Let's hope your busking is better than your ability to search google.
Texas Tightening Food Stamp Eligibility by Requiring Drug Testing
[Posted 01/22/2009] Texas is implementing requirements for drug testing as of September, 2009, that focus on food stamp eligibility. HB354 puts in effect several steps to look at drug-related offenses prior to applying for food stamps and to monitor for drug use once accepted into the program.
Texas Tightening Food Stamp Eligibility by Requiring Drug Testing
Drug tests sought for those getting assistance
An Eastern Panhandle lawmaker is attempting to craft a
bill for the 2009 legislative session that would require anyone on welfare, food stamps or unemployment benefits to undergo random drug testing.
Under the tentative plan in mind by Delegate Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, it would be two strikes and you’re out.
“It’s pretty simple,” Blair said Monday, when asked why he is pursuing such legislation in West Virginia.
“If you go out here and want a good job, most of the time, we have to sign off and say, ‘Hey, it’s OK, I submit to random drug testing on the job. That’s part of the deal you make whenever you get a job. It’s sort of crazy, in my opinion, and I think in the general public’s opinion, when they’re on the dole with the state, we’re subsidizing their income one way or another, that they don’t have to submit to the same thing.”
Blair wants to compel anyone collecting food stamps, welfare checks or jobless benefits to submit to random testing. If the first test proves positive, under his proposal, a second one would be mandatory in two months, allowing the recipient that much time to clean up his act, or face a cutoff of government relief.
The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia - Drug tests sought for those getting assistance
oh, and for both of you..
Businesses, police fight food stamp trafficking
PUBLISHED: 02/17/2009
Last Sunday, a man in a hooded sweatshirt stood outside the Aldi grocery store on Franklin Avenue attempting to receive cash for his federally assisted food supplements, colloquially known as food stamps.
This is a familiar sight outside many grocery stores in the city, and has posed a problem for Minneapolis police for years.
“I’ve spent 12-and-a-half years on the street, and I can tell you that it’s nothing new,” Minneapolis police Sgt. Bill Palmer said.
Beth Lanis, a cashier at Aldi and University of Minnesota alumna, said she sees illegal food stamp transactions occur almost every day.
“They talk to people, kind of hustle them a little bit,” Lanis said.
Catching and prosecuting Electronic Benefits Transaction (EBT) — the electronic form of food stamps — trafficking can be extremely difficult for store employees. Lanis said the cashiers have to actually see the transaction take place between the two parties to officially report abuse to the Department of Agriculture.
Most trafficking occurs between three and six o’clock, a store’s busy hours, because that is when there is the most traffic outside of the store, Lanis said.
In 2004, all 50 states phased out physical food stamps and switched to EBT to increase efficiency and effectiveness of program operations for both administrators and recipients.
People sell funds in front of stores, and offer to go into the store and buy groceries for an incoming customer. Once purchased, the EBT beneficiaries sell the groceries to the customer for cash.
Food stamp benefits can only be redeemed for food or seeds .
In the past, traffickers that received food stamp benefits physically sold their paper stamps for a discounted amount of cash.
Unfortunately for police, the switch to the EBT card hasn’t stopped welfare fraud.
Paul Feeney, general counsel for the Office of the Inspector General (OIG), says the OIG does plenty of investigating into EBT fraud . Food stamp benefits account for more than $40 billion of the federal budget annually, according to the OIG’s semiannual report to Congress.
Last February, the OIG testified before the House of Representatives, and called for greater controls over the regulation and distribution of subsidized food benefits.
People receiving food assistance through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the Food Stamp Program, receive a set amount of benefits every month.
In order to receive food stamps, a person or family must be below the poverty threshold defined by the U.S. Census Bureau. The poverty threshold for an unmarried person with no children is $10,301, while a four-person family must make less than $22,207 per year in order to receive food stamp benefits.
People pushing EBT benefits are willing to pay as low as half-price for goods, Frederick Gibbs, a security guard at Aldi, said.
“People come in and say, ‘it’s my money, and I want cash for it’,” Gibbs said. “People may have all the food they need for the month, and they can’t redeem food stamps for cash, so they have to get that money somehow.”
While Aldi employs a security guard that watches for illegal activity in and around the store, it’s often not possible for Gibbs and cashiers to always be vigilant about food stamp trafficking.
“It’s not like we can stop them,” Lanis said. “It’s none of our business; I guess that’s our policy."
Businesses, police fight food stamp trafficking | mndaily.com - Serving the University of Minnesota Since 1900
