Fingerprinting
When I read the title of the article, I asked myself, “What is ‘fingerprinting’ of food stamps?” As an international student, I have a relatively humble notion of America. As a forensic graduate student, I wondered whether the word “fingerprinting” made the topic relevant to my field of study. But it turns out it is not. After reading the article, I asked Alexa is she knew anything about the topic, and the information she gave me about the food stamp program was very helpful. Now I understand that the food stamp is an assistance program for providing food for individuals and families with low-income. The federal government subsidizes the program. I believe that my country has a similar program to enhance the welfare and health of the population. These programs are playing an important role in changing people’s lives.
However, there are some obstacles to applying for these assistance programs. According to the article, fingerprinting affects the processing of the application for a majority of people. But I have learned that the fingering part was designed to protect the organization from any attempt of fraud, and the system has been effective for some time now, but not anymore. In the last decade, the number of low-income individuals applying for food stamps has been increasing for many reasons, for which COVID-19 is one. Furthermore, the fingerprinting is time-consuming, costly, and not useful anymore since the social security number seems sufficient for giving adequate information on the applicant. But the New York City mayor thinks otherwise. In his statement, he maintains that fingerprinting is salient in preventing fraud, and New York and other states have, for a decade, been using fingerprint matching as the qualification for passing the test designed by the government. But other states do not share that opinion. California, for instance, has ended the fingerprinting practice because of the increasing number of applicants: it makes it hard to reach and help the needy people fast enough.
In essence, fingerprinting has been tedious because the number of low-income people has been increasing in the past years, making it harder to provide food for the needy. I believe hunger is not a crime, and a hungry person should not have to wait even a few days just to complete a legal process. As such, fingerprinting should be abolished since it is causing a problem in reaching the intended people, and it has no advantages in terms of eligibility. Many families, students, and single mothers have lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 crisis; they need to be included in the food stamp assistance program without facing obstacles arising from fingerprinting.