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Food stamp users jam stores, drive OT, abandon food, waste $$$

grizzer

New member
Ballooning enrollments blamed...
WinCo and other Idaho grocers want food-stamp distributions spread out



BY AUDREY DUTTON - adutton@idahostatesman.com

Copyright: © 2011 Idaho Statesman

Published: 03/02/11


1/2



Katherine Jones / Idaho Statesma
It’s payday and food-stamp day, so the Streit family stocks up on groceries they hope will last through most of March. Rickey Streit, center, isn’t so sure about changing the day food stamps are distributed, even though it means crowded shopping each month at the Nampa WinCo. “We run out by the first,” said his wife, Angel, left. “This is the best time to shop.” Their 7-month-old daughter, Avahlynn Streit, and Rickey’s grandfather, Raymond Carey, helped out Tuesday.




Katherine Jones / Idaho Statesma
With her granddaughter and son, Isabel Barron of Payette navigates the produce section of WinCo in Nampa. “First day (of the month), a lot of people in the store, oh my,” she said.



http://www.forumsforums.com/134/index.html



The WinCo Foods store in Nampa is packed with shoppers on the first day of the month, when many food budgets are replenished through the food-stamp program.

About 74 percent of the day’s sales at the store, 2020 Caldwell Blvd., come from food stamps on the first day of the month, according to WinCo spokesman Michael Read. About 23 percent of people in Canyon County receive the benefit, formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

WinCo says the flood of shoppers is harming business and costing upward of $250,000 per year in staffing and thrown-away food from shopping carts abandoned when lines — and waiting times — get too long.

WinCo blames a policy change in August 2009 by the state Department of Health and Welfare, which administers the federally funded program in Idaho. To save money, the department condensed the five-day-long distribution of monthly food-stamp money into just one day.

The Boise company, along with the Northwest Grocery Association, is pushing the department to stretch out distributions across five days or longer. But the department says that would cost too much. Making the switch has been financially critical as the program has ballooned from 87,000 enrollees in September 2007 to 227,000 now, the department says.

Shoppers at the Nampa store Tuesday were split on whether the first-of-the-month shopping trip had become too frustrating.

“It’s hell,” said Jesse Reyes, a Nampa resident and food-stamp recipient. Reyes said he shops midday because the store is too packed in the evening. “Everybody seems to be angry and in a hurry.”

It could be that hurried shoppers are anticipating the checkout line, which takes anywhere from five to 45 minutes, he said. All 38 checkout stations were open and speeding customers through Monday.

Lisa Burton of Caldwell is unfazed by the crowd, though she tries to save her food stamps — which are actually credits added to a card — for the middle of the month to avoid the lines.

“It’s like every other day, but fuller,” Burton said. “You stand in line for about an hour” on the first.

Burton prefers Oregon’s multiday system, and Read and the grocery association agree.

The plea from grocers “has fallen on deaf ears” at the state, Read said. He said the agency thrust the change on businesses to shift costs and never consulted them. As a result, grocers may have to pass on additional costs to consumers, who include food-stamp shoppers.

“It requires all kinds of overtime early in the month,” Read said. “Our biggest concern is that the store becomes a place where many of our customers become aggravated when they shop ... It’s just a load that we should not have to bear.”
But sending out benefits on a single day eliminates confusion among recipients, which in turn keeps them from calling or visiting agency offices, said Tom Shanahan, spokesman for the Department of Health and Welfare. The switch allowed the agency to cut three full-time positions, he said.

To go back to five-day distribution would require sending letters to notify people — requiring money for postage and supplies — and reprogramming computers, he said.

The department also might need to add workers for its call center if recipients find their cards empty on the first and wonder why. As it is, a single call-center employee takes about 100 calls per day, Shanahan said.
“We sympathize with them,” and the agency offered in October to go to a three-day payout, Shanahan said. But the department wanted businesses to foot a part of that cost, starting at $55,000.

“Now we’re told the conversion would be upwards of $1.3 million,” said Roy Eiguren, a lobbyist for the grocery association.

Grocers hope a meeting planned Wednesday at the Capitol will bring them closer to a compromise.

Joe Gilliam, who heads the Oregon-based association, said the agency should “admit they’ve made a mistake that hurts the customer and hurts the companies.”

He added that food-stamp recipients are “people who need assistance and are struggling, and you’re going to send them into the store in one day?”

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2011/...-the-month-crunch.html#storylink=omni_popular
 

JEV

Mr. Congeniality
GOLD Site Supporter
A curious mind might ask just what the gubmit workers are doing for the rest of the month, that they cannot reprogram computers, take phone calls, send letters, affix postage, yada, yada. Oh, sorry, they are in a gubmit union, and are incapable of doing more than their contract spells out. Meanwhile, people with real jobs are told to be flexible and do more when asked to do so, just to keep their jobs. Just who the fuck works for whom? If they have enough time to tell us how much it costs to change the system for those who pay their salaries, then they have enough time to make the change without getting more money. It's pure bullshit and nothing more, just so they don't have to do any more than the bare minimum to keep their jobs.
 
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