USDA Threatens Stores Giving Discounts to People on Food Stamps

Read the article and then you'll put away your pitchforks. A basic rule is snap recipients can't be treated differently than non-program members which seems reasonable.

"At issue is SNAP’s “Equal Treatment Rule,” which bars stores from either discriminating against people in the program or offering them favorable treatment. "

Forbidding charging SNAP recipients more is reasonable. Why is it reasonable to forbid charging SNAP recipients less?

Gleefully exploiting a reasonable rule against the clear spirit of its authors to further immiserate the most vulnerable members of our society? My pitchfork is staying out thanks.

I was thinking the same thing, it feels neutral at best, but anything potentially bad about it is probably for non-program members.

If you give SNAP beneficiaries a discount that isn't gov subsidised, all things same everyone not in SNAP might theoretically pay more.

It sounds reasonable, but tinfoil time, unless they normally have people watching this, it feels like the USDA was told or anticipated this.

So much of this gives "Look what you made me do" vibes.

Can you find any examples, ever, of the government threatening stores for giving discounts?

They are trying to starve people as a political tool.

Its not, but we have a government that sees starving the population as a political tool.

I've still got my pitchfork out. As the reminder says, discounts are allowed with a USDA waiver, so they should either offer a temporary blanket waiver or suggest some better way to mitigate the impact on SNAP recipients.

To be a fair program it should not cause an undue burden on the participating stores.

Store A could advertise that it will provide a 10% discount to SNAP recipients. Now Stores B,C,D,etc.. have to match or beat to be competitive. This would ultimately introduce competitiveness into the market where it was meant to assist those less fortunate.

Offering a discount is assisting the less fortunate, as far as I can tell: They will get more food per dollar on their bridge card, costing the government less. This is (almost) the same dynamic as forbidding Medicare to negotiate drug prices, isn't it?

I suppose chains could work around this by just lowering prices in neighborhoods with a lot of people on SNAP, which would actually be even better IMO, because it means lower food prices for entire low income neighborhoods, possibly even pushing shoppers from other neighborhoods to shop in these places and bring more money into the community. I would drive to the other side of the tracks if all my groceries cost 10% less.

The relevant regulation (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-II/s...) says "No retail food store may single out coupon users for special treatment in any way.". Imagine, for example, a retailer that offers SNAP discounts only on the worst cuts of meat they otherwise have trouble selling; you can imagine why a SNAP recipient might feel uncomfortable with that, even though in principle it's a Pareto improvement.

> If you give SNAP beneficiaries a discount that isn't gov subsidised, all things same everyone not in SNAP might theoretically pay more.

SNAP increases demand for eligible goods. Increased demand increases prices.

People pay taxes to fund SNAP. Private discounts for SNAP recipients could reduce SNAP expenses theoretically.

It a consumer protection and fair competition thing (and probably anti-fraud too). There are similar rules in place for medicare/medicaid too. Gifts of any kind to induce a patient to choose your facility over any other are forbidden. That's why if you look really closely at ads at pharmacies encouraging Medicare/Medicaid people to switch, even though they talk about all these free things, they're all things that are free if you're on Medicare/Medicaid regardless of what facility you choose. I worked for a place one time that was sued by the feds for giving a $10 grocery store gift card to Medicare/Medicaid recipients if they were the source of a referral. The referral didn't even have to use the company's services, just answer they heard about them from X patient if and when they called for more information. But that was enough to be considered a violation of the laws.

I think the broad theory goes that people receiving these benefits are in pretty tight financial straights and some benefit or discount that might be "nice" to someone else is "essential" to them and may cause them to use your services even when that isn't the best use of their benefits for the purposes of those benefits.

> they should either offer a temporary blanket waiver or suggest some better way to mitigate the impact on SNAP recipients

Without something like this, why should one assume good faith behind the change? The people chanting "the cruelty is the point" seem to be vindicated rather clearly.

Are you familiar with the term "malicious compliance"?

Brought to you by the administration who doesn't see fit to follow any other law, but boy oh boy will they enforce it if it hurts others. Sorry - it's evil.

To do that without being abused by rich bargain-hunters, you can add in the Costco membership model with geo-discounted signups.

> Imagine, for example, a retailer that offers SNAP discounts only on the worst cuts of meat they otherwise have trouble selling; you can imagine why a SNAP recipient might feel uncomfortable with that, even though in principle it's a Pareto improvement.

People I knew who received food assistance would have welcomed the Pareto improvement. And this would not explain why a 10% discount for all eligible goods should be forbidden for example.

Well, they are slightly off course: both the starvation and general cruelty are the methods, in service of a much uglier point.

In Ohio we call that "driving to Kentucky."

I'm not even sure "good faith" is the right word. Trump stated explicitly today that he does not want SNAP benefits to be paid until he wins the shutdown fight. But a lot of people have this idea that being politically earnest is cringe, so it's not an option to simply say it's bad he won't explore other options to pay the benefits. You have to make up some clever reason why the issue is more complicated than it sounds, and maybe Trump had no choice, no matter how much that requires you to ignore context and court orders and the stated positions of the politicians involved.

It was done in bad faith. The Trump administration is well known for this hateful, spiteful behavior. They just have to control everything. No exceptions.

This whole thing with SNAP is an experiment by them. They are trying to introduce "temporary" measures and situations to condition people. The Nixon zombies running the Republican party have dreamt of this opportunity for decades.

Yep, soft drink companies and processed food merchants laugh all the way to the bank.

They can shop anywhere they like.

Not for food stamps, but here's the feds going after a pharmacy for gift cards and co-pay waivers from 2015: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ednc/pr/pharmacy-company-agreed...

Here's one for a pharmaceutical company, the details aren't quite clear but it sounds like they were funding co-pay assistance programs for their medications specifically but not others: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/teva-pharmaceuticals-agre...

Here's a broader NPR article from 2008 covering the same idea: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/09/6091508...

Here's a 2024 article on the possibility of subsidizing outpatient housing for drug rehab being a violation of the statutes: https://www.startribune.com/many-minnesotans-in-addiction-tr...

Here's a attorney website noting that any exchange of cash for EBT benefits is a violation of the law: https://usda.attorney/snap-violation/ and a discount that is explicitly for EBT users is almost certainly a violation of that.

Realistically the fact that there is an entire process for getting a waiver for "incentives" for SNAP recipients (https://www.fns.usda.gov/form/snap-incentives), and that particular site has been up since before Trump took office and this one from 2023 for a government program that specifically says you must apply for a waiver: https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/healthy-incentives suggests that this is another one of these cases in this administration where the brokenness of the system that has always been there is only finally coming to light for a lot of people.

Conservatives were not wrong when they said (paraphrasing) that a government powerful enough to give you everything is a government powerful enough to take away everything too. It's just in this weird timeline we find ourselves in, it's the "conservative" party that's being the monster they feared for decades.

Switching grocers does not require registration. Many people shop multiple grocers even.

Now you're back to discriminating instead of treating all purchasers the same way, which was the whole point of the theorized workaround.

People that don't work should not get preferential treatment over people that actually contribute to the economy. Many people that need food stamps are just temporarily in a bad position but many are just taking advantage

> a much uglier point

If not cruelty, what?

Power? To do what, if not "be cruel in service to oneself without repercussion"?

Your argument was an argument against food assistance. Not for telling grocers how they may run their businesses.

In general, most Americans ages 16 to 59 who aren’t disabled must register with their state SNAP agency or employment office; meet any work, job search or job training requirements set by their state; accept a suitable job if one is offered to them; and work at least 30 hours a week. Failure to comply with those rules can disqualify people from getting SNAP benefits. In addition, nondisabled adults without dependents must either work or participate in a work program for 80 hours a month, or participate in a state workfare program. If they fail to do so, they can only receive SNAP benefits for three months out of any 36-month period.[1]

The majority of families that received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2018 included at least one employed individual, according to the American Community Survey (ACS).[2]

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/19/what-the-...

[2] https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/07/most-families...

I think you have to ask why you'd want grocery stores to compete over SNAP customers in a way that doesn't already overlap with how they compete over non-SNAP customers.

Because they're decent human beings trying to help the less fortunate. Good God, is the concept of kindness this foreign to us now?

> There are similar rules in place for medicare/medicaid too.

And yet the Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates for services often differs from that of insured, and cash patients...

Who are you to tell another person or business that they can't give people in a bad position a little help?

I'm sure you equally complain when some businesses over food or drinks to the homeless too.

Geo-discounted membership fees aren’t food stamps pricing discrimination under the USDA restrictions. I’m not trying to unilaterally eliminate pricing differentials based on income, I’m just trying to find a way for a grocery store to lower the costs of food, without being exploited by wealthy people, during a food stamps crisis. I suspect the USDA can’t regulate club membership discounts, but someone else can research that.

If you're not actually using SNAP benefits for that particular purpose, I don't think this applies. But it won't matter, because the threat will have the desired chilling effect.

> Imagine, for example, a retailer that offers SNAP discounts only on the worst cuts of meat they otherwise have trouble selling

Oh, yes, we're just looking out for the vulnerable SNAP recipients...

Do you have a specific concern? State it.

No, don’t put your pitchforks anywhere. Trump has spelled it out plain as day: SNAP recipients will starve until Democrats submit -- and that’s basically a direct quote. (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-snap-benefits-wi...) Just today, he declared that he would ignore the court order to release SNAP funds. So it should be pretty obvious why the USDA is making angry noises about this issue in particular. It's an incredibly fucked up form of leverage.

That has nothing to do with what the provider does or doesn’t charge. The government gets to pick what their reimbursement rate is.

Neither does switching pharmacies. You can today go to 3 different pharmacies and fill 3 different prescriptions as long as you actually have those prescriptions sent to those pharmacies.

What change? Regardless of why the USDA decided to remind people of this, these rules on SNAP benefits and equal treatment have been part of the law since before Trump took office.

Funding SNAP during shutdowns with money that is directly set aside for such cases is also part of the law, which Trump is conveniently saying they will not follow. Trying to argue that rules are reasonable doesn't matter when you're trying to make a case while the admin is admitting to starving people for political gain.