2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumYou don't have ID? Well, no food stamps for you!
Food stamp recipients will have their grocery store humiliation compounded by having to show a photo ID in order to buy food if Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) gets his way.
Under a bill Vitter introduced Wednesday, beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) would be denied their food if they are unable to show a photographic identification card at the register. For millions of low-income Americans who dont have an official photo ID and cant necessarily afford to buy one, Vitters bill would mean being cut off from their primary food source.
Estimates of how many people are without the kind of ID Vitter wants to require are a bit fuzzy, as researchers have tended to focus on the issue in the context of voting rights, but multiple surveys have found that around 10 percent of the voting public doesnt have a state-issued ID. One survey of voting-age citizens in 2006 put the ID-less proportion of the population at 11 percent, meaning that more than 21 million people nationwide likely lack photo ID, and found that one in four African-Americans surveyed had no ID.
The press release offers no indication that Vitters bill would help provide IDs for those who need them, as many states do with voter ID cards. But even if even if everyone could easily get an identification card, his bill would still heap additional humiliation on poor, hungry people.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/01/16/3174021/vitter-photo-food-stamps/
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)kairos12
(12,877 posts)Igel
(35,362 posts)So the article unfuzzies it. "State-issued photo ID" is what's discussed.
Maybe that's what's proposed. Text of the bill hasn't reached Thomas yet from the GPO as of this posting. Title just says "photo ID" and most other accounts don't make assumptions as to what the text says.
Of greater weight than "not having photo ID" is not having currently valid ID. Lots of people get ID. Then they move--or have no fixed residence--without updating their ID. '
I've used expired ID for my mother lots of times, though. Her DL may have died years ago, and her passport years before that, but most places still accept them for most purposes (but obviously not for driving or transiting international borders).
Proud Liberal Dem
(24,445 posts)From the party that spends most of their time railing against......red tape (for businesses and wealthy contributors that is, of course).