Also there are restrictions on what it can be used for, no hot food, like a rotisserie chicken from the hot case or prepared dinner from the hot bar. No non food items, like over the counter meds or toiletries, no diapers.
They tried for a while, years ago, to say no junk food, like sodas and candy but that got enough backlash that they gave up on that restriction.
Trump wanted to scrap the whole thing and deliver a box of canned food each month instead, it got a lot of support from people who hate “the poors” and want them to suffer for the crime of being poor, but luckily it did not pass.
There is another program called WIC (pregnant women, infants, children) that does have more restrictions, it’s pretty much a monthly allowance of baby food, milk, canned tuna and peanut butter. The people who want to disallow abortion are doing their best to get rid of that one at the moment.
Oh, interesting. I hadn’t heard of compulsory income management before. The SNAP/EBT program is a little different, in that it is just money for food, not bills and such. That sounds horrible.
In the US people on social security benefits just get money deposited in their bank accounts, but they do have to fill out a form each year saying where all of the money went and there are weird restrictions on how much you can have in savings/income without getting disqualified from your benefits. And you are supposed to even include free food picked up from the food bank in your “income.”
It’s called the benefits cliff- there is a point at which an additional $1 will lose you tens of thousands in medical, nutritional and housing benefits. It’s why the are rules about disabled people being allowed to work for less than minimum wage. It sounds cruel (and it is) but it’s to protect them from losing their health care and subsidized housing because they got a part time job making a couple hundred a week.
It’s designed to keep poor people poor and it’s absolutely evil.
