Even before I get started on this one, I just heard 12 of you saying I am making a mountain out of a molehill. No need to waste a Blog Posting on a few millionaires collecting a few coins. My dear readers, this is a Pretty Big Molehill!...
Ø The Internal Revenue Service reported that 2,362 millionaires collected a total of $20,799,000 in unemployment benefits in 2009.
Ø 18 people with an adjusted gross income of $10,000,000 or more received an average of $12,333 in jobless benefits for a total of $222,000.
Before we get started, allow me to save you some reading time. Right at the beginning of this Blog Posting’s weighty points of interest you are going to see this term used... “Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility”. I have researched this and am posting what it means for you to read and not understand.
I recommend that you do not read what “Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility” means because you will not understand what it means after you read what it means. Just skip down past what it means to the string of 6 asterisks and continue on.
BROAD-BASED CATEGORICAL ELIGIBILITY
Broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE) is a policy in which households may become categorically eligible for SNAP because they qualify for a non-cash Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) or State maintenance of effort (MOE) funded benefit. The chart below shows which States implemented BBCE, the programs that confer BBCE, the asset limit of the TANF/MOE program, and the gross income limit of the TANF/MOE program.
BBCE cannot limit eligibility. Households with seniors or disabled members that are not eligible for the program that confers categorical eligibility may apply for and receive SNAP under regular SNAP rules. Under regular program rules, households with elderly or disabled members do not need to meet the gross income limit, but must meet the net income limit.
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How Millionaires Collect Food Stamps
Wall Street Journal
January 16, 2018
by Kristina Rasmussen Vice President for Federal Affairs for the Foundation for Government Accountability
Ø You probably assume that food stamps go to poor people only. But this policy, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture instituted during the Clinton administration, allows state food-stamp programs to grant benefits to anyone having moderately low wage income, regardless of net worth. A family with a seven-figure bank account can be eligible for food stamps.
Ø That’s how lottery winners—including actual millionaires—wind up getting food stamps. In 2012 a millionaire from Detroit was revealed to be receiving $200 in monthly food aid despite having won $1 million the year before. “I feel that it’s OK because I have no income,” she said, “and I have bills to pay. I have two houses.”
Ø In 2011 another Michigan resident, was found to be receiving food assistance despite having taken home $850,000 in lottery winnings the previous year. To his credit, he had contacted the state food-stamp bureaucracy to ask if he needed to come off public assistance after getting his newfound wealth. He was told he could stay on it.
Ø To collect food aid you need two things:
1. An income below a multiple of the poverty line, ranging from 130% to 200%.
2. Eligibility for some sort of benefit funded by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the main welfare program for single parents.
(Here is where you will accuse me of making things up)...
There’s “one weird trick” in play here. The state spends TANF dollars to print a welfare brochure. The brochure itself is defined as a “benefit”, which everybody is “eligible” to receive, thereby meeting the USDA requirement for receiving a benefit funded by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
(I recommend you read the above One Weird Trick 4 times. That’s how many times I had to read it before I got it. Wow!)
Ø Of the 47 million Americans who received food stamps in 2014, some 4 million got them under “Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility” (that’s the part you skipped above because you were not going to understand anyway)—most because their wealth would have made them ineligible otherwise.
From my No and Yes Department...
No, I did not make any of this up.
Yes, it is awful.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
Lagniappe... If you think this all came to light yesterday, think again. Read as much as you can stand...
October 1, 2010...
also
January 6, 2012...
also
Last but certainly not least...
The GOP has found out about this unbelievable situation and they are going to do something about it pronto!
In the above sentence the word “pronto” (without delay) is misleading.
The article that prompted me to write the bolded sentence above was written on December 12, 2011 and this awful issue is still with us.
2 comments:
Fella, this is very good blog and I agree it is inexcusable that our food stamp / welfare programs have not changed. I remember a couple of years ago, several Repub congressmen/women were trying to mount an effort to get things changed and their efforts really stirred up a storm of protest from........ convenience store lobbyist !!!! Just another example of our government being to big and the special interest groups too powerful. They seem to block every effort to make positive changes.....Disappointed.
Funny, if these folks are “needy” for welfare benefits, it means that they never pull money out of their savings. Lottery folks, though, would have paid taxes on their winnings when they got their check. However, if the other millionaires have savings, they would have to declare it to the government. I have an IRA I saved for for more than 20 years. I was denied status in the Veterans Administrative system since I “made too much money”. A person has to make less than $38,000 for a couple of two to be eligible for benefits.
There is another consideration, though – a lot of my savings were tax deferred; when I withdrew it, I was taxed.
I don’t think that all these millionaires have all tax deferred funds in their savings account.
Maybe I’m wrong, but.... guess I don’t know the “angles”.
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