Migrants' Monthly Payments Are Higher Than New Yorkers' SNAP Benefits

Published Feb 05, 2024 at 3:11 PM EST
Updated Feb 06, 2024 at 2:04 PM EST

Katherine Fung Senior Writer

Hundreds of migrant families in New York City will be getting more food money than the city's low-income residents do from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

The city is launching a new pilot program that will hand out pre-paid debit cards to 500 migrant families with children, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday. The mayor's office told Newsweek the program allots about $12.52 per card each day, giving each recipient roughly $350 a month to spend on food and baby supplies—a figure more than the maximum allotment that low-income New Yorkers receive in SNAP benefits.

Single households in New York are eligible to receive up to $291 a month, according to the state's website.

SNAP benefits give "low-income working people, senior citizens, the disabled and others" money to purchase food products and do not apply to alcohol, cigarettes, tobacco, nonfood items like household supplies, foods eaten in stores and hot foods. Adams' office said that those low-income New Yorkers typically also qualify for other food assistance, like restaurant and shelter programs, while asylum seekers do not.

Like SNAP, the new cards being distributed to migrant families also have restrictions. Use is limited exclusively to local bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets, and convenience stores to ensure that city funds are going to food and baby supplies. The mayor's office has stressed that the cards will act similarly to SNAP benefits and Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards and that the program is a "cost saving measure" that will save the city $600,000 a month.

"All families involved will be required to sign an affidavit affirming that they will be using these cards for the intended purposes, and anyone who violates the terms risk being removed from the pilot program," the mayor's office told Newsweek in a statement.

"We need to dispel the rumor that we gave American Express cards to everyone," Adams said during a Monday press conference. "That is just not true."

Adams called the plan "brilliant," arguing it was a "cheaper, more efficient way" to get resources to migrants because it would eliminate the delivery costs associated with providing food for asylum seekers, reduce food waste in situations where food aid recipients do not like the meals provided and put money back into the local economy.

"We are required to provide food and baby supplies to migrants, the only difference here is we're asking them to buy it themselves as opposed to being delivered to their door," a spokesperson for Adam's office told Newsweek.

New York City has been scrambling to find a way to accommodate the influx of migrants who have arrived in the city over the last year. According to the city's Department of Social Services, more than 156,600 migrants arrived in New York City between spring 2022 through December 2023.



People attend a dinner for asylum seeker families at Romemu Center in New York City on June 27, 2023. Five hundred migrant families in New York City will receive pre-paid debit cards for food and... More
LEONARDO MUNOZ/GETTY IMAGES

Adams has warned that the migrant crisis could "destroy New York City" and cautioned that the nation's largest city is at a "breaking point." The mayor has also received backlash for his handling of the immigration issue, facing disapproval over his decisions to house migrants at various hotels in the city and to relocate some of them to a Brooklyn high school ahead of a winter storm, among other things.

The city's most recent idea, which is estimated to save the city more than $7.2 million annually, has been another point of contention for Adams. News of the program sparked fresh criticism for the mayor, with even rapper 50 Cent weighing in on the plan.

"WTF mayor Adams call my phone, I don't understand how this works. Somebody explain," 50 Cent said in an Instagram post.

Adams responded to him during Monday's press conference, saying, "I've told 50 Cent to hit me up. I would love to explain it to him so that he can go out and do another tweet of saying, 'You know what? Eric is just a smart manager and now we understand why he was elected by the city of New York to be the mayor. He may even write a song about me."

https://www.newsweek.com/migrants-fo...nefits-1867058