You wouldn’t think that financially challenged families would need any encouragement to seek more help during these very challenging times.
However, recently the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services [NCDHHS] was offering that encouragement loudly.
The department sent out a press release to media outlets across the state instructing everyone who qualifies to take full advantage of an add-on food program meant to especially help women and their children during the COVID-19 crisis.
“The [NCDHHS] is encouraging North Carolinians who are enrolled in the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) to use their food benefits during COVID-19 to support good nutrition for their families,” the release states. “All WIC participants are getting monthly food benefits automatically added to their eWIC account because of the pandemic.”
According to state officials, many of the program’s would-be beneficiaries in North Carolina haven’t been using their full food benefits each month since Friday, May 22 – the day the state ordered most people to state at home in response to COVID-19.
Since WIC allowances don’t roll over benefits from month to month, beneficiaries lose any food balance that they don’t spend during a month.
In addition to offering beefed up benefits this year, the state and federal government is also reducing the amount of red tape that individuals and families must cut through before getting benefits. On Friday, March 20, for instance, the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) waived the longstanding requirement that participants attend their appointments in-person at a local WIC clinic to renew their families’ food benefits each and every month. According to state officials, the change allowed both WIC beneficiaries and WIC clinic staff to “avoid unnecessary in-person contact during COVID-19, supporting states’ efforts to slow the spread of the virus.”
NCDHHS is also simultaneously working to increase awareness in the state that WIC food allowances are being auto-issued each month on participants’ family issue date so that North Carolinians can get the full benefits of the federal program. Families enrolled in WIC can download the Bnft App from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play store, and then can enable notifications to make sure they don’t miss an update to their eWIC account.
More information for WIC participants can be found on the department’s new Use Your WIC During COVID-19 digital flyer, which is available in English and Spanish.
So why should hard working families who struggle to feed their children be taxed on their groceries, while welfare rdcipients are not?
IT IS TIME TO REPEAL THE “TEMPORARY” FOOD TAX IMPOSED BY “FOOD TAX TERRY” SANFORD….
……IN 1961 !
Just like the old saying goes, work harder millions on welfare are depending in you! Its fairly obvious that those who bust their rear ends to make a living and feed their own families are the ones who are getting the worst end of the deal. Our grocery and utility bills keep climbing and our wonderful liberal friends keep taking more and more to give to countless able bodied folks who refuse to get off their butts and get a job because we pay them to be professional moochers with more disposable income than the hard working middle class that pays their way. I’m all for helping the severely disabled and the elderly, but not a lazy turd.
Is this a hint that we should be stocking up for the Apocolypse that’s coming?
We all see folks in the grocery stores, including the most expensive ones, filling their carts with junk foods and paying with a SNAP card.
One of the reasons they are in a financial mess is making bad decisions, and that includes food choices. I am in favor of eliminating this matter of hand-outs, and actually giving qualified applicants actual food; and not the processed crap they are buying with my money.
Many charities hand out food packages, why can’t the govt do that? Furthermore, those receiving govt handouts should work. How about picking up trash in our roads? Enviornmental reclamation?