My daughter was offered a government welfare debit card. At half price. She could have bought $500 of goods by giving the person next door to her $250 in cash. Seems you couldn’t buy booze on the debit card...
My daughter passed on the offer. She didn’t report them because she didn’t want to be beaten up some dark night. Happily, she soon moved to a better neighborhood.
A long time ago I worked in the county food stamp office. That was when they still gave you an authorization to purchase and you turned that into food stamps. No debit cards.
We had people that would come in the office and use their ATP to get the stamps and then when we’d get off work and head out the back door they’d be standing there trying to sell us their food stamps for 50%. I’d just shake my head and walk off.
It’s long been the practice in the hood to use Food Stamps as cash although they trade for less than the printed value.
Still Food Stamps and other freebies function as another form of currency.