and say, "Now, can we get back to the REAL issues?"

[Der Cute]

Short Temp:

Paper foodstamps have been rendered useless by the USDA.

They USED to be tender, but are no longer taken by any store whatsoever.

Now the states are handing out cards, which may have up to 2 separate accounts on it; one for food stamp money, one for welfare/ Adult Assistance/ Child Assistance money.

The foodstamp money part of the card can only be used on food not ready to eat, such as flour, fruit, frozen dinners, and seeds (to grow food). Like the old rules.

The welfare money is still on that same card, but not everyone gets it. This is straight cash and can be used for any kind of purchase as needed. ATMs can handle Quest cards for cash withdrawl (to pay bills etc).

This has been a movement from paper checks, paper coupons (easily lost, stolen & forged) to an electronic medium; (not as easily stolen or forged- PIN numbers).

Look at the back of a EBT card. I think the name of JP Morgan and associates should be on it, was on mine. I thnk they (financial institution) are handling the card zapping/ data part of it.

Cutenoob

[TWOLF]

I loved WIC, I think it's a good program, but I always hated the people who would try to use expired checks. The managers at the grocery store could tell the people from wic who were coming in to check up on us. I can't even begin to count the number of times we had to watch those awful training tapes on the program because of the screw up.s

[Gurndigarn]

The short answer to that, of course, is "because the government runs it." And because of the millions of people relying on an overloaded system.

I think it's even worse because the money comes from the federal government, and the supervision is from the individual states. So most people who are running the nuts and bolts of the program have little real incentive to reduce the levels of abuse, because it's not coming from their budgets.

(Let me state fully that this is without any serious research, so I could easily be wrong.)