My EBT/SNAP story, a la Sevvie Rose -- @sevvie
If you haven't watched the video, go do so now. The next blip or so is in relation to @sevvie 's video.
EBT programs are routinely used for flipping, at a 2:1 (or 3:1 ratio at shelters), or in exchange of drugs. This is also a problem in various carding schemes, effectively laundering money into a goods system which is not tracked despite miles long papertrails. The abuse is rather high and not well documented, even though it could be done so trivially. The money could go to foodbanks, the true source of local surplus, which are routinely underfunded, understocked where balanced boxes could be given to families, and those in need, instead of to migrants using ebt to restock the shelves of businesses they own et al.
As a former receiver of said benefits, not only was it invasive, privacy wise (asking questions the dept. actually got sued over) but at the end of the day, there was nothing stopping me from going and buying dozens of boxes of yogi tea (which i did one month as an experiment). I sold this at a cut rate at a college, mentioning that it was great for destressing for around exam time (which it is). I got cash which ofc goes to buy pretty much anything.
I know what you're thinking. "But Lain, so many depend upon the benefits! how can you turn away our old, our children from impoverished families, the homeless!?" I wouldn't dream of doing so, my sweet summer children. Just have it in a new, well documented system, that would be nearly digital and hook directly into the surplus that local food shelters can provide. food shelters (at least for my state) are well organized and can pass food between them should the stock need to be adjusted. A bar code entry system plugged into a statewide database would ensure individuals are not receiving multiple items per household unnecessarily. These systems could be implemented on a national level ensuring that people are not merely going across statelines and ripping off states too.
In times of emergency, federal aid could go to this statewide system, as in the cases of Katrina, or other disasters. Otherwise I propose it be mostly run by state taxes and as needed. States like Kentucky may need more due to unemployment levels, which could also be deemed as "crisis states".
Having such a large overwrought system is not only costly to the average taxpayer, hurts farmers due to subsidies, and is also dangerous to those in need. How is providing help dangerous, you might ask? It's the amount. By not documenting as much of the transfer of goods as possible we're creating an airgap of information about the real issue. Thus creating a situation of top-down ignorance, where only those at the bottom know how little help they're actually getting.
I remember helping out a family a bit ago, that were well below the poverty level consistently, that only received a couple hundred dollars a month. Added to the fact that retail jacks up the price of goods on a regular basis, those without a vehicle are limited to how many stores they'd be able to get to. So the market doesn't even factor into this. If anything it's price gouging those that are at the lowest level. This limits the amount of buying power that they actually have, when in fact what they need is survivability throughout the entire month. Trying to make that tiny amount stretch over a month is impossible.
Who profits from this? Chase Bank handles the majority of [food] card systems in the US among select others. Due to everything being shifted over to digital carding systems, they get a tiny percentage on all transactions. ALL TRANSACTIONS. As you can imagine this must be in the hundreds of thousands every day. Meanwhile the state foregoes any benefit they'd normally receive as EBT/SNAP is tax-free.
My old anarchist/activist side says to keep running scams as you can, and attempt to document the abuse anonymously, so then we can send this data back to the people who are voting to keep the programs around. There's a lot of gangs that use this data too so I'd be careful about that. If they knew someone was recording some of these things going on, they might take "issue" with it lol. Sometimes you can catch people that are running these coming out of stores with just packs and packs of usually bottled water/soda. That's an easy tell. i'm not saying like two or whatever. But do they need 8 trays of 24 bottles? Pull out your phone to record and start asking them questions in the parking lot.
I'll link another video, par example.
This issue could be fixed at the state level too, as they can each withdraw assistance received from the fed or cut themselves out of the program altogether. So gathering evidence is not a pointless exercise. We could actually fix this issue together, banding together as communities to improve our foodbanks, which can help those in need DIRECTLY, instead of making people go through the pointless charade of faux-capitalism in support of a socialist program which really only benefits a couple financial institutions.
Love to hear your thoughts below, or just correct my grammar or spelling. Merci, et A TT