Soon, people who get SNAP benefits will have a new way to get them. It might be as easy as pressing a button on their phone.
Electronic Benefit Transfers, or EBTs, can now be used to pay Uber Eats by people who get Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.
SNAP benefits can be used at all Walgreens and Duane Reade stores in New York, as well as for Uber Eats orders from Albertsons, Safeway, Jewel-Osco, and Vons.
Uber also says that in the coming months, more stores will be added to the list of Uber Eats locations that accept SNAP benefits.
Everything will change for households that receive SNAP benefits every month
Along with the new payment option, people who apply for SNAP will get free delivery on their first three orders from Uber Eats that are eligible for SNAP.
They can also link their EBT card to the Uber Eats app to try Uber One for free for three months.
“It is a critical step toward making sure all people have access to the fresh food they need,” said Hashim Amin, Uber’s head of grocery and retail delivery in North America.
“This is especially true for people who do not have reliable transportation, for whom food delivery can be a lifeline.”
We believe that everyone should be able to get delivery, no matter how they pay. As we grow the number of stores that accept SNAP benefits, we are excited to begin working with Albertsons Co. and Walgreens.
This will allow us to bring essentials right to our customers’ doors. For older Americans in particular, the Uber Eats expansion could make it much easier for them to get healthy meals since many of them live in “food deserts.”
Jessica Johnston, senior director of the Center for Economic Well-Being at the National Council on Aging, said that the fact that SNAP benefits can now be used with Uber Eats removes some of the barriers that older people face when trying to get healthy food, especially those who have trouble getting to grocery stores or can not get there at all.
She also said that their goal of encouraging health and independence is similar to this, which gives older people more freedom and choices.
But Alex Beene, a lecturer in financial literacy at the University of Tennessee at Martin, said that this effort to make SNAP benefits easier to get might be criticized by some, but it is a reasonable change to make SNAP benefits fit the needs of today’s technology.
Beene told Newsweek that people are likely to be against this because they think that anything that makes it easier to get these benefits is a bad thing to do.
But Uber Eats and other services like it have become the new normal for tens of millions of Americans when it comes to getting food and other things they need.
When Uber Eats and some shops work together to offer these benefits to American homes through their platform, it should be seen as a win-win situation for everyone.
Kevin Thompson, the founder and CEO of 9i Capital Group and an expert in finance, said that while the cooperation might make it easier to get food in the short term, it might not work out so well in the long term.
Thompson told Newsweek that partnerships between for-profit and non-profit organizations often end up being worse for the people they help, even if they started out with good intentions.
Uber Eats might charge users fees or subscription costs in the future, which would hurt their finances. Thompson says that Uber Eats will have to pay for the costs or change their prices if they want to keep the service going.
So, Thompson said, if they just change the price, taxpayers will be paying for it. “I need to see how this will benefit the government in the long run and not just be another program abused by a for-profit firm,” he said.
