Politics of Food: Chasing Fraud In Low-Income Areas

While the news of a judge blocking the voter ID regulation in South Carolina is encouraging, a law requiring fingerprints for Food Stamp/SNAP application in New York is still on the books. Opponents of the voter ID laws claim these regulations are in violation of the Voting Rights Act because they target minorities, thus reducing their likelihood of voting. The voter ID regulations in South Carolina and other states are simply laws chasing fraud where it does not exist or is misguided because of the negligible number of cases. Simply put: these regulations, like the fingerprinting requirement, are targeting poor people in unjust ways.

As the Food Research and Action Center noted in their recent news digest, a January 1, 2012 New York Times editorial argued for ending the practice of fingerprinting SNAP applicants.

“Especially at a time when so many families are struggling, the Bloomberg administration should drop the [fingerprinting] requirement that leads to many New Yorkers to forgo help,” notes this New York Times editorial. “If it does not, Gov. Andrew Cuomo should issue an executive order ending the city’s exemption.” The city maintains that fingerprinting helps fight SNAP/Food Stamp fraud and duplications. According to Robert Doar, Mayor Bloomberg’s human resources commissioner, the city finds about 2,000 duplication errors annually through fingerprinting. However, Doar could not say how many of those were fraud vs. administrative errors, and “could not cite a single fraud prosecution” at a recent City Council hearing. “Matching applicants’ names with Social Security numbers, as other jurisdictions do, would be cheaper and equally effective,” notes the editorial. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn supports a bill requiring the city to annually report the number of fraud cases detected, the number prosecuted, and the cost of fingerprinting. More than 40 percent of eligible New Yorkers have not applied for SNAP/Food Stamps. Currently, only Arizona and New York City require SNAP/Food Stamp applicants to be fingerprinted.
Many people eligible for Food Stamps never apply. One reason, among many, that people don't apply is: "other people need SNAP more than I do," as pointed out by the Food Stamp Outreach Coordinator at Harvesters in Kansas City. What eligible people don't need is another reason not to receive benefits to supplement a low family income or to fill a gap in meals during a downturn in the economy. Stop fingerprinting working people in New York!

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