What Atm Can You Withdraw Money From Ebt Card Az

Arizona's cash-assistance welfare programme is intended to help the poorest of the poor feed and clothe their children, and for the about part, it does.

Merely a modest pct of recipients, who must earn no more than $four,164 a yr for a family of iii, are using the money to pay for booze, cigarettes, poker games, strippers and travel to places similar Times Square, Disneyland and Hawaii, according to Arizona Department of Economical Security records obtained by The Arizona Democracy.

State officials will before long begin cracking downwards on some abuses of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Greenbacks Assistance programme. A state police that goes into issue today prohibits TANF recipients from withdrawing cash-assist money from ATMs inside Arizona liquor stores, tribal casinos, strip clubs and dog and horse tracks.

Just some state leaders say the constabulary volition have little impact. The regulations do non apply to out-of-state ATMS, nor do they ban other questionable locations like bars and nightclubs. As well, any penalties for prohibited withdrawals will be directed at the businesses where the ATMs are located, not welfare recipients.

Impacted businesses have until February. i to reprogram ATMs and then they do not accept the plan'southward electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards, which office like debit cards.

Thousands of dollars a month are currently withdrawn from machines in liquor stores, strip clubs, and domestic dog and horse tracks, records show, though there is no mode to runway whether the money was really spent at these businesses.

For example, state records from Apr through July show that more than $18,500 was withdrawn from ATMs inside Arizona liquor stores, including multiple withdrawals totaling $ii,107.86 at Alamo Liquor in Phoenix and $one,697 from Vs Beer and Vino in Glendale. More than than $500 was withdrawn at Arizona strip clubs and $182.50 from Turf Paradise, a horse track.

The money withdrawn at these types of businesses amounts to less than 1 pct of EBT bill of fare expenditures, country records say. The vast majority of withdrawals are made at banks, grocery stores, gas stations and convenience stores.

At that place practice not appear to be any withdrawals from ATMs inside Arizona casinos over the past iv months, country records say. Arizona casinos for more than than a decade accept prohibited EBT carte du jour withdrawals equally function of the tribal gaming compact. Arizona constabulary already forbids using TANF money to purchase lottery tickets.

The state places no other restrictions on how or where the coin can be spent.

Only the data do raise questions about whether people are qualifying who shouldn't be or if other limits are needed.

"(The new law) is a really important matter to do as far as being accountable. And this makes it harder for them," said Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa. "But it's certainly not going to stop whatsoever kind of abuse. I call up people know how to work the system."

Thousands of dollars were withdrawn from ATMs inside businesses that exercise not primarily offer food, clothing, shelter or gas, including bars, nightclubs, blast salons, motels, movie theaters and quick-cash lending establishments.

About $150,000, or 2 percent, of the ATM withdrawals from April through July were made out of state, Arizona records say. A third of that was spent in California, but the withdrawals spanned the country. Withdrawals were made in New York City'due south Times Square; on the Las Vegas Strip; W Palm Beach, Fla.; New Oasis, Conn.; Baton Rouge, La.; Detroit; Chicago; and Kailua, Hawaii.

More than $4,000 was withdrawn from ATMs at out-of-state casinos mainly in Nevada, and $ii,500 was withdrawn from out-of-state liquor stores.

National call for change

Arizona's TANF program is among the stingiest in the nation.

Information technology serves fewer individuals — 36,599 people, 26,725 of whom are children — than almost states and gives less money on average, based on data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Recipients on average go $89.25 a month in cash assistance.

The programme, which Arizona pays for through a federal grant, costs taxpayers $47.6 1000000 a year.

Arizona also has among the most restrictive criteria to qualify, especially subsequently lawmakers in recent years reduced the lifetime-benefit limit and began counting the household income of relatives, such every bit grandparents, who care for a child.

To qualify in Arizona, a family'due south income must be less than 36 percent of the 1992 federal poverty rate. The amount varies based on the number of family members, but a family of three could earn no more than $347 a month.

Arizona recipients can receive benefits for just 24 months, during which they must await for work, accept any task offers, ensure their children nourish school and submit themselves to random drug testing. A child born while the parent is already in the program is not eligible to participate.

Out-of-land and college-dollar withdrawals raise questions about some recipients' eligibility.

For example, a family unit of three can receive no more than $278 a month. Aeroplane tickets to Hawaii, where records showed three withdrawals totaling $648.25 from the same ATM location in Kailua, cost more than $600 each.

The information also show several single ATM withdrawals totaling more than than $500, including $804 from a Tucson bank and $803 from an Apache Junction bank. At to the lowest degree 2 withdrawals in excess of $300 each were made at Nevada casinos, and one in excess of $300 was fabricated at the Seattle airport.

In response to media coverage of how some recipients across the state were spending their cash benefits, Congress in 2012 passed a police requiring states to restrict the use of greenbacks-assistance EBT cards at sure establishments. If states don't comply by 2014, they will lose a portion of their federal TANF coin.

The Arizona Legislature responded with bipartisan and nearly unanimous support for HB 2205, the police that takes outcome today.

"We want the money to go to the kids," said Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix, who sponsored the bill.

States vary in their enforcement plans. Some, similar Arizona, accept put the onus on businesses, where withdrawals are prohibited, to reprogram their ATM machines. Arizona businesses could lose their gaming or liquor licenses if they violate the new law.

"The Department of Economical Security doesn't have the authority to regulate businesses or disable ATM machines," said John Bowen, a legislative specialist with the DES. "That would exist the responsibility of the business possessor."

He said other state agencies that oversee gaming and liquor licenses will incorporate checks of the ATMs into their regular compliance audits.

But the Arizona law includes no penalties for welfare recipients who make withdrawals at banned locations.

Other states penalize TANF recipients if they utilise their cards at such locations. Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana and Maine make information technology a criminal offence to utilise an EBT menu at a forbidden location.

Concerns over restrictions

Although restricting how and where TANF cash can be spent has proved popular with state legislatures, there is general understanding that such restrictions practise piddling to prevent corruption.

Nothing in the law prevents someone from making withdrawals elsewhere and spending his or her TANF money at banned businesses, Townsend said. But even if this law has fiddling impact, information technology moves Arizona in the right direction by restricting how the benefits can exist used, she said.

"It's fourth dimension to rein it in a piddling," she said. "I call back this is Step i."

Arizona data show ATM withdrawals in recent months that included $202.50 from a Yuma tattoo parlor and fume shop; $161.99 from a Phoenix smoke shop; $162.75 from a Yuma doughnut store; $123 from a Peoria sushi eating house; and $63 from a Tempe bar.

Rep. John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, called spending at liquor stores, bars and casinos "outrageous." He besides questioned some of the out-of-state spending, saying that although there may be a good reason for TANF recipients to travel out of land, such every bit to a family member'due south funeral, those reasons are likely uncommon.

"Possibly it wouldn't be unreasonable to put some more than restraints on this plan," he said.

Other states have added restrictions beyond what Congress is requiring. Colorado and Indiana forbid using TANF money to purchase booze or guns. Idaho bans tobacco purchases. Massachusetts prohibits transactions at tattoo parlors, gun shops, nail salons, rent-to-own stores, jewelers and cruise ships.

Elizabeth Lower-Basch, policy coordinator with the nonpartisan Heart for Law and Social Policy, said that although welfare recipients spending their money in strip clubs, casinos and liquor stores makes eye-communicable headlines and popular politics, in reality, it represents a "very tiny, tiny percent" of TANF spending.

She said considering that the majority of the money in the TANF program goes to children and unmarried mothers, it's possible that money withdrawn from an ATM at a strip lodge or a casino was taken out by a mother who works there instead of past a patron.

"Is at that place actually testify there is a problem? No," Lower-Basch said. "Only who wants to be the one continuing upwardly in their chair proverb, 'I think recipients should able to spend their benefits at liquor stores'?"

Liz Schott, senior beau with the Washington, D.C.-based Eye on Budget and Policy Priorities, agreed there is niggling evidence that much money is spent at such businesses nationwide. But, she said, restricting where an EBT card can be used is easy to practice and could improve the public'south confidence that the money is going where it is intended.

"These benefits are so meager and they reach so few people that nobody wants them going to places like check-cashing businesses," she said.

But both she and Lower-Basch said there is concern that laws targeting corruption make information technology hard for the truly needy to access their benefits.

"What if you are a housekeeper at a casino and don't have any time or whatsoever place except the ATM at the hotel to withdraw your benefits?" Schott asked. "What if the liquor store is the only place you can access your benefits to pay your rent?"

"In depression-income neighborhoods, at that place are not often a lot of banks," Lower-Basch said. "People only run in wherever there is an ATM."

Other reforms

Some say that although these contempo legislative efforts are feel-good measures that everyone can support, more attention is needed on bigger sources of welfare fraud.

"It'due south a step in the right direction, but nosotros don't give out a huge amount of cash assistance per year," said Rep. Carl Seel, R-Phoenix. "There are so many other measures nosotros need to do."

Seel has fabricated welfare "waste, fraud and abuse" one of his primary platforms in recent years, introducing a variety of bills. He has unsuccessfully proposed legislation to require welfare recipients to bear witness photograph IDs when using EBT cards for purchases and when using Medicaid services. He said he volition introduce that nib once again side by side year. Missouri has such a requirement for TANF recipients.

Seel said state law enforcement likewise needs to focus on arresting people who fraudulently acquire or misuse benefits.

Michael Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Establish, a Washington, D.C., public-policy research organization, said law enforcement and federal prosecutors should focus on large-money fraud, not these minor instances of abuse.

He said the vast majority of "large fraud" involves retailers. He offered an case in which someone goes to a shop, swipes his card for $50 worth of food stamps and the cashier gives the customer $thirty in greenbacks and no food and pockets $20.

"So there's the fifty-fifty bigger trouble of overpayments, where people are collecting more than they should accept in benefits, or getting payments when they aren't eligible," he said.

But Tanner said he understands why lawmakers are jumping on the bandwagon to limit where TANF money can be spent. "It's sexy," he said. "People get outraged past it. Lawmakers want to be tough on it. I'thou all in favor of being tough on it. Simply don't pretend information technology's going to save you tons of coin."

Commonwealth reporter Rob O'Dell contributed to this article.

Source: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/investigations/2014/03/05/welfare-atm-use-raising-questions/6084551/

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