Food stamp system to go down across New York this weekend

Syracuse.com ^ | 9-19-14 | Marnie Eisenstadt

[dynachrome]

Shop now if you depend on food stamps or cash assistance from New York.

Neither will work starting early Sunday morning. The system will go down at midnight and isn't expected to come back online until noon Sunday.

It's being shut down so the state can switch to a new company to run the program. It will take at least 12 hours to do the switch. Medicaid benefits are on the same card, but they will not be affected by the change.

Nearly a third of the city's residents rely on food stamps, according to U.S. Census data.

Toni Maxwell, a spokeswoman for Catholic Charities of Onondaga County, said her concern is that the switch won't go smoothly and will end up taking longer than expected.

[dynachrome]

Time to burn down Walmart! Gimmedats and the free "stuff" army will be upset.

[donozark]

The switch will go at least as smoothly as Obamacare did.

[mikrofon]

[Responsibility2nd]

This should be interesting.

“Nobody done tol’ me my EBT cards ain’t goin to work this weekend! How’s I spose to feed my chillren?”

[hal ogen]

Many of those on food stamps have enough personal lard that they could go at least a month without eating anything.

[Mark]

Nearly a third of the city's residents rely on food stamps, according to U.S. Census data.

We are in a recovery, damn it!

[kevao]

Nearly a third of the city's residents rely on food stamps, according to U.S. Census data.

Wow!

[silverleaf]

any grocery store that opens on Sunday and/or keeps a lot of inventory on its shelves (especially steak and lobsta) is asking to be looted when the system is “late” coming back up

as WalMart learned

[Graybeard58]

The numbers for the country in general is more than 40%. N.Y. is not that bad.

[Graybeard58]

My bad - more than 40,000,000 people not 40%, so I guess N.Y. is bad after all..

[rbg81]

Yup, let the looting being.

And no one will be arrested or prosecuted.

[dennisw]

lol....lotsa nasty remarks here

[factoryrat]

The lootings will continue until the EBT cards are refilled.

[RightGeek]

[MaxMax]

Is Walmart hiring extra security?

[lightman]

Good.

They ought to be in church instead of shopping.

[kevao]

The system will go down at midnight and isn't expected to come back online until noon Sunday.

Most of these folks aren't up by noon on Sunday (or any other day for that matter) anyway, so who will notice?

[RetiredTexasVet]

Seems to conflict with the previous article that “the economy is firing on all cylinders”. I think that any firing will consist of “gibmedats” fighting over the loot.

[CdMGuy]

It’s pool time, and I don’t mean swimming. How about starting a pool as to what time on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday, etc. this system comes back on line. Of course, one could bet that it does not come back on line, and they have to revert to the former provider’s software.

Then, we have the issue of how many of dem folks will be rioting at WalMart, Sam’s Club and other such delightful places as dem folks realize they cannot purchase anything. The po’leece may be quite busy by Sunday afternoon in NYC.

As for that pool, I could even hazard a guess beyond predicting that the system will not be working by Noon on Sunday.

[Veggie Todd]

But how am I going to buy my football fixin’s to watch the games on my 72” tv? NY be racist and sheet.