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WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans are laying the groundwork for a fresh effort to overhaul the food stamp program during Donald Trump's presidency, with the possibility of new work and eligibility requirements for millions of people. The GOP majority on the House Agriculture Committee released a two-year review of the program on Wednesday that stops short of making specific policy recommendations, but hints at areas where Republicans could focus: strengthening work requirements and perhaps issuing new ones, tightening some eligibility requirements or providing new incentives to encourage food stamp recipients to buy healthier foods.

BALTIMORE (WBFF) -- More than a dozen Baltimore-area retailers are accused of misusing food stamps and defrauding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) of millions of dollars. The indictments, announced Tuesday, come roughly three years after nine local retailers were charged in what prosecutors described as a "$7 million scheme" of trading food stamps for cash. All the defendants in that case were convicted. "Last year the Dept. of Agriculture Inspector General brought to our attention that many Baltimore-area retailers were continuing to rip-off the food stamp program," United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein said...

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that 750,000 additional working families are now eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – or SNAP– which helps fight hunger among working New Yorkers.

Gov. Chris Christie rejected legislation Thursday that would have raised monthly welfare benefits for the first time in 30 years, and would have restored $7.5 million in grants for women's clinics which he eliminated when he first took office in 2010. In veto statements released just before 10 p.m. — two hours before the start of the new fiscal year — the governor said his actions "protected taxpayers" from the "irresponsible" spending by the Democrats who control the Legislature. "Unfortunately, the Legislature has continued its annual ritual of attempting to pass additional unbudgeted spending for selected interests," according to Christie's...

Maine Gov. Paul LePage may have considered a proposal to prohibit food stamp recipients from using their benefits to buy candy and sodas to be a sweet one, but the Obama administration disagrees. The friction between the Republican governor and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reignited a debate after the Obama administration denied LePage’s request to put restrictions on what can be purchased with food stamps. In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, LePage said: “It’s time for the federal government to wake up and smell the energy drinks.” In an interview with The Daily Signal, LePage’s health...

There are stories that confirm our worries that the whole industrial system is about to come apart; and then there are stories that scare the crap out of us because they indicate that the collapse is ongoing and accelerating. This is one of those latter stories, one of those pre-apocalyptic cracks of doom that, like thunder, tell you it’s time to get ready. A Google search this morning finds no mention of this story in the industrial media, but it rages in the alternative sources (many of whom are weaving it into their previously established conspiracy theories as a deliberate...

President Obama’s expanded food-stamp program certifying flea market retailers as vendors to provide low-income neighborhoods with fresh produce has ripped open a Pandora’s Box of fraud and corruption. This week federal authorities in south Florida busted the largest food-stamp fraud operation in U.S. history. Twenty-two defendants in the largely black and Hispanic areas of Miami-Dade County known as Opa-Locka and Hialeah swindled the government out of $13 million by fraudulently trading food stamps for cash. The crooked vendors operated food and produce stands at a local flea market as part of First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative to eradicate “food deserts,”...

Biographer Kate Clifford Larson has noted Tubman was comfortable with guns: Harriet Tubman carried a small pistol with her on her rescue missions, mostly for protection from slave catchers, but also to encourage weak-hearted runaways from turning back and risking the safety of the rest of the group. Tubman carried a sharp-shooters rifle during the Civil War. Harriet Tubman’s pistol and saber are on display at the Florida A & M University (FAMU) Black Archives in Tallahassee, Florida. With an image like that, people would work harder just so they could have more Harriet Tubmans in their pockets. We...

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Sedgwick County commissioners are being warned by the state not to ask participants in the federal Women, Infants and Children program about their citizenship. The Wichita Eagle reports the Kansas Department of Health and Environment says asking about immigration status before the state changes eligibility requirements could result in termination of the county's contract to operate WIC.

The Republican bill would hold those who intentionally make illegal purchases under the law to existing penalties for violations including making false statements on forms. A first violation is a one-year suspension, the second is two years, and the third is a lifetime ban. Democrats have said that is too harsh for a violation as small as buying a pack of cigarettes. In their version, the penalty for a first violation would be restitution, the second would be a maximum three-month suspension, and it would be a six-month maximum for subsequent violations. Advocates of the bill have said the department...

MADISON COUNTY, MS (Mississippi News Now) - Thousands of Mississippians receiving food stamp benefits no longer qualify for them under new government requirements. The new policy requires that single people between the ages of 18 and 49 who are able to work put in at least 20 or more hours on the job, volunteer, or enroll in a job-training program. While many folks admit they are not happy about this change, Food banks are bracing for the large number of low income families in need. "I thought it was rude and mean," said Mary Riley Walker. "You say if we...

There used to be a rule in place – part of the sadly abandoned movements toward welfare reform in the 80s and 90s – which required food stamps recipients to do at least some work in order to receive the benefits if they were childless and able bodied. That rule was suspended in most places since the beginning of the crash in 2007, but now that unemployment is allegedly back down to nominal levels and the economy is “stable” across most of the country, that exception is being rolled back. This, of course, has liberals up in arms. (WaPo) The...

About 45 million people receive benefits in the food stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal-leaning research and advocacy group, estimates that 500,000 to 1 million people will lose benefits this year. The federal Food and Nutrition Service said many adults would need to take steps to meet work requirements or risk losing aid. . . . Ellen M. Vollinger, legal director of the Food Research and Action Center, an advocacy group, noted that the poet T.S. Eliot had described April as "the cruelest month," and...

More Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, but applications still stayed near historic lows that point to a stable job market. […] Weekly jobless claims have remained below the crucial threshold of 300,000 for more than a year, a level that usually corresponds with monthly gains in excess of 200,000. Economists expect that Friday’s jobs report will show that employers hired roughly 200,000 workers in February as the unemployment rate held at an eight-year low of 4.9 percent. …

Ten U.S. states still have not regained all the jobs they lost in the Great Recession, even after six and a half years of recovery, while many more have seen only modest gains. […] Wyoming had 3 percent fewer jobs last month than it did in December 2007, when the recession began, the Labor Department said Friday. That is the biggest percentage decline among the states. Alabama's job total trails its pre-recession level by 2.7 percent, followed by New Mexico, where job totals are 2.6 percent lower. Some larger states are also still behind. New Jersey has nearly 1 percent...

President Barack Obama responded to reports of slow job growth Friday by blaming Republicans who have opposed parts of his economic agenda. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report found the economy added 242,000 new jobs in February. The latest number highlights a long-running trend of slow, yet positive, economic growth. Obama credits the growth to his agenda but its slowness to Republicans for their opposition to his plan. “The plans that we have put in place to grow the economy have worked,” the president declared in the Oval Office. “They would work even faster if we did not have...

Despite the unemployment rate being at an eight-year low (4.9 percent as of January 2016), the number of people on food stamps remains near an all-time high which was 47,636,000 in 2013. Why the disparity in the numbers? Well, the unemployment rate does not take into account people who are not in, or have dropped out of, the workforce altogether. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January of this year that approximately 94 million Americans are not participating in the workforce. But the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has been hovering around 46 million participants since 2011. ...

Author's Note: The email referenced in this column was composed by Chris Moore of East Carolina University, Michael Behrent of Appalachian State University, Jason Sturdevant of North Carolina State University, and Altha Cravey of the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Please feel free to email these public servants with your thoughts.Dear Faculty Forward Network (info@facultyforwardnetwork.org): I received your recent email on educational inclusiveness and diversity with great interest. I have written three books, spoken on 88 university campuses, and written approximately 1000 columns on the subject in the last 13 years. This was the first time I've ever...

Retailers that accept food stamps would have to start stocking a wider variety of healthy foods or face the loss of consumers under proposed rules expected to be announced by the Agriculture Department on Tuesday. The rules are designed to ensure that the more than 46 million Americans who use food stamps have better access to healthy foods although they don't dictate what people buy or eat. A person using food stamp dollars could still purchase as much junk food as they wanted, but they would at least have more options in the store to buy fruits, vegetables, dairy, meats...

More than 1 million low-income residents in 21 states could soon lose their government food stamps if they fail to meet work requirements that began kicking in this month. The rule change in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was triggered by the improving economy - specifically, falling unemployment. But it is raising concerns among the poor, social service providers and food pantry workers, who fear an influx of hungry people. Recent experience in other states indicates that most of those affected will probably not meet the work requirements and will be cut off from food stamps. ...