July 28, 2011--EBT Cards

It was stormy here and I was having difficulty staying asleep and so I again last night tuned into Red Eye Radio, Doug McIntyre's unusually intelligent overnight talk show. Most of the calls were about the deadlock over extending the debt ceiling and the overall state of the economy, especially as it affects working people.

It was 3:40 AM in Indiana when Doris called. She was out delivering USA Today to supplement her income. During the rest of the day she works as a checkout clerk at a supermarket. She is a divorced mother of two--college and a high school sophomores.

She was angry but not ranting about some of her customers with EBT cards.

Electronic Benefits Transfer Cards look like ordinary debit cards and allow low-income people to charge food to their Food Stamps account. Doris was not questioning the need for the Food Stamps Program, just, she claimed, that it allows recipients to, as she put it, "eat better than me."

There is some out-and-out fraud and abuse--she and McIntyre both spoke about a video on YouTube of someone filmed on an iPhone who paid for a basket of food with his EBT card and then proceeded to load his groceries into a $40,000 Land Rover--but Doris was pointing to the fact that you can, for example, buy "gourmet cheese" with an EBT card and any cut of meat your Food Stamps monthly limit will allow.

As long as this federally-funded but state-administered program allows that, Doris from Indiana posed with rising frustration, what incentive is there for many able-bodied recipients to work?

McIntyre noted that most who are eligible for SNAP benefits (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is the successor to the Food Stamps Program) are children and older and disabled people who are not capable of working. "How," he put to Doris, "would you deal with them? Let them starve?"

"No, of course not," she said, "But there must be a better way to administer the program."

SNAP serves 40.3 million people, about 15 percent of the U.S. population. To be eligible a family of four has to have a net income equal to or less than $1,838 a month--the official poverty level. Those in greatest need--earning much less than that--can receive up to $668 a month in assistance; but the national average is $227.

Federal and state guidelines allow SNAP recipients to buy cheese, including what Doris would consider to be gourmet; but unless parents are not using their SNAP money to buy milk and eggs and bread and chopped meat, I suspect very few have much left to buy fancier foods.

But Doris' frustration should not too quickly be dismissed by those of us fortunate enough not to have to rely on Food Stamps or, for that matter, by what I have just said about the limits of the program and how there is no evidence that more than a small percentage are taking advantage of it.

Even as a liberal, out of a version of fairness, I am not sure I want to see low-income people able to by imported cheese paid for by hard-working but struggling taxpayers. If we were to agree to this largely symbolic restriction, with bar codes and such, it would be as easy to control what can be purchased with EBT cards as the program has ways not to allow recipients to buy pet food, cigarettes, or alcoholic beverages.

This may seem mean-spirited but there are more than 40.3 million Dorises working at least two jobs who are barely managing to stay above water and it feels unfair to expect them to subsidize more than basic assistance for those with legitimate needs.

If I needed more insight into what is contributing to fueling the frustration and anger of an increasing number of Americans it is the kind of things that are on Doris's mind. We need to do more to clean up our act if we are ever again to become one people.