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  • 2016-08-31 (xsd:date)
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  • Kentucky SNAP Recipient Is Abusing the System With High Balance? (en)
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  • In August 2016, several viral web sites started circulating a story about a shopper in Liberty, Kentucky, who picked up a receipt dropped by another shopper who was (according to the story) a recipient of food stamps. The unnamed person took a picture of the receipt, showing the shopper spent about $40 at the grocery store Save-A-Lot. But they were floored to see this shopper also had an EBT food balance of $5,583.42: EBT stands for Electronic Benefits Transfer. Funds are dispersed to qualifying beneficiaries from the federal government on debit-like cards for food purchases. According to officials from Food and Nutrition Service (a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP), it's not impossible for a recipient of assistance to have a high balance on their EBT card — but it is highly unlikely. A USDA spokesman told us: It's actually 0.008%, but even if the shopper in Liberty, Kentucky happened to be one of the less than 1 percent of households with a EBT balance over $2,500, the balance in and of itself doesn't represent abuse. Per the USDA: Further, FNS reviewed high-balance holders and found that few of these households exhibit behavior that suggests potential fraud. The states of Texas and Ohio reviewed recipients who accumulated high balances. Findings reflected that those balances resulted largely from frugality — using the funds only when needed or using coupons to cut costs. Some recipients reported transportation problems impeding them from making frequent grocery trips, resulting in accumulation of food benefits. The viral stories don't provide enough information to identify the recipient, nor do they identify the person who posted the picture of the alleged receipt, but Glen Phillips, Jr. claimed in a 22 June 2016 Facebook post to have found the receipt in his driveway. While it's impossible to determine whether an individual in Kentucky really has an EBT food balance of more than $5,000, it would hardly prove they were abusing the system — if it were shown to be true. (en)
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