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How Techies Rescued Food Stamps (wired.com)
New submitter rgh02 writes: There is an endless variety of apps designed to manage life for the upper middle class, but most low-income Americans don't benefit from the same time-saving hacks. Thanks to new trends in civic technology, that's beginning to change. The 43 million Americans depending on food stamps are seeing the introduction of apps like Propel's Fresh EBT, which allows users to check balances, track deals, and organize budgets accordingly. And Propel is only one of several companies looking to disrupt outdated social programs, Tonya Riley reports at Backchannel. But the Trump administration, with its hiring freezes and budget cuts, poses threats to these advancements. Riley dives deep into the progress that's been made and how companies are navigating these obstacles.
You have a steady job, buy a phone. Lose the job, can't find another, manage to get food stamps. Voila, you have a phone and welfare.
1. If a person is on food stamps, they pretty much should not have enough money to buy a smartphone with data plan to use EBT apps....?
Social programs should be designed, not to help people be poor, but to help them OUT of poverty. A used smartphone costs $20, the cost of groceries for one day. The apps can use Wifi, so no "data plan" is needed. But having a cellphone can make a big difference in a person's ability to find a job, deal with childcare, and manage their life.
Rather than prohibiting smartphones, it may make more sense to make them mandatory.
2. One argument against making social programs like food stamps easier...is that making them a PAIN IN THE ASS might help encourage folks to double down on work and education,
It is a dumb argument. By making benefits only for the "truly poor" you create a poverty trap. As people start to do a little better, they lose their benefits, pulling them back down. So the incentives are exactly backwards. For a well designed program, look at EITC. When a poor person works more, their benefits go UP, and only start to fade away when they are making enough to no longer be poor.
“In some areas, restaurants can be authorized to accept SNAP benefits from qualified homeless, elderly, or disabled people in exchange for low-cost meals.” Note that based on the published information, the Restaurant Meals Program (as this initiative is known) is available only for homeless, elderly, or disabled recipients of EBT. Furthermore the article states that the program is only widely available in a handful of states Florida, Michigan, Arizona, and California. The vast majority of states do not participate at all.
In short the program is optional for states and limited to those that aren't able to prepare their own meals