An unorthodox proposal from Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to replace some federal food stamp payments with "harvest boxes" this week left many local stakeholders scrambling to understand the plan and what it could mean for Georgia.
Combined with other changes requested in President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2019 budget, the proposal would constitute the biggest overhaul of the government’s food safety-net system since it was created roughly a half-century ago.
OTHER THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT FOOD STAMPS:
1. Food stamps are available to citizens of the United States and certain immigrants living legally in the country.
2. To be eligible, a household cannot earn more than 130 percent of the poverty level. For a family of three, that is $26,208 a year. The maximum benefit for that family would be $511 a month.
3. Two-thirds of food stamp participants are children, seniors and adults with a disability.
4. Forty percent of food stamp recipients live in working households.
5. Georgia is rolling out work requirements for able-bodied adults without kids or dependents. The requirements are in 24 counties, several in the Atlanta area, and are slated to go statewide by 2019.
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