I was thinking the same thing, it feels neutral at best, but anything potentially bad about it is probably for non-program members.

If you give SNAP beneficiaries a discount that isn't gov subsidised, all things same everyone not in SNAP might theoretically pay more.

It sounds reasonable, but tinfoil time, unless they normally have people watching this, it feels like the USDA was told or anticipated this.

So much of this gives "Look what you made me do" vibes.

To be a fair program it should not cause an undue burden on the participating stores.

Store A could advertise that it will provide a 10% discount to SNAP recipients. Now Stores B,C,D,etc.. have to match or beat to be competitive. This would ultimately introduce competitiveness into the market where it was meant to assist those less fortunate.

The relevant regulation (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-7/subtitle-B/chapter-II/s...) says "No retail food store may single out coupon users for special treatment in any way.". Imagine, for example, a retailer that offers SNAP discounts only on the worst cuts of meat they otherwise have trouble selling; you can imagine why a SNAP recipient might feel uncomfortable with that, even though in principle it's a Pareto improvement.

It a consumer protection and fair competition thing (and probably anti-fraud too). There are similar rules in place for medicare/medicaid too. Gifts of any kind to induce a patient to choose your facility over any other are forbidden. That's why if you look really closely at ads at pharmacies encouraging Medicare/Medicaid people to switch, even though they talk about all these free things, they're all things that are free if you're on Medicare/Medicaid regardless of what facility you choose. I worked for a place one time that was sued by the feds for giving a $10 grocery store gift card to Medicare/Medicaid recipients if they were the source of a referral. The referral didn't even have to use the company's services, just answer they heard about them from X patient if and when they called for more information. But that was enough to be considered a violation of the laws.

I think the broad theory goes that people receiving these benefits are in pretty tight financial straights and some benefit or discount that might be "nice" to someone else is "essential" to them and may cause them to use your services even when that isn't the best use of their benefits for the purposes of those benefits.

People that don't work should not get preferential treatment over people that actually contribute to the economy. Many people that need food stamps are just temporarily in a bad position but many are just taking advantage

Not for food stamps, but here's the feds going after a pharmacy for gift cards and co-pay waivers from 2015: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ednc/pr/pharmacy-company-agreed...

Here's one for a pharmaceutical company, the details aren't quite clear but it sounds like they were funding co-pay assistance programs for their medications specifically but not others: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/teva-pharmaceuticals-agre...

Here's a broader NPR article from 2008 covering the same idea: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/09/6091508...

Here's a 2024 article on the possibility of subsidizing outpatient housing for drug rehab being a violation of the statutes: https://www.startribune.com/many-minnesotans-in-addiction-tr...

Here's a attorney website noting that any exchange of cash for EBT benefits is a violation of the law: https://usda.attorney/snap-violation/ and a discount that is explicitly for EBT users is almost certainly a violation of that.

Realistically the fact that there is an entire process for getting a waiver for "incentives" for SNAP recipients (https://www.fns.usda.gov/form/snap-incentives), and that particular site has been up since before Trump took office and this one from 2023 for a government program that specifically says you must apply for a waiver: https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/healthy-incentives suggests that this is another one of these cases in this administration where the brokenness of the system that has always been there is only finally coming to light for a lot of people.

Conservatives were not wrong when they said (paraphrasing) that a government powerful enough to give you everything is a government powerful enough to take away everything too. It's just in this weird timeline we find ourselves in, it's the "conservative" party that's being the monster they feared for decades.

> they should either offer a temporary blanket waiver or suggest some better way to mitigate the impact on SNAP recipients

Without something like this, why should one assume good faith behind the change? The people chanting "the cruelty is the point" seem to be vindicated rather clearly.

> the threat is effective now

What is the actual threat? Assuming a grocery chain ignores the interpretation, what troubles could they face?