STIMULUS WATCH: $25 check may cost you food stamps - Yahoo! News

STIMULUS WATCH: $25 check may cost you food stamps - Yahoo! News:

"WASHINGTON – When President Barack Obama increased unemployment benefits as part of his economic stimulus, he also made some Americans ineligible for hundreds of dollars a month in food stamps.

Under the economic recovery plan, laid-off workers have seen a $25 weekly bump in their unemployment checks as part of a broad expansion of benefits for the poor. But the law did not raise the income cap for food stamp eligibility, so the extra money has pushed some people over the limit.

Laid-off workers and state officials are only now realizing the quirk, a consequence of pushing a $787 billion, 400-page bill through Congress and into law in three weeks.

And for people hurt by the change, there's no way around it.

'Everybody tells you, 'Yeah, I can understand why you're frustrated. It doesn't sound right.' But nobody knows where to go,' said Mark Milota, 47, of Marietta, Ga., who was laid off in November from his job at a medical billing company.

The Georgia Department of Human Resources explained in a letter to him last month that, because of the stimulus, he was ineligible for food stamps. He now makes $1,538 a month — $21 too much for a family of two to qualify.

'We have to pay him that $25 a week,' said Brenda Brown, assistant commissioner at the Georgia Department of Labor. 'And he doesn't have the option not to accept it.'

Milota said he was told that, without the stimulus money, he would have received about $300 a month in food stamps.

'I'm doing things I've never done before: I'm going to food pantries. I've gone to places for assistance on bills,' Milota said. 'Some bills are just not being paid. I'm three months behind on my mortgage.'"