No More Booze on Bridge Cards

At a time when nearly every state is having conniptions about whether welfare recipients should undergo regular drug testing or not, it must have come as a huge and terrible shock to discover that some people in our beautiful state of Michigan who receive food stamps have been spending them on cigarettes, alcohol, lottery tickets and even on gambling!

How could such a thing have happened?

It was not intentional. It used to be that welfare recipients received food stamp vouchers that were smaller and smoother than dollar bills, and a bit harder for bank tellers to count because of that fact. People would receive them in the mail or pick them up at the Welfare office, spend them in approved locations on approved items, and then the merchants would take them to the bank and turn them in for credit into their business account.

But nowadays everything has been automated so that they receive a special debit card. Money is put directly into their account, just like direct deposit of a paycheck. The DHS law says that none of the above listed items may be purchased with a “Bridge card.” It is up to each store to take care not to allow these cards to purchase those items. But, since it looks like a regular debit card, not every store and employee takes the time to analyze a customer’s debit card and compare it to the items purchased.

Furthermore, some stores have been giving people cash back from their food stamp purchases, which allows the recipients to use them any way that they want. Nobody tracks cash. Last of all, these Bridge cards can be used in an ATM machine to get cash, which of course means that the actual items purchased cannot be tracked.

The better news is that Michigan House representatives announced in early September that they are working on a series of bills that will stop such abuse in the food assistance program. With 1.3 million Bridge cards in circulation, and a budge of $2.8 billion, it’s important to see that at least the money is going for food and not alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling.