In February 2023, the Legal Aid Society and co-counsel at Freshfields filed a class-action lawsuit named "Chen v. Vislack" against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The lawsuit aims to challenge the agency's regulations that govern the replacement of SNAP benefits stolen through a method known as "skimming," which is an electronic form of theft from [...]

On December 29, 2022, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (the Omnibus) was signed into law. The Omnibus includes provisions for the replacement of stolen EBT benefits using federal funds.  The law allows states to replace certain benefits stolen October 1, 2022, through September 30, 2024. The benefit theft that qualifies includes card skimming, card cloning, and [...]

Since April 2020, the Benefits Plus Learning Center has been current on the changes to policy and procedures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the height of the pandemic there were many federal and state waivers to provide greater flexibility in the application process for cash benefit programs. However, many of these waivers have [...]

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 law, which was recently passed by Congress, ended the SNAP Emergency Allotment (EA), also known as a SNAP supplement. By March 2023, all SNAP households’ benefits will return to “normal amounts” (budgeted amounts), without the added supplement. View USDA announcement here. Background: On March 2020, NYS elected to utilize this temporary [...]