With more people clamoring for food stamps and turning benefits centers into fire hazards by waiting in line all day, creating human gridlock that the FDNY had to alleviate, the city is finally going to do something about it: Hire more people to distribute the benefits. Human Resources Administration Deputy Commissioner Patricia Smith told the City Council, "The alleviation of crowding at our office is a high priority." more ›

Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Cuomo are at it again, sparring over whether or not food stamp recipients should be fingerprinted, a debate that's been growing for months and is reaching a fever pitch as more New Yorkers than ever need the benefits. more ›

We already knew that more people than ever were using food stamps in this economy, but today, the Wall Street Journal takes a look at what happens when too many people need assistance: job centers turn into complete sh*tshows. more ›

To receive food stamps in New York State, one must be single and make under $14,088 a year, or a be in a family of four and make under $26,668. According to LoHud, the amount of money distributed through the EBT program is up 133% this year, compared with when the recession began in 2007. Three million people were on food stamps this July, a 70% increase from that year. You can't buy Double Downs with them quite yet, but our money is on Taco Bell anyway—those half-pound burritos temporarily take the pain away. more ›

City Council speaker Christine Quinn is questioning Bloomberg's decision to make food stamp applicants in the city get fingerprinted, calling out the practice as expensive and unnecessary. Statewide, where one in five people are on food stamps and 2.5 million people can't afford enough food, fingerprinting is not required, but in New York City it is, making the city one of only two areas in the country requiring fingerprinting (the other is in Arizona). more ›

Conservatives have been up in arms all week over a rapper who seemingly glorifies the decadent lifestyle of food stamps and welfare. Stanley Lafleur, aka rapper Mr EBT (H-Man), watched as the video for his single "My EBT," which joyously depicts him using his government-issued Electronic Benefit Transfer card to pay for junk food, went viral this week after Drudge Report and other conservative bloggers held it up as The Reason This Country Is Going To Hell (not the champagne toasts). But Lafleur tells the News that conservatives just don't get his message: "I couldn't believe people are hating on me like I'm rubbing the benefit card in the face of taxpayers. They don't get it. My video is a parody." more ›

Food stamps are all the rage these days—one in five New Yorkers are on 'em, using stamps to pay for everything from Wonder bread to organic Japanese eggplant. So it makes sense that more businesses would want a piece of the food stamp pie—businesses like fast food restaurants, to be exact. more ›

Even though Bloomberg's proposed ban on buying sodas and sugary drinks with food stamps may not even happen because the USDA lacks the authority to approve such a change, soft drink companies are fighting the proposal just in case. Food and beverage lobbyists have accused Bloomberg of everything from ignorance to discrimination for the plan. Kevin W. Keane, senior vice president of the American Beverage Association, told the Times, “Once you start going into grocery carts, deciding what people can or cannot buy, where do you stop?” Clearly, he's not familiar with how Michael "Deal With It" Bloomberg operates. more ›

Currently about one in five New Yorkers are on food stamps, but many new recipients are not on welfare. That's because New Yorkers are special, and what would count as being in "poverty" here doesn't always count as poverty in the rest of the country. A new report (below) on city poverty from 2005 to 2009 from the Center for Economic Opportunity echoes that fact, saying that "the official poverty measure provides little useful information" for the city. However, they do argue that things like food stamps have kept people out of poverty. more ›

According to new data from the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, 3 million NY State residents were on food stamps in 2010, an 11% increase from 2009. Which means that the 1.7 million city residents on food stamps account for over half of the state's recipients. more ›

In one of many mishaps, Bloomberg's "Green Cart" plan was kind of a bust last year, with people in "food deserts" not too keen on spending their money or food stamps on fresh fruit. Except that people did want fruit, they just didn't want to get it bruised and old from a cart. In 2010 low-income New Yorkers spent $500,000 in food stamps at greenmarkets from around the city, nearly double what they spent in 2009. Or maybe it's just the nouveau pauvre who aren't into the whole "living off ramen" thing. more ›

Another day, another depressing story about people stealing from the needy. A week after Marque Gumbs was busted for allegedly stealing millions in printer toner from a cancer hospital, comes the story of four women (three of whom are or had been city employees) accused of stealing $8 million in food stamps. more ›

Back in September, the Bloomberg administration quietly released the Mayor's Management Report for the fiscal year 2010, and among the numbers about education and unemployment comes this rather shocking tidbit: "In 2010, over 1.7 million New Yorkers received federal food stamps, more than double the number of recipients in 2001." They also report, "The great bulk of recipients—over a million—do not receive welfare assistance. In fact, the number of food stamp recipients who are not on welfare has increased almost five-fold since 2001." But it's OK, just because you're on food stamps doesn't mean you have to do the "living off ramen" thing. Enjoy them now while you can still use them for sugar! [Via Gotham Gazette] more ›

The raging debate about whether Mayor Bloomberg should or shouldn't try to stop poor people from using food stamps on soda seems to be missing an important point: It's quite likely this is never going to happen, because it seems the United States Department of Agriculture lacks the authority to approve such a change. Federal law is very specific about what can and cannot be bought with food stamps, and any exemption from these guidelines would require Congressional approval. And since most politicians are in the pocket of the beverage industry, it looks like poor Joe Sixpack (of Jolt) will be buying soda with food stamps for the foreseeable future. more ›

He won't rest until we're all eating nothing but fiber pellets distributed by government contractors at smoke-free pedestrian plaza work camps. As if poor people on food stamps don't have enough troubles, Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson are teaming up to deprive them of the sweet solace of soda pop! By making food stamps invalid for purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages in NYC, the city also hopes to deprive poor people of diabetes. more ›

With the economy the way it's been, many young folks are now finding themselves—by IRS standards—quite poor. Poor enough to be eligible for things like food stamps paid by your taxpayer dollars, which they are using to buy Japanese eggplant. Salon writes about the latest trend of the nouveau pauvre: young graduates applying for the benefits in overwhelming numbers. more ›

If that depressing article in the Sunday Times about Americans living on nothing but food stamps bummed you out, here's a silver lining: This month the indigent also qualify for Jewish comedy. The Jewish Theater of New York announced today that anyone on food stamps or Medicaid can see its upcoming production for just $5. (Full-price tickets cost $50.) Wait, it gets better—this play sounds genius. It's called Press 93 For Kosher Jewish Girls In Krakow, and the troupe describes it as "a modern play about smartphones in the ultra-Orthodox community and how rabbis use advanced technology to repress their followers' most intimate thoughts and desires." more ›

With college loan debt, three months till graduation, and less than encouraging job prospects, NYU journalism school student Ryan McLendon decided to sign up for food stamps. According to CityRoom, McLendon waited more than seven hours over two days to see a food stamps counselor in Williamsburg, along with young families and other struggling New Yorkers. Since 2002 the number of NYC residents on food stamps has grown by more than 74%. In the end, when McLendon finally met with a food stamps counselor, the computers were down. more ›

As the debate to legalize gay marriage rages on within the chaotic confines of Albany, two young men took matters into their own hands and hoodwinked their way into a marriage certificate at the City Clerk's Office. Hakim Nelson and Jason Stenson were married on May 26th, sliding under the radar on Nelson's food stamps card, which lists him as a female. No one at the clerk's office raised an eyebrow since Nelson arrived wearing an orange dress with white leggings. The two believe that they made history with Stenson saying, "People in Albany can say, 'Look, it's already happened, so let's just make it legal.'" Hakim Nelson and Jason Stenson, you might be New York's first gay marriage to go public, what are you gonna do now? We're taking our story to the New York Post! The Post talked to a city official, who seemed pretty unfazed, telling the paper, "If someone is trying to willfully sneak through, we try to stop it. But you have instances of females [who] have male names and vice versa. You've heard of a boy named Sue, right?" The newlyweds have been honeymooning at a homeless youth shelter in Brooklyn. more ›

Marina Gavrielova's husband makes about $98,000 a year as a limo driver and owns a nice house in Jamaica, Queens, where the couple resides with their three children. But according to prosecutors, Gavrielova duped various city, state and federal agencies into believing she was single mom living in Brooklyn, earning just $200 a week at a nail salon. With her husband posing as her landlord, Gavrielova, a licensed cosmetologist, allegedly bilked the system out of $360,000 in welfare benefits, which helped fund trips to Cancun, the Bahamas and Jamaica. more ›

With more families turning to food stamps as food prices increases, more farmers markets are accepting them. The Farmers' Market Federation of NY says that food stamp sales have grown to $90,000 in 2007 from $3,000 in 2002 (helped in part by wireless technology that allows the farmers to accept payments by food stamp debit card); executive director Diane Eggert told the AP, "We're already outpacing 2007, so I think we're going to see significant growth." One Brooklyn resident hopes to use his food stamps on fresher produce from the farmers, "When you shop at the grocery store, it's very limited-they don't have a very wide selection. I think if we had a farmers market, I think we would shop more, and eat more produce." more ›