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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsStores Accepting Food Stamps Face Stricter Rules
More of an analysis than news, thus not in LBN.
Proposal sets up fight between corner stores and big chains like Wal-Mart, Kroger over $74 billion program
By Annie Gasparro and Heather Haddon
annie.gasparro@wsj.com
@annie_gasparo
heather.haddon@wsj.com
@heatherhaddon
June 28, 2016 5:30 a.m. ET
U.S. regulators are pushing stricter rules for stores that accept food stamps, ultimately determining which retailers win and lose the billions of taxpayer dollars at stake.
The proposal is throwing gas stations and corner stores into a battle with giants like Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kroger Co. over the $74 billion Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. ... By year end, the U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to adopt rules that require stores redeeming food stamps to stock a wider variety of meats and vegetables and sell fewer hot meals, like pizza.
At a time when sales growth is hard to come by, redeeming food stamps is critical for grocers. Last year, SNAP funds comprised an average of 5.8% of sales at participating stores, according to a poll of 6,500 stores by the Food Marketing Institute, a trade group.
Big supermarket chains like Wal-Mart already happen to meet the tougher requirements because of their breadth of inventory. But some 195,000 smaller stores would have to add as many as 168 items to their shelvesa move they say would be costly and unprofitable, given their limited shelf space and spoilage issues for fresh food.
tonyt53
(5,737 posts)Seen it myself many times.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)But also adults have only nutritious foods. This will save medical costs.
former9thward
(31,805 posts)Children taking part in the healthier federal lunch program are putting more fruits and vegetables on their trays, as required since 2012, but eating slightly fewer of them and throwing away 56 percent more than before the changes were implemented, according to the results, published on Tuesday.
It's one of the first studies to compare how many apples, bananas, carrots and salad greens kids ate before and after the controversial National School Lunch Program compelled them to choose a fruit or veggie with their meal.
http://www.today.com/health/students-toss-fruits-vegetables-mandated-lunch-program-t40651
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)A few, relatively speaking, schools and districts have dropped the program completely.
1939
(1,683 posts)Old Miss Irongirdle stood watch over the trash can and the tray return. If you hadn't consumed everything, you were sent back to your table until you had eaten all of the glop and returned with clean plates and bowls.
Of course, that was before children had "rights" and it was useless to complain to your parents. That was why I always toted a lunch box. My mother would always give me a sandwich (two as I got older) and a wrapper with four cookies for desert plus a thermos of milk (or sometimes Kool Aid).
JustAnotherGen
(31,683 posts)Walmart who underpays its employees thus potentially making them need food stamps to survive -
Now gets another guaranteed revenue stream from their employees?
They are treating them as feudal slaves or sharecroppers who are stuck in a cycle and beholden to them with no way out.
I understand the need for 'business controls' and compliance around SNAP - but if we are going to limit it - take Walmart Employees out. Walmart should have to identify any employees whose families receive SNAP and give them a direct non taxable stipend for their food each week.
Glassunion
(10,201 posts)shop available to local residents.
Gormy Cuss
(30,884 posts)That's why even some liquor stores qualified to accept SNAP benefits because they were the only place selling food in the area. Not an ideal situation but better than no place at all.
While it's a noble idea to encourage less convenience foods I hope that the new regs aren't too onerous for the mom & pop stores. FNS tends to err on the side of being less restrictive.
librechik
(30,663 posts)away from the military and toward a social safety net. And even though poor people don't make the laws and probably would rather not use food stamps, there they are in the grocery line ahead of you, where you can conveniently hate them, Republicans. The world is your oyster. Buy some extra Capn Crunch.
Igel
(35,197 posts)Unless you think of the stores as people.
This is a constraint on stores, not benefit recipients.
demwing
(16,916 posts)is only a restriction on health service providers, not on women who rely on those services
Igel
(35,197 posts)Large companies love trade deals, usually like regulation and international agreements. If a large corporation does business in California and New York, their products comply pretty much with every state's requirements. If with Canada and France, they're good for a lot of international trade and meet those requirements.
But if California's requirements are adopted by the federal government 5 years later, all the small companies that don't already comply with the regs suddenly have a large cost imposed on them. If legislatures push international requirements down through the entire economy, it's a problem for small companies.
Large companies know this. In the last 30 years, a number of large companies have pushed for increased regulations. It amazes progressives and liberals and confuses conservatives, but it's rational. Banks, telecom companies, manufacturers of all sorts. Because it makes government place the undue hardship on competitors to increase their costs and probably reduce competition.
It makes for more homogeneity.
onethatcares
(16,133 posts)that when I read of food stamp and welfare fraud most of it is directed at the lowest economic class while the real practitioners are the guys that steal millions and billions from the Medicare and Medicaid system?
that might have been off topic but jeeeezzzzzuzzzz, it's the way I see it.
SickOfTheOnePct
(7,290 posts)but what are they going to do for people who don't have grocery stores that meet the requirements within easy distance?
How are SNAP beneficiaries in food deserts going to buy food?