Beginning in September, EBT card distributions will take place on a new date, which will be assigned to participants based upon the last two numbers of their identification card, according to the Georgia Department of Human Services’ Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS).
DFCS will implement these changes following a month of transition in August in which the distributions will be split into two deposits. Half of the distributions in August will be available on the same day that they had previously been deposited and the other half will be available on the new date. The change was done to stagger the distributions in order to keep up with the demand placed upon grocers throughout the state, according to DFCS.
“We don’t want there to be mass concern when they get half benefits (on the normal distribution date) in August,” said Kristy Wilson, interim supervisor at the DFCS Office of Family Independence in Calhoun. “They will get their full benefits, just spread out in August. We don’t want them thinking that the benefits are going to be cut in half.”
Wilson stressed that the benefits in September and subsequent months will be paid in full on the new date.
For participants whose ID card numbers end in 00-09, the new deposit date will stay the 5th of every month; those in the 10-19 range will receive distributions on the 7th of the month; 20-29 will move to the 9th; 30-39 the 11th; 40-49 the 13th; 50-59 the 15th; 60-69 will receive deposits on the 17th; 70-79 the 19th; 80-89 the 21st and those with numbers ending in 90-99 with receive their benefits on the 23rd.
SNAP is the most current development in the evolution of the Food Stamp Program (FSP), which began in 1939, according to information from the United States Department of Agriculture. The program was initially designed to allow people the opportunity to purchase orange colored stamps to buy general food items and blue stamps to purchase surplus goods. Under the John F. Kennedy administration the surplus blue stamps were eliminated. In 1964, president Lyndon B. Johnson requested that Congress make the FSP permanent. The program was overhauled in the 1970s to create uniform, nationwide, standards for program eligibility as well as to enforce accountability. The program faced cuts and other constraints in the 1980s before surging to an all-time high in participation levels in the last decade. As of 2008, more than an 29 million people per month were participating in the program, according to the Department of Agriculture. The passage of the Farm Bill in 2008 allocated an additional $10 billion over 10 years to the program and rebranded it SNAP.
For more information on the SNAP program, visit http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/rules/Legislation/about.htm.
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