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.”
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.