I received an email yesterday with a press release about a company called "Food Stamp Covers." The company is hawking an eponymous product called food stamp covers. Food stamp covers are thin "skins" designed to be applied over the obverse (front) side of your SNAP, or food stamp, card. They come, as they say in a wide assortment of colors and styles and prevent your card from looking like the food stamp card issued by the state in which you are shopping.
I'm all for American ingenuity. If there's money to be made, we're all over it. But something about this strikes me the wrong way. The business case for this product seems to be that you have 47 million people participating in program but they're ashamed enough about it that they don't want anyone to know? There are also technical and regulatory questions this product raises. For example, the requirements of the physical card are pretty closely defined in federal regulations. Does this violate these regulations?
Again, I applaud the creativity. But does it point to a deeper, more fundamental problem with entitlement programs like these?
I'm all for American ingenuity. If there's money to be made, we're all over it. But something about this strikes me the wrong way. The business case for this product seems to be that you have 47 million people participating in program but they're ashamed enough about it that they don't want anyone to know? There are also technical and regulatory questions this product raises. For example, the requirements of the physical card are pretty closely defined in federal regulations. Does this violate these regulations?
Again, I applaud the creativity. But does it point to a deeper, more fundamental problem with entitlement programs like these?
No comments:
Post a Comment