Is the welfare system in your state a complete cluster?

I hope you are joking about buying her a pizza. If she is out of food with 4 kids, I hope you are buying her at least a weeks worth of groceries.
Yes, I believe all welfare systems have problems, but welfare was made to help people out while they got on their feet. Not to live on the rest of their lives and pass on down to their children and so on and so on.
People know how to scam the system, so it takes food out of the mouths of those that really need it.

4 kids and she doesn’t qualify for food stamps?

If she lived closer to home that is exactly what I would do @chyna. But she hit me with this late in the day and she’s about 2 hours away. I kind of got on her for not letting us know yesterday, when she was here.
Anyway, she’s moving closer to home on Saturday and I’ll see to it that her pantries are full.

Yes, she qualifies @stanleybmanly, but apparently they over paid her at some point last year, by about $600, and she has to pay it back before she can get any more. Read the details

When they overpaid her, she didn’t know? Did she tell them they overpaid her?

I’m not sure it’s the welfare system that’s the problem here.

When she went to apply for some emergency stamps this week, that when THEY told HER they had over paid her. I mean, how would she know they had over paid? She just took what they gave her, same as I did when I was getting them.

@janbb Could you clarify what your comment meant?

(If it’s a criticism of the pizza please read through the thread.)

@Dutchess 111: she might have possibly known she was overpaid if she received a breakdown of what she’d be getting per person or if she compared her stamps to a friend’s amount. It’s not an accusation, it’s just a question, just throwing out a possibility.

It would have never occurred to me to do that, especially if I didn’t know that that could happen, that they could screw up and over pay you, and you’d have to pay it back. She didn’t’ have a set amount. It fluctuated depending on circumstances. So it didn’t occur to her to do that because she didn’t know either.
Comparing with a friend wouldn’t have been any help. Each situation is unique.

Since she is completely unemployed and has the two kids I know from experience that she would qualify for >$700 a month. Why can’t they go ahead and approve her, then only give her a hundred bucks and call it even?

Where I work they call it a recoup and they recuperate a little bit each month until it’s paid back or paid off.

I thought she had 4 kids?
Everyone should be responsible adults and know what kind of money, food stamps, checks, etc. that is coming into their household. I would hope if they had cheated her out of 600.00 in food stamps that she would have noticed and notified them.

Yes.
And you expected something else?

She can only claim 2 @chyna.

That makes sense, @jca. I have a friend who works for the welfare system. Sent a query out to her, see what we can do.

No, she wouldn’t have noticed if it had gone the other way either. The amount fluctuated ever month, and they gave her SO MUCH that even if she had gotten $100 a month less than she was supposed to, she wouldn’t have noticed, because she rarely was able to even use them all up every month.

Funny. My wife and I had zero issues getting them same-day. They just reactivated the card we had from last time we got SNAP ~5 years ago after I was laid off. Given that our rent is almost as much as my wife’s gross income, they expedited it.

That said, I had an issue with unemployment in a different state who looked at my address and decided to retroactively deny my claim and bill me over six grand despite the fact that every penny of wages I earned during the period they based my benefit amount on was there (the state where I had the claim) rather than in my state of residence.

@josie At least we have such a system in order to make an attempt at complying with internationally accepted standards of human rights. And by “we” I mean the states that don’t fight DC every step of the way on everything.

But, through no fault of her own, she owed them so they denied her @jerv.

@Dutchess III. Now that’s the sort of crap that restricts me from owning a gun. “We overpaid you. “You have no job, but take $600 from your purse and pay us. The kids won’t notice if they aren’t fed”

I know. Hence the question @stanleybmanly. I heard back from my friend. Her response was: “I’m sorry to hear this Val..but DCF sends the overissuanxe notice the client has the option to pay in full or have 10% taken out each month.”
The “problem” was she hasn’t received food stamps for about a year because she’s been working, so they couldn’t extract 10% of anything. So, because she was working and not receiving benefits, she’s screwed. Another example as to why it’s so fecking hard to get out of the system.

It really is embarrassingly shortsighted and thoughtless. It’s one of those stories that shame the shit out of whoever is responsible for the decision.

It’s just a big, old, government mill. It don’t mean nothin’.

I think there is a loop hole in the system that makes it seem very unfair. If I’m a single mom with two kids on welfare, it is very hard to survive just living on what I receive from the government. If I get a boyfriend and he moves in with me, I have someone to pay half the rent and half the utilities and to help with groceries and I have an easier time, but my welfare is not reduced. Similarly, there are people who have help from family and if you are looking at those people and what they have, you would say that they are living pretty well for being on welfare.

This has been a while ago, but I had an ex-boyfriend that got married and had his first baby. His wife went to the WIC office and said she was unmarried and not working and needed help. She was from South America and didn’t speak much English, so I’m sure the stereotype of a “poor immigrant” helped – she got on WIC even though they were not even close to qualifying for it.

You can be a non-citizen and still receive WIC.

I was once overpaid on food stamps and I was contacted about it. They ended up taking out a portion of what I owed spread out over six months out of my future payments.

I don’t live in a State.

@jonsblond Well, the problem is she’ll be working, beginning Tuesday, and so won’t be getting any future payments. Sigh. Just sucks. To me it would make more sense to approve her for $700, only give her $100, instead of denying her, and dogging her down the road for the $600 she won’t have!

@Gabby101 If you reported your live-in boyfriend’s income it would affect your welfare payments. They go by the household income.

@Gabby101: A live in boyfriend’s income definitely would reduce one’s public assistance payments.

Your married ex-boyfriend’s wife could have been busted for lying on the WIC application. I guess they didn’t investigate it.

They are so apathetic they’re easy to get over on, if one is so inclined, @jca.