http://youtu.be/ioq6WRjyLU8
Why doesn’t Chris Christie fix this? Oh, I forgot: He’s too busy sucking up to the Kochs!
High demand for food stamps has made New Jersey one of the slowest states in the nation to process food stamp applications.
States are required to process applications for the food stamp program, or SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program), within 30 days. But according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, New Jersey only meets this requirement 73.75 percent of the time.
The cause of the delay is a struggle to keep up with growing demand for the program, a direct consequence of the recession and ongoing economic recovery. Since 2008, the county boards of social services, which are charged with administering SNAP in New Jersey, have seen a 107 percent increase in the number of applicants, according to Lisa Pitz, coordinator of advocacy and outreach for the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition. The USDA calculated that as of March, 873,657 people were receiving SNAP benefits, or nearly one in 10 New Jersey residents. These high numbers put a strain on the state agencies that provide SNAP benefits, slowing down the application process for potential beneficiaries.Some SNAP applicants have had to wait as long as six months for their application to go through. Others have given up their benefits because they could not afford to keep waiting. One mother described how difficult it is when benefits are delayed:
“Oh, man, it’s been so bad,” said Katira Quiles, 22, a Camden mother of two who has a part-time job for $8 an hour at a food-processing plant near Glassboro. “They take a long time getting you your food stamps.”
Recently, Quiles’ benefit was a week late, causing her to panic because she didn’t have enough food for her children.The USDA mandates that any state that processes 90 percent or less of its SNAP applications within 30 days must create a strategy to reach a 95 percent rate. New Jersey is hiring new caseworkers, improving computer systems, and expediting the often lengthy process of filing the proper paperwork.
The whole purpose of a screw-up, runaround system is to create enough shame, pain and delay to make all but the most desperate give up and go away. The workhouses in England were purposely made so horrible so that only the most desperate people would go to them for help. It helps create and enforce good morals in people, you see.
These hungry people should get their stomachs stapled, just like the the big guy in the governor’s office did.
BTW, when are we going to see some pictures of an impressively svelter Chris Christie? How long will it take for him to shed those 220 unwanted pounds? I bet that no one will recognize him, and therefore be hesitant to vote for him, sorta like Mike Huckleberry.
(My spellcheck seems disturbed by the word svelter, perhaps thinking that it’s yiddish for “suffer from the excessive heat of New Jersey if you don’t have air-conditioning and can’t afford to summer at the shore.”)