A number of years ago, we remember a director of category management at one of the largest supermarket chains telling us about the midnight rush his 24/7 stores saw at the beginning of every month as consumers on food assistance had new funds placed on their EBT cards. He was concerned about his shoppers barely "scrimping by" as they tried to stretch food bought earlier in the month until the new period began.
Now comes an opinion piece on the Bloomberg News site written by Peter Orzag, the current vice chairman of global banking at Citigroup and former director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Obama administration, which makes a pretty solid argument for funds to be broken into two periods.
Mr. Orzag cites research that students whose families are on assistance get into more trouble as the month goes by. Life in SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) households become more stressful as the amount of food shrinks and kids are thought to act out more as a result.
According to the U.S. Agriculture Department's Food and Nutrition Service, more than 25 percent of families receiving assistance go through their entire monthly allotment in the first week after receiving it. A family of four receives around $500 a month from the government. Roughly 45 million children are SNAP beneficiaries.