How to Check If You Are Eligible for Food Stamps
If you’ve been laid off, laid off, or lost income due to the coronavirus pandemic, you may already have applied for unemployment or requested financial assistance through the Payroll Protection Program. But you may not have considered applying for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program , also known as SNAP, and depending on your income, family, and assets, you may be eligible.
Here’s what you need to know.
SNAP helps people and families in need by distributing monthly benefits that can be used to buy certain types of food. Today, benefits are usually issued using reloadable debit cards; they used to be issued in the form of real stamps, hence the term “food stamps”.
Typically, SNAP benefits can be used to purchase most of what you consider “grocery”, including convenience foods and snacks; however, they should not be used to purchase prepared or hot food, toiletries or household items, pet food, vitamins, alcohol, or tobacco.
Each state has its own SNAP eligibility requirements, so to see if you qualify, you must visit the SNAP State Resource Directory , find your state, and review local regulations. In many cases, SNAP eligibility is based on both current income and total assets, so if you are not making a lot of money right now, but you have a contingency fund, you probably will not be eligible for food assistance.
I currently live in Iowa where the requirements are as follows:
Households with a gross monthly income of less than $ 150 and resources such as cash or bank accounts of $ 100 or less; or
Households with rents, mortgages and utilities in excess of the gross monthly income and assets of the household; or
Households with a migrant or seasonal agricultural worker and with assets of $ 100 or less whose stop and start income
Some states require certain applicants (such as those without children) to be either employed or actively looking for work before they can receive food aid; however, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted states to either loosen or remove these rules. Washington State, for example, requires “able-bodied adults without dependents” to meet work or volunteer requirements before receiving benefits, but they do not punish people who do not meet these requirements in March, April, or May 2020.
CARES , also known as the “Coronavirus Act that gave us everything from extended unemployment benefits to these $ 1,200 incentive checks,” also provides states with additional SNAP funding. As far as I can tell, many states are using this funding to provide all eligible households with the maximum allowable allowance for their household size, at least until April. This means that if your household is eligible for food stamps, you will want to complete an application as soon as possible to take full advantage of the additional food aid, as well as any other benefits you are eligible for.
One final note: I have received food aid before, but it has been a very long time since I used my EBT card at the grocery store, so I cannot talk about the relative ease or difficulty of getting SNAP benefits these days. … If you have any tips on the current application process, other tips to help families with limited cash get through the month, or even any good news about the increase in SNAP benefits amid the pandemic, let us know in the comments. …