At issue is SNAP’s “Equal Treatment Rule,” which bars stores from either discriminating against people in the program or offering them favorable treatment.
It’s in the article. I’ll leave the googling of the equal Treatment Rule up to you.
Thing is, in the land of technicalities, the house ALWAYS wins.
And gubmint benefits are nothing but labyrinths of technicalites that applicants have to understand, hurdle and then continue to hurdle, always monitoring for changes and new things to look out for while the “house” (the government) continually seeks to rob that ever-shrinking pot for other things they want more. It is, literally, an ongoing war against the poor and disabled, and one that most only participate in out of sheer desperation.
SNAP is like a rope that people are hanging onto for dear life that the government shakes every now and again to force the weakest to let go of and fly off. I’m not exaggerating. Anyone they can get off the rolls is a win for them, even as huge corporations like WalMart rely on SNAP and other federal subsidies to not have to pay their own workers a living wage. The entire thing is a huge fucking scam. But it’s all some people have.
So let’s say you qualify, you’ve jumped through all the hoops and have provided your documentation and filled out all the forms and had your intake interviews, and miraculously you now have your SNAP EBT card: great! You’re not eating well, but you’re eating, and that’s a plus. Life gets a lot better when you have food in you, no lie. But now you have to reapply/requalify every few months, you have to keep on proving you are eligible, those eligibility guidelines change without notice, and even then you’re just as likely to get a letter that says, "You no longer qualify to be in the SNAP program, let us know if you want a “fair hearing” (in front of an administrative judge in an actual courtroom without a lawyer) with absolutely no inkling beforehand that it is coming.
You don’t know US benefits unless you’ve been forced to rely on them. They are their own form of hell.
So when you ask, “If people are in the program, but are not getting the benefits of the program… are they in the program?” it’s a question that doesn’t apply in reality. It doesn’t apply because if you’re desperate enough to be on SNAP to begin with, you already know you have to keep playing that vicious, cruel game just in case the tap opens again, even a little: the human need for hunger does not abate for a government shutdown. It literally doesn’t matter that you’re not getting the benefits of the program, and frankly you’ve probably already been there before with one of those “you no longer qualify” letters; it matters only that you might, and you have to keep trying every means of helping yourself that is available to you, even if disability means you can’t even walk across a room without help. Today you have fulfilled all the demonic technicalities of that program and maybe, maybe, at some point it can be of some use to you again.
In the meantime, you will just get by, or not. Somehow.
I am very fortunate in that I am no longer on SNAP. But the ones that are . . . it’s only because they have to be. There are virtually no welfare queens outside corporate boardrooms anymore, IMO.
It’s in the article. I’ll leave the googling of the equal Treatment Rule up to you.
Fair point. I did not read the article before responding, so that is on me.
At the same time, if people are in the program, but are not getting the benefits of the program… are they in the program?
Thing is, in the land of technicalities, the house ALWAYS wins.
And gubmint benefits are nothing but labyrinths of technicalites that applicants have to understand, hurdle and then continue to hurdle, always monitoring for changes and new things to look out for while the “house” (the government) continually seeks to rob that ever-shrinking pot for other things they want more. It is, literally, an ongoing war against the poor and disabled, and one that most only participate in out of sheer desperation.
SNAP is like a rope that people are hanging onto for dear life that the government shakes every now and again to force the weakest to let go of and fly off. I’m not exaggerating. Anyone they can get off the rolls is a win for them, even as huge corporations like WalMart rely on SNAP and other federal subsidies to not have to pay their own workers a living wage. The entire thing is a huge fucking scam. But it’s all some people have.
So let’s say you qualify, you’ve jumped through all the hoops and have provided your documentation and filled out all the forms and had your intake interviews, and miraculously you now have your SNAP EBT card: great! You’re not eating well, but you’re eating, and that’s a plus. Life gets a lot better when you have food in you, no lie. But now you have to reapply/requalify every few months, you have to keep on proving you are eligible, those eligibility guidelines change without notice, and even then you’re just as likely to get a letter that says, "You no longer qualify to be in the SNAP program, let us know if you want a “fair hearing” (in front of an administrative judge in an actual courtroom without a lawyer) with absolutely no inkling beforehand that it is coming.
You don’t know US benefits unless you’ve been forced to rely on them. They are their own form of hell.
So when you ask, “If people are in the program, but are not getting the benefits of the program… are they in the program?” it’s a question that doesn’t apply in reality. It doesn’t apply because if you’re desperate enough to be on SNAP to begin with, you already know you have to keep playing that vicious, cruel game just in case the tap opens again, even a little: the human need for hunger does not abate for a government shutdown. It literally doesn’t matter that you’re not getting the benefits of the program, and frankly you’ve probably already been there before with one of those “you no longer qualify” letters; it matters only that you might, and you have to keep trying every means of helping yourself that is available to you, even if disability means you can’t even walk across a room without help. Today you have fulfilled all the demonic technicalities of that program and maybe, maybe, at some point it can be of some use to you again.
In the meantime, you will just get by, or not. Somehow.
I am very fortunate in that I am no longer on SNAP. But the ones that are . . . it’s only because they have to be. There are virtually no welfare queens outside corporate boardrooms anymore, IMO.