A number of Ohioans living off of taxpayers’ largess aren’t actually living. Ali Meyer explains for the Washington Free Beacon.
Nearly 2000 beneficiaries of the food stamp program continued to receive benefits after their deaths in Ohio, according to an audit from the state’s auditor.
The audit evaluated a six-month period in 2015 and found that there were 36 instances where dead people received benefits for more than a year after their death and 1,862 instances where dead people received benefits for less than a year.
“In some cases, someone was still using the card,” explained Dave Yost, the Ohio auditor of state, who testified to lawmakers on Wednesday. “Federal law requires at least an annual comparison of death records against the list of beneficiaries—so the number should have been zero.”
The report also found 1,510 cases where food stamp cards had excessive balances.
“We also found 1,337 recipients with balances greater than $2,300 – about twice the maximum benefits for a family of eight,” Yost said. “Some 173 had balances of more than $5,000—including one with more than $20,000. If you can bank thousands of dollars, you are not in immediate need.”
The audit found other cases of fraud such as purchases being made at a grocery store at the same time, with the same exact total every month for six months in a row. Other examples involved one beneficiary making six purchases for $1,555 within an hour. Even though beneficiaries can use their food stamp cards across state lines, $28.7 million dollars was spent outside of Ohio, including states as far away as New York, Florida, and Texas.
