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 Tens of thousands of food-assisted
homes in Illinois have gone without their benefits this holiday season, due to
an ill-timed computer system failure.
On Dec. 21, state officials announced that food stamp benefits would be restored
to families who saw their food assistance cancelled, according to WAND-TV.
In November, more than 40,000 households lost their food assistance benefits due
to a computer glitch. While some recipients’ access to benefits has been
recovered, the Chicago Tribune reports that as of December, more than 30,000
dependent households remained without assistance.
 This is the consequence of a computer system upgrade state officials began in
2013, according to the Tribune. The second phase of the upgrade’s rollout was
initiated in October 2017. While the upgrade is intended as an improvement on
the system that administers food stamp benefits, it’s now a source of pain for
households who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP,
for food assistance.
SNAP, or food stamps, recipients are required to submit applications every six
months to recertify eligibility. But due to a complication with the upgrade,
files for many who applied or reapplied within the last two months had failed to
convert to the new system. The applicants whose files got lost in the overhaul
lost their food assistance, according to the Tribune.
The Illinois Department of Human Services, or DHS, and the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union representing more than 2,400
human services caseworkers in Illinois, have offered conflicting accounts as to
what, or who, is responsible for this consequential computer failure.
The damage done
According to DHS, nearly 1 million Illinois households were receiving food
stamps in 2017 as of September, the most recent month for which data is
available. This number nearly doubles when measuring SNAP assistance by person,
with nearly 2 million Illinoisans dependent on SNAP benefits, according to DHS.
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As a percentage of
population, 14.5 percent of Illinoisans are enrolled in SNAP, a
larger share than in each of Illinois’ neighboring states with the
exception of Kentucky, which leads Illinois by a fraction of a
percentage point.
The number of SNAP-dependent households in Illinois has increased
nearly 14 percent since the start of the decade.
That Illinois has managed to add households to its SNAP rolls since
the Great Recession’s recovery period casts a dark cloud over the
Land of Lincoln’s economic climate. It’s evident that Illinoisans
are struggling. This is due, in part, to Springfield’s failure to
address the state’s ongoing fiscal dysfunction.
Rather than enacting meaningful reforms that would help the state to
get its finances in order, lawmakers have routinely elected to gouge
taxpayers and businesses as an ill-fated attempt to plug revenue
shortfalls.
This approach has dramatically backfired. Net outmigration from
Illinois to other states continues to shrink its tax base while an
uninviting business climate encourages employers to pass up the Land
of Lincoln for competing states. This means less opportunity for
struggling Illinoisans.
The road ahead
Policymakers can help alleviate poverty by adopting a legislative
agenda that encourages economic growth and enables Illinoisans stuck
at the bottom to escape dependence.
Jobs growth would provide a far better path out of SNAP dependence
than an unexpected system malfunction.
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