Most importantly, food stamp recipients no longer suffer the grocery store humiliation of holding up their coupon booklet and tearing coupons out in front of the entire checkout lane. Food Stamp Program applicants also are subject to an income and resource review. Income must be at or beneath a certain gross limit. It must also meet or be less than the poverty level limit after a net income calculation is made. Low income means a net income at the poverty level.
Applicants are also subject to a resource test.
Examples of liquid resources are checking accounts, savings accounts, cars, and so on. The maximum food stamp allotment is roughly a per day, per person allotment. While Congress established in the Food Stamp Act that food stamp benefits must be spent on food, it intentionally didn't take free choice from clients to make their own purchase selections. Like all families, food stamp recipients may splurge their grocery budget to celebrate a family birthday on lobster and cake, then eat pasta for the rest of the week. But in fact, research studies show that, overall, food stamp recipients do spend their limited food dollars wisely.