Stamping Out Welfare Shame

Janine Paul learned to steel herself from the hard stares that came at the checkout counter once she pulled out her food stamps.

Some people would make a point of inspecting the items in her cart. Others would sigh loudly or impatiently tap a foot while waiting for her to count out the colored coupons. Worst of all, said Paul and her husband, Steve, was waiting for someone to make a snide remark.

But the Simi Valley couple, who rely on food stamps to help feed their four children, no longer fear embarrassment at the grocery store. Their “stamps” are now electronic debit cards. The Pauls simply slide the card through a magnetic reader, enter a PIN and move on, like everyone else.

“People aren’t looking down their nose at you, making you feel unpleasant,” said Steve Paul, 51, a carpenter who worked for the Air Force before becoming disabled. “You just glide right through. It’s obvious when you have food stamps. This makes it un-obvious.”

Forty-six states have made the move from paper vouchers to debit cards as required by the 1996 overhaul of federal welfare laws. California expects to complete its conversion in all 58 counties by the end of next year.

“Time and studies tell us the biggest challenge [in getting eligible people to apply] is the stigma associated with food stamps,” said Bruce Wagstaff, deputy director of California’s welfare-to-work division in Sacramento.

So far, Riverside, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and 15 other counties have made the switch. Los Angeles County, where 40% of the state’s welfare population resides, will begin phasing out food stamps next month. Starting in South-Central and East Los Angeles, aid recipients will be able to use the cards to buy food at a variety of grocery stores.

Those receiving monthly welfare grants also will be able to use the cards to withdraw their cash benefits.

“I was actually on welfare for about five years, so I can definitely relate,” said Haleemah Henderson, community development coordinator for Strategic Actions for a Just Economy, a Los Angeles nonprofit that is helping the county with the transition. “It’s a common thing that when you have babies and all your food and you start pulling out food stamps, people will move to other lines. Or the checker will get on the store’s loudspeaker and say, ‘I need change for food stamps!’”

Eliminating that stigma was not at the top of the federal government’s list of reasons for requiring states to convert to electronic systems. Congress and the Clinton administration were more concerned about reducing fraud in the $20-billion program, cutting administrative costs and making it easier for states to track benefits when recipients moved, officials say.

A report by the U.S. General Accounting Office last year found that the new system saves the federal government time and money because it eliminates the need to print, distribute and safeguard paper coupons, which are issued monthly. The plastic cards, by contrast, are issued just once and can be recharged.

Some states, however, have reported higher costs to administer the new program. It’s too early to say whether California will save money in the long run, state officials say.

Reducing food-stamp shame is another beneficial outcome, federal officials say.

“With these cards, people feel like everybody else. Like you and me,” said Susan Acker, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food & Nutrition Service. “Unless you happen to know what your state’s card looks like, you wouldn’t know that it is a food-stamp card.”

Food stamps were first distributed to poor families during the Depression. President Lyndon B. Johnson instituted the modern version in 1964 as part of his administration’s wide-ranging efforts to attack poverty. Today, the program helps to feed 19 million people in 8.2 million American households.

From the start, recipients have had to bear the social stigma associated with welfare dependency, officials say. They have often been viewed as either too lazy to work or as con artists trying to scam the government.

But fraud in the program has never been widespread, Acker said. The vast majority of food-stamp recipients use them for about a year -- and are subsisting at near-poverty levels. Half of those benefiting are children.

To qualify, recipients must have a net monthly income of less than $1,252 for a family of three. Most are working but don’t make enough money to pay all of their bills, Acker said.

That is the case with Lawrence Sierra, 56, who works part time selling appliances at Sears in Riverside. Sierra’s wife is mentally ill and cannot help out right now, he said.

Before Riverside County switched to cards, Sierra found shopping so humiliating that he did it at night to avoid the crowds. The demeaning comments from other shoppers got to him after awhile, said the 6-foot-2, 230-pound Vietnam veteran and father of two young children.

“People would want to know why we are using food stamps -- ‘Why don’t you work?’ -- that kind of thing,” he said. “Anything to be negative.... You try to ignore it, but it hurts.”

Riverside County switched to the electronic benefits system in May. The difference, Sierra said, was “like night and day.”

“You slide the card through. You don’t hold up the line,” he said. “It’s quicker, more efficient and less embarrassing.”

For the Pauls, too, shopping has become a pleasurable family event. On a recent trip, the couple and three of their children roamed the aisles of their local Albertsons. The parents fended off most of their children’s requests for junk food, filling their cart with vegetables and meats.

After stacking their items on the checkout counter, Janine slid her card through the payment machine. The card looks like a fancy credit card with a picture of California’s coastline and the words “Golden State Advantage” on the front.

On her printed receipt, Janine could see that she was charged $47.74 for the day’s purchase, leaving her food benefits account with a balance of $120.09. Within minutes, the family was finished and out the door. “Technology is an amazing thing, isn’t it?” Steve Paul said as they drove off.

Welfare administrators say they hope the change will solve a chronic problem: aiding people who are eligible for food benefits but unwilling to sign up for them.

A campaign to reach out to those families and encourage them to apply was already underway, the USDA’s Acker said. Nationally, only about 60% of those eligible apply, she said.

“We want to ensure that every eligible person receives food stamps, especially children,” she said. “And we want to make sure that the people receive the benefits with dignity and respect.”