Trump Tightens SNAP Requirements As Nick Shirley Demonstrates EBT Fraud
Sometimes two stories come out demonstrating different aspects of the same issue. First President Trump announced stricter SNAP eligibility requirements.
Families applying for food assistance through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will, beginning Thursday, face changes to payments, eligibility requirements and how the benefits are administered.
Most families will initially see a slight bump in their monthly payments to support grocery purchases from a cost-of-living adjustment, but in the coming months, households will face stricter eligibility requirements, meaning fewer people will receive the benefits, ABC News reported.
Under new work requirements imposed by the “The Big Beautiful Bill Act,” able-bodied adults ages 18 to 64 who don’t have dependents will be required to work. Previously, the age limit was 54. Families with children age 14 or older are no longer exempt from the work requirements.
The “The Big Beautiful Bill Act” also requires states to pay for a larger share of SNAP administrative costs, and states with SNAP recipient error rates above 6% will be required to fund a portion of the benefits themselves.
Second, Nick Shirley demonstrates just how easy it is to commit EBT card (Electronic Benefits Transfer, the primary means by which welfare recipients receive and spend SNAP benefits) fraud.
“Food stamp fraud. A type of fraud that steals from the poor and hungry and has become one of the easiest fraud schemes in America.”
“How many people I’ve seen sell food stamps to get their hair done, nails done, their toes done, buy an outfit to go to the club, drugs. A lot.”
“More than 42 million Americans receive food stamps and over 100 billion dollars from your taxes fund this program.”
“With over 250,000 stores accepting food stamps, it’s become one of the easiest programs to defraud. And it’s actually pretty simple. Each month, the government funds people’s food stamp cards with a certain amount of money, and then people will trade the money on the card at a discounted price.” A guy with $306 on his EBT card offers to sell it for $120 cash.
“The food stamp card is essentially just like an ATM for a lot of these homeless people here inside of Seattle.”
“There’s a a foreign person usually and they’ll take the money to buy food for cheaper.” “So a foreigner will come in and offer somebody cash for the EBT.” Evidently committing Food Stamp fraud has become another of those jobs Americans won’t do.
EBT cards are so ubiquitous you can find them lying on the ground in homeless encampments. “Some of these folks who use these cards, they’re trying to sell them or trade them and they just forget about them, so they just throw them. So, you have hundreds of dollars on the streets, if not thousands of dollars worth of food stamp cards, and you can find them in almost any encampment.” Maybe here’s another clue as to why the left loves homeless encampments: They help facilitate EBT fraud, which offers another chance for the Homeless Industrial Complex to cash in.
“So, people can buy these for cash and then that drug addict will then actually have the money to buy his drugs.” “Yeah. And that’s the problem, right? You can’t buy drugs with food stamp cards. So, these have to be sold for pennies on the dollar. They’ll take whatever cash and they’ll immediately go to their dealer, who’s on pretty much every single corner here.” Is fentanyl really only 50ยข on the streets of Seattle? No wonder heroin use is declining.
There are several minutes of negotiating with various Seattle street people. Everyone seems aware of the scam.
They go to a Asian-owned store where they try to run a charge of $120 for a can of spam and a plate of prepared sushi. The woman who leads them there seems to be from Vietnam.
The video ends with Shirley’s team ending up in a brawl with a bunch of Seattle street people. “Nick, if I didn’t see you on the street here running right now, I don’t know what would have happened. I don’t know where you would have gone. You’re being targeted right now. Everyone’s saying Nick Shirley’s here. Nick Shirley’s here.”
Food Stamp fraud is evidently an industry, and the people running it don’t like it being threatened by any nosy citizen journalists…
Anyone seen Talarico??