The ebt program is designed to “supplement” your grocery budget. They expect you to spend a certain amount of your own cash on food. The allowable amount on my state for full ebt is $192.00 per person when there is no household cash to spend on food. For example, if the household spends 100% of their income on rent and utilities, each oerson in that household woild be awarded the full benefit od $192.00 PER PERSON FOR THE MONTH.
Why the individual you mentioned had several cards, I don’t know. It is possible that the state gives out a card for each person in that household. He may have been shopping for others who can’t get around. I have no idea.
I know a man in my city who does that. He does the cooking for that household and he lets people stay there when they are down and out, so sometimes all they have is ebt and no cash. So, the man shops for all because he cooks for all. He doesn’t have to feed them out of his non existent pocket, and they don’t have to worry about food storage on the street.
Consequently, he can shop in bulk...its more economical and they all eat a bit better.
I don’t see any problem with that.
But what you can’t do is assume there’s cheating going on.
The man I spoke of is a vietnam vet with agent orange syndrome. Hes disabled as is his wife, ans are the others he assists.
“He may have been shopping for others who can’t get around.”
I have done that myself and have a friend who does it frequently. And often legal guardians who do not live in the same household do it.
> Consequently, he can shop in bulk...its more economical
I have no problem with what you’re talking about. I’m talking about people buying the name brand cereal while I buy store brand, and buying the most expensive steak while I’m buying the on sale (better cook it today) meat, and buying lobster with EBT cards (I’ve seen it in person, not on 60 minutes). They are not being economical with our money.
WIC buyers are forced to be economical and nutritious. I see a lot of them too. And I’ve paid for many people in front of me who had things not covered by WIC that they didn’t have money for or who were counting coins (not peeling off $100s from a wad like the people I mentioned).
There’s a lot of good that comes from EBT and WIC and other programs. There’s also a lot of fraud. I don’t think we should excuse or ignore fraud because some people are helped. The people who need it would be helped more if the fraud was reduced. I shouldn’t assume fraud in every cases, but other people shouldn’t assume there’s a justifiable excuse either.