Today in EBT

EBT for those who do not regularly traffic in the lingo of the social service world is "Electronic Benefit Transfer," a credit card like process used to deliver food stamps / SNAP and any cash assistance one gets from the state of WA.

There seems to be a new EBT account administration website. The website does take into account that people might not be using the same device all the time so it has pathways both to register key info on a device and to go through extra verification if one is not on a registered device. A blind regular, at the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing, Blind Neighbor, reported that the site is "mostly accessible." "Mostly Accessible" means that there was some hang-up  about verification on the non-registered device. "Mostly accessible" also means blind neighbor needed sighted assistance at a couple points. RantWoman did not inquire in enough detail even to email someone about the problem. Then RantWoman acquired more detail.

"Mostly Accessible" also means that, while an older model cards had raised numbers like a regular credit card, the new cards have the number printed on them without any embossing. RantWoman found this out because Blind Neighbor knocked on RantWoman's door wanting help to read the card number.

RantWoman was not quite thinking with all her brain cells. Blind Neighbor reads braille. RantWoman has a slate and stylus, How about RantWoman write the number out in braille on an index card? How about we remember that RantWoman writes braille pretty erratically and sometimes finds it hard to read what she has brailled? RantWoman did one pass with the slate and stylus and was kind of embarrassed about what happened when Blind Neighbor read the number RantWoman brailled.

RantWoman was going to try again about the braille. Then rantWoman and blind neighbor figured out that RantWoman should just type the number into an email on her phone and email it to Blind Neighbor. Genius! Okay so it took two tries for Blind neighbor to get the number entered correctly on her computer, but it worked!

And speaking of EBT, now consider returns of the Soda Tax.

RantWoman feels a rant coming on about regressive taxes, patronizing nanny state efforts to get people to do things that are Good For Them, and the sacrifices involved in freeing oneself from the clutches of the multinational soft drink biz. RantWoman feels a  rant coming on, with a digression about who needs fizz and look, iced tea is just wonderful. But if we are lucky, RantWoman can cut to the chase and talk about how some of the money raised this year is being put to use: an extra $32 in Fresh Bucks for food stamp recipients over age 60.

Fresh bucks are vouchers than can be spent at Farmers' markets. They are only available to people who have jumped through the hoops necessary to qualify for food stamps.

No RantWoman is NOT over 60, yet.

And yes, RantWoman has too much income to qualify for more than a pittance in Food Stamps. RantWoman does not particularly consider this enough of a problem to be worth the paperwork. In fact, if RantWoman is going to mess with paperwork, instead of the food stamps application, RantWoman should be getting her self-employment act together a little more tightly to maybe manage to get paid for more of the work she does. Stay tuned.

Every summer though someone reminds RantWoman of Fresh Bucks, a program that gets food stamp recipients vouchers that can be used at Farmers' markets. RantWoman thinks this is a Good Idea. Alas, it is still not enough of a Good Idea to motivate RantWoman to go through the paperwork! But at LEAST money raised by the soda tax is coming out of the pockets of one demographic mainly poor people and going into a different demographic, poor elders.

How cools is that?

DON'T answer!

Oh, and it's still blueberry season at the Capitol Hill Farmers' market. Yum