"A single mother who relied on federal food assistance lost her benefits in 2020 after Kentucky investigators concluded she'd committed fraud. The state alleged she had made multiple same-day purchases, tried to overdraw her account a few times, entered a few invalid PINs and sometimes made "whole-dollar" purchases that are unlikely during typical grocery runs. The woman from Salyersville in Appalachian Kentucky had an explanation: She worked at the store. She would sometimes buy lunch there and then get groceries after work."
"Over the last five years, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services has brought hundreds of fraud cases that are heavily reliant on transactional data with the goal of revoking people's food benefits. Judges, lawyers and legal experts said in interviews and in court documents that such evidence proves little. Kentucky Public Radio reviewed dozens of administrative hearing decisions and court documents from the last five years in which the cabinet relied on shopping patterns to prove a person had "trafficked," or sold, their benefits."
Kentucky investigators used transactional data—same-day purchases, attempted overdrafts, invalid PIN entries and “whole-dollar” purchases—to allege SNAP trafficking and revoke benefits. A single mother in Salyersville lost benefits in 2020 after an administrative hearing officer relied solely on her shopping pattern despite her explanation that she worked at the store and her child sometimes used the card. She sued and won, with a judge calling the disqualification draconian absent clear and convincing evidence. Over five years the Kentucky Cabinet pursued hundreds of cases based largely on shopping patterns; legal experts and court records indicate such patterns prove little, while disqualifications surged.
Read at Fortune
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]