As the Trump administration continued its illegal freeze on food assistance, the US Department of Agriculture sent a warning to grocery stores not to provide discounts to the more than 42 million Americans affected.
Several grocery chains and food delivery apps have announced in recent days that they would provide substantial discounts to those whose Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits have been delayed. More than 1 in 8 Americans rely on the program, and 39% of them are children.
But on Sunday, Catherine Rampell, an anchor at MSNBC, published an email from the USDA that was sent to grocery stores around the country, telling them they were prohibited from offering special discounts to those at greater risk of food insecurity due to the cuts.
“You must offer eligible foods at the same prices and on the same terms and conditions to SNAP-EBT customers as other customers, except that sales tax cannot be charged on SNAP purchases,” the email said. “You cannot treat SNAP-EBT customers differently from any other customer. Offering discounts or services only to SNAP-eligible customers is a SNAP violation unless you have a SNAP equal treatment waiver.”
“You cannot treat SNAP-EBT customers differently from any other customer. Offering discounts or services only to SNAP-eligible customers is a SNAP violation unless you have a SNAP equal treatment waiver.”
Grocery stores should respond with: “With trump refusing to fund SNAP during the shutdown with funds specifically allocated for this purpose, SNAP does not exist right now. Therefore there is no SNAP rule to break because there is no SNAP right now.”
Seriously. This is a chance to gain some lifelong brand loyalty for minimal cost. Any grocery store that isn’t offering some steep discounts on staple foods right now (totally ignoring the SNAP thing, because why even would they try to make the linkage) is missing the fucking boat.
They could offer the discount to all but advertise it’s for snap (non) recipients. It might start to foster a bigger sense of community.
Who am I kidding. The same assholes that hoarded on COVID would hoard and try to sell at market price later.
“The cruelty is the point.”
Sure, I can’t think of a better use of the USDA other than micromanaging the point-of-sale for thousands of grocery stores.
I think in normal circumstances, requiring snap customers be treated the same offers them protection. In this case, it would make sense to allow discounts. But, as always. The cruelty is the point.
It’s not?
The rule that all consumers get treated equally is a pretty fucking big one, especially when it comes to protecting vulnerable groups.
It’s just that now that regulation is becoming problematic in different ways because of a fundamental breakdown of the systems we rely on.
Getting rid of it would do more harm than good as soon as benefits come back as corporations will abuse it for their own benefit.
Don’t unwittingly hand corporations more fucking power
Micro-managing.
I see… The Cheeto in Chief is attempting to invoke crime so he can deploy troops huh?
Just a guess, but tis the first thing that comes to mind. He’s about the least Christian person I could imagine. And we soon will be in the Christmas giving season… But only for cronies.
They have been very clear that unless you buy extravagant christmas gifts, you are not worthy of celebrating. They even made a (PSA?) about it. Fuck the oligarchs.
“We’ve got to let the free market provide the solution.”
Free market surprisingly provides a fairly humane solution.
“Not like that!”
They want you to be suffering and blame the Democrats for it. They don’t care about us, at all. Never did. We just pawns in their political game.
The party of small government at work.
Ok, then how about a bunch of items go “unnoticed” or keyed in wrong and written off in the checkout by the cashier, which isn’t really a discount or a service, just some clumsiness. It’s their first day on the job, don’t you know.
Im going to get a lot of flak but I completely see why they would do this. Unfortunately this situation should not even exist but if there is a requirement to treat all customers the same they should enforce it. I will say though that is bullshit considering the app stuff. They should crack down and force them to offer all deals to any customers even anonymous walk in ones.
I like this, everyone should get the discount or no one.
There is some sort of law around this which is why the usda put this out but they seemed to have allowed this loyalty program type thing to go with the idea anyone can sign up but the amount of hoops and requirements has gotten out of control and they really need to treat it as seperate pricing for seperate groups.
Always been this way to prevent abuse of the system and customers by grocery stores.
The email referred to SNAP’s “Equal Treatment Rule,” which prohibits stores from discriminating against SNAP recipients by charging them higher prices or treating them more favorably than other customers by offering them specialized sales or incentives.
There is something seriously wrong with this logic.
Clearly treating SNAP recipients favorably is not abusive. This is to prevent stores from getting an unfair advantage at the cost of a free market. It is essentially a cut out so grocery stores can’t compete for customers only if they are SNAP.
Probably harkens back to some misinterpretation of the procurement rules.
