Food Stamp Cuts: Families Will Face Tough Choices

Quote from futurecurrents:

Well now, wasn't that easy for you to dismiss offhand.

It's a very reasonable guess considering the services that are included in the 12%, like unemployment insurance.

Did you even read what was included in that 12%?
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You're guessing. It's really as simple as that. You have no reliable source of data (that you've shown) that says where waste is. At first you said 1%, then you say 7% of welfare programs are fraudulent. Both are complete wild guesses, as you stated. So what is it you want from me? You want me to confirm your wild guesses? I have my own, and they don't meet with your estimates. So until you can show something that meets with logic, your argument is easy to dismiss, and I will do just that.
 
Quote from futurecurrents:

Yeah Richter...common sense....you know...guessing without any facts at all and then hysterically inflating them.
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You mean like your "WAG"?
 
To provide some information on fraud and abuse levels of some of the U.S. public assistance programs, I am providing some details given at a recent North Carolina conference for IT / Legal people involved in program enforcement. The key focus of this presentation was for our state Medicaid/Medicare fraud investigation office to hark their accomplishments.

- Over 95% of Medicaid fraud involves service providers and not recipients. According to the CBO the percentage of fraud & abuse was 20.2% in 2008 – down to 11.8% in 2011 and 7.9% in 2012.

- TANF (Welfare) – 5% fraud. Top cause is improper information on applications regarding assets and income.

- Food Stamps (SNAP) – 12% fraud. Top cause is recipients re-selling benefits.

- Section 8 Housing (No fraud % given). Top cause is people not on the lease living in the housing. (My note - usually these are boyfriends with previous criminal convictions who are not eligible to live in the housing. Also their income would push the family out of the eligibility range.)

FRLP (Free and Reduced Lunch Programs) – 6% fraud. Improper application information on family income.

Children Medical Programs – 3% fraud - Improper application information on income level.

Unemployment – 4% fraud – Individuals working off-the-book jobs while still receiving unemployment benefits.

WIC (Women, Infants, Children) – under 1% fraud – tight eligibility criteria keeps fraud minimal.

Heating Assistance – Under 2% fraud in states where the assistance is paid directly to the utility. Fraud usually due to improper income information on the application, or continuing in the program after income increases.

SSI / SS Disability – Abuse is increasing greatly since 2008 – especially SS Disability. No exact figures provided. (My note: This is not surprising since we have lawyers on T.V. pitching how they can get you onto SS Disability. I believe this is the fastest growing fraud segment).

EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) – No information given.
 
Quote from gwb-trading:

To provide some information on fraud and abuse levels of some of the U.S. public assistance programs, I am providing some details given at a recent North Carolina conference for IT / Legal people involved in program enforcement. The key focus of this presentation was for our state Medicaid/Medicare fraud investigation office to hark their accomplishments.

- Over 95% of Medicaid fraud involves service providers and not recipients. According to the CBO the percentage of fraud & abuse was 20.2% in 2008 – down to 11.8% in 2011 and 7.9% in 2012.

- TANF (Welfare) – 5% fraud. Top cause is improper information on applications regarding assets and income.

- Food Stamps (SNAP) – 12% fraud. Top cause is recipients re-selling benefits.

- Section 8 Housing (No fraud % given). Top cause is people not on the lease living in the housing. (My note - usually these are boyfriends with previous criminal convictions who are not eligible to live in the housing. Also their income would push the family out of the eligibility range.)

FRLP (Free and Reduced Lunch Programs) – 6% fraud. Improper application information on family income.

Children Medical Programs – 3% fraud - Improper application information on income level.

Unemployment – 4% fraud – Individuals working off-the-book jobs while still receiving unemployment benefits.

WIC (Women, Infants, Children) – under 1% fraud – tight eligibility criteria keeps fraud minimal.

Heating Assistance – Under 2% fraud in states where the assistance is paid directly to the utility. Fraud usually due to improper income information on the application, or continuing in the program after income increases.

SSI / SS Disability – Abuse is increasing greatly since 2008 – especially SS Disability. No exact figures provided. (My note: This is not surprising since we have lawyers on T.V. pitching how they can get you onto SS Disability. I believe this is the fastest growing fraud segment).

EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) – No information given.
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Thank you for the info. Very interesting and it bolsters my WAG of 7% fraud in the social services overall.

Also, the provider fraud is not the one that is railed against by people like lucrum who are mostly fixated on the leeches that don't want to work.

Like I said. 7% of 12 % is 1% of the total US budget.

But don't worry Tsing Tao.....no bowing needed. Makes me blush.
 
Quote from BSAM:

Food Stamp Cuts: Families Will Face Tough Choices

Yeah.
Some of 'em may even have to get a job.:eek:
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Many of them have a job...

SNAP-2010-300x250.png
 
Quote from futurecurrents:

Also, the provider fraud is not the one that is railed against by people like lucrum who are mostly fixated on the leeches that don't want to work.
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You speak of that which you know not. I'm opposed to ALL fraud and waste. Regardless of who is to blame. As far as I'm concerned willful fraudulent providers should be rounded up and shot.
 
Quote from gwb-trading:

Let me politely provide some context regarding the actual facts.

One of the primary reasons that the foodstamp outlays increased is because President Obama changed the eligibility criteria.

"The 2009 stimulus bill scrapped limits on SNAP benefits to adults without children and raised the maximum benefit by 13.6 percent through 2014. According to the Congressional Budget Office, about 20 percent of the $198 billion growth in between 2009 and 2011 can be attributed to the new eligibility standards, and hence will not go away once the economy recovers.

As Greg Beato of Reason magazine explains in a 2010 article, many states open them up to anyone receiving funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program. In practice, applicants with gross incomes well above 130 percent of the poverty line are now eligible."

The CBO office has reported multiple times that approx. 8% to 10% of Medicaid, Welfare, and SNAP payouts are fradulent. Waste is wrong - whether it is in the defense department or in public benefits. All areas of government should be reviewed for fraud and waste.

The only good news I have to report is that states are cracking down on food stamp fraud - in Cary N.C. , they recently arrested over 30% of the residents of the low-income housing complex for food stamp fraud. These people were selling food stamps (EBT cards) on craigslist. I will note that nearly all of those arrested also were charged with drug possession while living in free Section 8 housing. States are also cutting down on replacement EBT cards - meaning that you can not sell your card every month and then claim you lost it.

Unlike some others in the P&R forum, I support public benefits as a short term solution to help people in tough situations. The benefits should not be a long term support measure.

One of the primary reasons to support benefits (even for the most militant anti-government spending types) is to stop the lower class from rioting and tearing up the middle-class working neighborhoods - as well as the hope that some of those on benefits at some point return to being fully-employed productive tax-paying citizens.

As a volunteer with our local foodbank, I recognize that some families suffer from food insecurity and need a helping hand to move forward. I support private and public efforts to provide assistance to people in order to get people back on their feet. I am not about to classify everyone who needs help as leeches - many move on and get away from benefits.

However, there are some who are mired in a culture of free benefits for generations that have no inclination to improve their situation or stop taking from the taxpayers. At some point, there needs to be limits placed on the number of years of eligibility with an associated crack-down on fraud. The taxpayers will not have confidence in the integrity of the public assistance system if many people are abusing it.
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Very well stated. If only democrats agreed. Instead they make it easier to get on benefits and remove the work requirement.
 
Quote from piezoe:

You've raised two very important points. The first being that food stamps are not intended to provide complete nutrition for an adult, but rather they are intended as a supplement.

The second point, and an extremely important one, is that those who stay on food stamps long term come mainly from a sub-population that is widely observed to habitually make bad choices in numerous areas of life. This business of making bad choices goes back to one's education, or lack of it, and is culturally influenced, I believe. If it is desirable to reduce the number falling into this category, and I think it is, then one has to start looking at causes and not be content to aim the bulk of government programs at treating symptoms. This has the effect of putting portions of the population into holding patterns that tend to persist over generations..

Practically speaking, it is going to be unproductive to spend much additional time and money on adult remediation -- a holding pattern may be the best that can be achieved for this cohort without incurring a very unfavorable cost/benefit ratio. Where the effort and time needed to treat causes should be focused,in my opinion, is in pre-K, primary and secondary schooling, and that is where massive changes are needed.

In its forty-eight year existence, the efficacy of headstart has been statistically evaluated, nearly continuously, in numerous studies. While most have concluded that there are statistically significant benefits, not all studies have, including one that has received a great deal of coverage in the media, e.g., Fox News. One 2007 study that looked critically at many other studies concluded that the benefits, though small and fading with time, nevertheless pass cost benefit criteria. Regardless, headstart and its parallel State sponsored pre-school programs, along with public education in general, demand close scrutiny with an eye to improving them where there is an indication that the cost benefit ratio can be improved. see for example, http://www.nber.org/papers/w12973.pdf?new_window=1

A well known Maryland study, the only one of its kind, concluded that racial integration in schools had little impact on student achievement compared with socioeconomic integration. The latter was found to have a large, statistically significant impact on student achievement of minorities. This might partially explain the significant benefit of State pre-school programs relative to those found for headstart, as the State programs incorporate, in general, greater socioeconomic integration, as well as having greater emphasis on cognitive skill development and better trained teachers compared with typical headstart programs. The latter programs are focused almost entirely on the indigent population, and out of necessity distribute effort among cognitive development, nutrition, parenting and mental health and social services.

Interestingly, the cost to the taxpayers of the recent government shutdown was estimated at about 24 billion, or about three times what the U.S. government spends on headstart each year.
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Typical liberal answer. Handwringing over subsidizing and thus encouraging irresponsible behavior, but ends up calling for throwing more good money after bad.

When is something ever a big enough failure that liberals would say "Enough." Instead they always want to throw more money at the problem, as if doubling down on a proven failed strategy will work.
 
Quote from futurecurrents:

Thank you for the info. Very interesting and it bolsters my WAG of 7% fraud in the social services overall.

Also, the provider fraud is not the one that is railed against by people like lucrum who are mostly fixated on the leeches that don't want to work.

Like I said. 7% of 12 % is 1% of the total US budget.

But don't worry Tsing Tao.....no bowing needed. Makes me blush.
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Don't make it appear like you were correct about anything. You said 1% of SNAP fraud was the cost to the budget. Maybe you should have specified which budget you were talking about (a convenient mishap on your part). 12% of snap fraud is 12% (more or less) of the SNAP budget. Why would we consider the total budget and compare apples to oranges?

Remember, I asked: "Do you have a source that states that food stamp abuse is limited to about 1%? Or are you pulling that number out of your..."

As usual, you were outed for faulty assumptions. Getting you to own up to it, well...we've seen how much that has happened in the past.
 
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