Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SNAP logo
The
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (
SNAP),
[1] formerly known as the
Food Stamp Program, provides food-purchasing assistance for
low- and no-income people living in the U.S. It is a
federal aid program, administered by the
U.S. Department of Agriculture, under the
Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), though benefits are distributed by each
U.S. state's Division of Social Services or Children and Family Services.
SNAP benefits cost $74.1 billion in
fiscal year 2014 and supplied roughly 46.5 million Americans with an average of $125.35 for each person per month in food assistance.
[2] It is the largest nutrition program of the
fifteen administered by FNS and is a critical component of the federal
social safety net for low-income Americans.
[3]
The amount of SNAP benefits received by a household depends on the household's size, income, and expenses. For most of its history, the program used paper-denominated "stamps" or
coupons – worth
US$1 (brown), $5 (blue), and $10 (green) – bound into booklets of various denominations, to be torn out individually and used in single-use exchange. Because of their 1:1 value ration with actual currency, the coupons were printed by the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Their rectangular shape resembled a
U.S. dollar bill (although about one-half the size), including
intaglio printing on high-quality paper with
watermarks. In the late 1990s, the Food Stamp Program was revamped, with some states phasing out actual stamps in favor of a specialized debit card system known as
Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT), provided by private
contractors. EBT has been implemented in all states since June 2004. Each month, SNAP food stamp benefits are directly deposited into the household's EBT card account. Households may use EBT to pay for food at supermarkets, convenience stores, and other food retailers, including certain
farmers' markets.
[4]
ELECTRONIC MONEY : similar to FOOD STAMP
Politic: MORON(thief) read: English is already the WORLD business lanuguage - do you want it to change? - MAYBE if you fix US problem via ELECTRONIC MONEY/FoodSTAMP buy internet ...etc
