Computer outage causes interruption in use of food-stamp benefits

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**hotsauceman1**

Im surprised that no one posted this.
It is kinda scary that so many where affected by one outage
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/people-unable-to-access-food-stamp-benefits-because-of-computer-outage/2013/10/12/11cfe2c6-3385-11e3-8627-c5d7de0a046b_story.html

People in 17 states, including Maryland and Virginia, who tried to buy groceries using electronic food-stamp cards were turned away from supermarkets Saturday as a result of a computer outage.

The system failure affected low-income individuals and families who receive food benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Women, Infants and Children program (WIC).

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The outage occurred during a “routine test” of backup systems Saturday morning, Jennifer Wasmer, a spokeswoman for Xerox, which administers the program, said. By late Saturday, access had been restored.

After the system failed, SNAP and WIC beneficiaries in the affected states were unable to buy food using electronic benefit transfers.

“Beneficiary access to programs such as SNAP, TANF, and other programs has been restored to the 17 States where Xerox provides EBT service. Re-starting the EBT system required time to ensure service was back at full functionality,” Wasmer said in a statement.

Courtney Rowe, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, told the Associated Press that the outage was not related to the government shutdown.

Earlier Saturday, Brian Schleter, a spokesman for the Maryland Department of Human Resources, which provides services to low-income residents, confirmed the problems with the electronic benefits system. He said Maryland officials were in “close communication” with Xerox and were working to restore service as soon as possible.

More than 6,000 Maryland residents received food assistance last month, according to state data. It was unclear how many residents in Maryland were unable to obtain food Saturday. Virginia officials could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Before repairs were made, Wasmer suggested that beneficiaries “work with their local retailers, who can activate an emergency voucher system where available.”

“We appreciate our clients’ patience while we work through this outage as quickly as possible,” she said.

Many people had to walk away from full grocery carts Saturday.

Richard Elwell, who lives in Chevy Chase, said someone he knows went to two grocery stores, and was unable to buy food at either. His first thought when heard about the problem: the government shutdown.

“I was wondering what was going [on],” Elwell said.

But Wasmer said the shutdown was not the problem.

USDA officials have said that food benefits were not in immediate jeopardy from the shutdown. Funds would be available through late October, officials said.

**Ouze**

It's surprising to me that so many states would use the same vendor.

**d-usa**

It makes some sense. A lot of the benefits are linked to federal programs, so having one vendor that knows all about them combining the work for all the states to make sure they all meet the same requirements for distribution and reporting and providing economy of scale makes sense.

Seems like there should be some way to isolate the individual states though so that a problem doesn't affect every one of them.

**daedalus-templarius**

Wheres the photo-op in helping the poors get food to survive?

Its all about breakin' down barricades! haven't you heard!?

**daedalus**

Ouze wrote:
It's surprising to me that so many states would use the same vendor.

I wouldn't think so. I mean, if they're the lowest bidder, and have as part of their sales routine that they already service X number of other states...

I have to deal with situations like that. Nevermind that the guys running the ops staff don't know jack about the product they're supporting and can't keep uptime remotely in their SLA. Nothing ever changes.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Twitter apparently had some down right SAD tweets from this little fiasco.

**hotsauceman1**

If you got some post it.

**Ninjacommando**

I don't understand how the Wic people were affected. They don't use electronics for their program they use checks that the a store runs through as a normal check and its sent back to regional headquaters before its sent back to the Wic provider and cash exchanged.

The solution? instead of giving people an EBT card you take a list of the people on EBT and get the Number of people per household (along with age) and every week enough food is delivered to the person/family (comprising of healthy food). That why they don't spend the EBT on junk food.

The EBT program could learn from the WIC program and give people healthy foood

**d-usa**

From Wikipedia:

Alternately, many States (notably Texas and Nevada) have moved away from a paper system of checks and vouchers. The conversion of the WIC program to EBT cards has automated a great deal of the process and provides better care for the children and mothers currently using WIC. The cards are similar to consumer credit/debit cards but are exclusively used for purchasing WIC-approved items.

**Dreadclaw69**

Ouze wrote:
It's surprising to me that so many states would use the same vendor.

As d-usa said they are likely the lowest bidder, and if they have a track record of working with the program that may be in their favour.

**hotsauceman1**

Ninjacommando wrote:
I don't understand how the Wic people were affected. They don't use electronics for their program they use checks that the a store runs through as a normal check and its sent back to regional headquaters before its sent back to the Wic provider and cash exchanged.

The solution? instead of giving people an EBT card you take a list of the people on EBT and get the Number of people per household (along with age) and every week enough food is delivered to the person/family (comprising of healthy food). That why they don't spend the EBT on junk food.

The EBT program could learn from the WIC program and give people healthy foood

That just sounds like a horrible Logistical problem. What if the food is not delivered on time? What is no one is there to recieve it and it gets taken if left on the doorstep? Who will deliver it? A new delivery service? Because the USPS isnt going to deliver hundred of boxes of food.
Just limit what you an buy with the card 10% junkfood, 30-40% fresh produce etc etc

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

Ninjacommando wrote:
The solution? instead of giving people an EBT card you take a list of the people on EBT and get the Number of people per household (along with age) and every week enough food is delivered to the person/family (comprising of healthy food). That why they don't spend the EBT on junk food.

The EBT program could learn from the WIC program and give people healthy foood

Do you have any clue how much money that would cost? And for what real benefit?

**SilverMK2**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Do you have any clue how much money that would cost? And for what real benefit?

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally and costs billions in healthcare. The leading cause of cardiovascular disease in the West? Obesity.

Not to mention all the other costs obesity has associated with it.

Delivering healthy food rather than pizza and burgers is a good investment in the long run.

**daedalus**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Ninjacommando wrote:
The solution? instead of giving people an EBT card you take a list of the people on EBT and get the Number of people per household (along with age) and every week enough food is delivered to the person/family (comprising of healthy food). That why they don't spend the EBT on junk food.

The EBT program could learn from the WIC program and give people healthy foood

Do you have any clue how much money that would cost? And for what real benefit?

You could make participation in the delivery program a requirement to receiving benefits from it.

Cost mitigated.

**hotsauceman1**

How is that Mitigating cost? You still need to find people to deliver it, In a refrigerated truck and on time. You would need several hundred more offices then you do know to deal with the deliveries.

**SilverMK2**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
How is that Mitigating cost? You still need to find people to deliver it, In a refrigerated truck and on time. You would need several hundred more offices then you do know to deal with the deliveries.

Jobs for all those people on welfare!

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Do you have any clue how much money that would cost? And for what real benefit?

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally and costs billions in healthcare. The leading cause of cardiovascular disease in the West? Obesity.

Not to mention all the other costs obesity has associated with it.

Delivering healthy food rather than pizza and burgers is a good investment in the long run.

Discussing this would be a hypothetical nightmare

Agree to disagree

**daedalus**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
How is that Mitigating cost? You still need to find people to deliver it, In a refrigerated truck and on time. You would need several hundred more offices then you do know to deal with the deliveries.

You say "cost, cost, cost". I say "jobs, jobs, jobs".

**hotsauceman1**

Jobs the Govt cant afford.

**SilverMK2**

Gentleman_Jellyfish wrote:
Discussing this would be a hypothetical nightmare

Not really - a major focus of healthcare now is targeting people before they become users of the system. Not only is prevention (in this case by getting people to eat healthy) much cheaper than the cost of treating them for all their health problems further down the road, but you also get a healthier population too.

Agree to disagree

Rabble rabble rabble!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Jobs the Govt cant afford.

Jobs which pay more than welfare, allowing people to put that money back into circulation, therefore driving the entire economy. You know, kind of like trickle down economics but something that actually works

**daedalus**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Jobs the Govt cant afford.

If you're paying them their EBT, I think it can be afforded about as well as it is now. You're paying for trucks, gas, storage, and reusable cooler bags.

I wonder how many people are sustained by welfare vs. Meals on Wheels.

**whembly**

Just followed up on this...

Looks like some folks thought that their debt limit was set to "unlimited".

Guess what happened?

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

whembly wrote:
Just followed up on this...

Looks like some folks thought that their debt limit was set to "unlimited".

Guess what happened?

Lynd explained the cards weren't showing limits and they called corporate Walmart, whose spokesman said to let the people use the cards anyway. From 7 to 9 p.m., people were loading up their carts, but when the cards began showing limits again around 9, one woman was detained because she rang up a bill of $700.00 and only had .49 on her card. She was held by police until corporate Walmart said they wouldn't press charges if she left the food.

These people are too dumb to realize they're stealing by using a card with their name on it

**daedalus**

whembly wrote:
Just followed up on this...

Looks like some folks thought that their debt limit was set to "unlimited".

Guess what happened?

Lynd says at 9 p.m., when the cards came back online and it was announced over the loud speaker, people just left their carts full of food in the aisles and left.

**KalashnikovMarine**

Classy.

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

All I can hope is that every instance of fraud is investigated and charged appropriately.

**hotsauceman1**

Human Nature at it finest, if you can get away with it, do it.
Its shameful.

**purplefood**

Seems kinda reasonable...

**Gentleman_Jellyfish**

purplefood wrote:
Seems kinda reasonable...

Reasonable like justified or something else?

**MeanGreenStompa**

Anyone exploiting this should be punished by a restriction on their card over time until the full amount + a % is balanced out to the working people of nation.

The cards have names on, so that shouldn't be an issue. They will need to endure a hardship due to their greed and lack of honesty.

For the good of the nation-state and it's productive citizens.