Oct 15, 2013
This past weekend America witnessed a limited crash in the computer systems that manage electronic benefit transfers across the country. Within hours of the crash panicked food stamp recipients who were left with no way to feed their families rushed grocery store shelves to obtain everything they could while the system was down.

The outage lasted less than a day, but it proved what many already knew, that America had become a nation so dependent on government subsidies that any glitch in the system would lead to total pandemonium.

But if you thought that isolated incident was bad, imagine what will happen next month.

We say next month because the USDA, which oversees the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), has just issued an order to SNAP agency directors calling for their respective States to implement an emergency contingency program. In a letter obtained by the Crossroads Urban Center food pantry, the USDA is directing state agencies to, "delay their November issuance files and delay transmission to State Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) vendors until further notice."