Salon.com > SNAP

Big Soda SNAP-ing up billions off government programs

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:15:00 +0000

As Congress resumes its wrangling over a long-overdue Farm Bill, conservatives are once again attacking their long-time bête noire, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. They’re threatening SNAP (formerly known as the Food Stamp Program and by far the biggest item in the Farm Bill) with everything from mandatory work requirements for participants to deep program-wide budget cuts.

Once the Farm Bill has passed and all the political flatulence has cleared, though, budget hawks and Tea Partiers are unlikely to have succeeded in undermining SNAP. With the economy stagnating, unemployment and inequality festering, employers refusing to pay living wages, and one American in six now facing food insecurity, the bulk of public opinion is behind beefing up food assistance rather than gutting it.

But even among its fans and beneficiaries, there is recognition that SNAP could use some updating, especially with regard to its nutritional impact. So state governments from South Carolina to Maine to Wisconsin are considering legislation that would prohibit the purchase of soft drinks or other junk foods with SNAP credits.

Food stamps can’t buy groceries in Sandy power-out

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:01:00 +0000

Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers continue to live without electricity since Sandy barreled into the East Coast Monday. Stuck without power, many thousands of New York residents don't just struggle to cook and preserve food -- they can't even buy it.

New Yorkers on the state's food stamp program receive money for food necessities electronically, through Electronic Benefit Cards (EBTs). However, with Manhattan from 39th Street southward in power blackout along with parts of Brooklyn, most stores are only able to sell goods for cash. Power is expected to return by Saturday.

In a WNYC report (listen below) a resident of a Lower East Side public-housing complex in Manhattan explained, "The supermarkets don’t even really want to sell anything. They’re open but if you don’t have cash, you messed up. And everybody in these projects, they take EBT … food stamps.” [h/t Colorlines]

Food-stamp reliance at record high, overpayments at all-time low

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:30:00 +0000

While a record number of Americans rely on food stamps, the Department of Agriculture reports that overpayments of aid are at an all time low. According to Bloomberg News, a record 46.68 million Americans received food stamps in July, the most recent month for which data was available.

The percentage of food-stamp payments that were above program guidelines fell to 2.99 percent in the year ending Sept. 30, 2011, the most recent available, according to the department. The overpayment rate was less than half what it was a decade earlier, while the number of recipients more than doubled to 44.7 million people on average in 2011.

Despite an oft-repeated conservative narrative that the food-stamp program is regularly abused, recent government data shows that food-stamp spending lost to fraud or abuse (as opposed to overpayment, or payments being higher than they should have been) amounts to only 1 percent of expenditures.