I personally think that SNAP benefits should be tied to drug tests. I see too many people where I live that "sell" their stamps to other people for cash at half the value of the stamps. Or people will buy cases of pop that is on sale and take it to small mom & pop markets and sell them to them. It's so bad that stores have had to put limits on the number of cases of pop people can buy with their EBT card. I think it would almost be better for some of the SNAP benefits be like WIC where there are specific foods you have to get like milk, cereal, veggies, juice, etc.
Ages ago a boyhood friend opened a small mom & pop grocery store. The area had lots of Section 8 apartments and it was a short walk, in different directions, to a couple of housing projects. I helped him set up his store and get it running.
Around the first of each month recipients could be seen selling their Food Stamps to people out in the open, right outside the store's door. There is a regular market in this shit. The recipient gets half the value of the stamps, in cash.
One woman, we’ll call her Kaneesha, was kind of short and dumpy. She would buy, with Food Stamps, these TV dinners that cost like seven or eight bucks each (yes, everything is expensive in small stores, it seems). One day I made a comment about how good the dinner looked in the package’s picture. She said, “Uum hmmm, they is good. Especially with a liiiddle glass of wine...” Well, she could eat these things while the stamps lasted, anyway.
Another thing the recipients would do, is buy a candy bar or pack of gum for a quarter to get change. The owner set some small minimum purchase amount they had to make in order to get change from a Food Stamp purchase. They would keep buying one item at a time for a one dollar stamp, stick the change in their pocket. Then repeat the process as many times as needed to get the cash they needed to go out drinking, or buy some drugs.
The first of the month was a busy time, with loads of people scamming the welfare system in various ways. I never heard a single recipient mention their children, or how the stamps helped them, or that they were greatful for the government handouts. Nothing. They just wanted to turn the damned stamps into cash. Most people have no clue as to how creative and irresponsible these ‘recipients’ can be.