Michigan Bridge Cards glitch on Jan. 3, leaving thousands without benefits
This situation is causing a huge uproar, both among people who were expecting their food stamps to be available for groceries on Thursday and with the spinoff chatter about food stamps in general:
The Associated Press is reporting in a story that we have posted via The Monroe Evening News‘ feeds that food stamp benefits that were supposed to be available by 8 a.m. Thursday Jan. 3 via the Michigan Bridge Card did not get credited to the accounts.
This involved about 1/10th of the client pool, anyone whose accounts ended in the number 0.
Michigan’s food stamps are not automatically deposited to all eligible accounts on the first of the month, as many states do, but are staggered throughout the month in a schedule designed to help even out the customer flow for participating retailers. Each client gets food stamp benefits once a month on whatever date their card is assigned for reload.
The account chart that I posted when the new schedules took effect in early 2011 continues to be the most searched for and most read piece on Monroe on a Budget.
Saturday Jan. 5 would be the next regularly scheduled posting date, with that calendar for those accounts who have a number 1.
I’ll watch for updates, and in the meantime look for my Twitter and Facebook chatter on this topic.
I also have lots of links and prior food stamp discussions in my archives that include what purchases are eligible or not and why; how financial need is determined in the application process; and why food stamp clients may also be eligible for other charity and public assistance programs.
Update: Here’s an AP story from 11 a.m. Friday that explains all affected cards should be reset by end of business day Friday.
This post has 6 comments
January 4th, 2013
My case number ends with a 3 and my card number ends with a 4- my benefits were NOT loaded either…I think this is affecting more people than first reported….In the meantime I have $3 for food…
January 4th, 2013
The schedule, unless it changed in the past year, is this. I thought it was the Bridge Card number but I’ve since found other references that indicate you use the “client identification” number, which may be a different number:
0 = 3rd of month.
1 = 5th of month.
2 = 7th of month.
3 = 9th of month.
4 = 11th of month.
5 = 13th of month.
6 = 15th of month.
7 = 17th of month.
8 = 19th of month.
9 = 21st of month.
January 5th, 2013
Disconnect your internet (save $50 month) and sell your pc (Gain $150-$300) to eat with.
January 5th, 2013
Tom – many of those people use free Internet at the library or hotspots to begin with.
Besides, at a time when homework for older K-12 students and college needs to be completed or assisted online; when Michigan unemployment benefits are applied for online; many job searches are done online; when banks are pushing their customers via monthly fees into online statements rather than mailing then; and federal financial aid for college is applied for online … I think convenient access to Internet has broken beyond “luxury” into “necessity”.
January 4th, 2013
Well its Friday at 11:15 pm and pro lek has not been fixed! Glad my disabled husband and 4 kids could have cereal without milk 2 nights in a row…had I known I may not have celebrated Christmas so we could have eaten yesterday and today.
January 5th, 2013
I really dislike the procedure of loading the cards only once a month, for the reason it is very hard to plan actual grocery usage to that detail.
I’ve never been on food stamps, but I was in a situation years ago where the main paycheck arrived on the first of the month. The first task, upon noticing at the ATM that the check was deposited, was not to pay the rent, but to load up that grocery cart.
Anyway, MLive has picked up on this story and is following the progress. There are potentially still some accounts messed up.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/01/food_aid_restored_to_most_mich.html#incart_river_default