BALCONY Co-Chair: "Food Stamps and Fingerprints A Bad Combination"

NEW YORK, NY (03/14/2012)(readMedia)-- It is unconscionable that some 30% of New York's eligible, working families are not signed up for food stamps, largely because they don't want to submit to the stigmatizing process of being fingerprinted as if they were criminals.

This mindless requirement, the height of bureaucratic disentitlement, deprives families in need of basic nutrition and deprives New York of tens of millions of dollars economic activity.

In 2007, then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer eliminated the requirement in most of New York State, but it was allowed to stay on the books in New York City at the behest of the Bloomberg administration.

Several states, most notably California and Texas (yes, even Texas), have dropped the requirement, leaving New York City and Arizona as the only places that still force applicants to be fingerprinted. Other jurisdictions match applicants' names with Social Security numbers to prevent or detect fraud – a process that is less costly and less dehumanizing and equally effective.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and many other state and local lawmakers think it's high time to end fingerprinting. We at the Business and Labor Coalition of New York (BALCONY) agree whole heartedly.

Food stamps help feed the needy, ranging from single adults to large, impoverished families, cutting across all racial and ethnic lines.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture says about 46 million Americans in 18.4 million families are enrolled in food stamp programs nationwide. Almost half (48%) of all Americans who receive food stamps are children. Another 8% are elderly, about 20% are disabled and 41% live in a household with earnings from a job - the so-called working poor.

The New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance says some 3 million people across the state get food stamps - 1.8 million people alone in New York City.

A 2009 study showed that 46% of all children in the Bronx received food stamps, 35% of all children in Brooklyn; 24% of all kids in Manhattan; 21% in Queens and 19% in Staten Island.

There's no telling how many thousands of children in New York City go to bed hungry because their parents don't want to submit to fingerprinting.

In his recent State of the State Address, Governor Cuomo declared that fingerprinting discourages eligible people from applying for the assistance they so desperately need and are entitled to.

"Stop fingerprinting for families with children for food," Cuomo said. "Don't make a child go to bed hungry because your government wants to come up with a fraud program that requires fingerprinting."

His position makes sense.

Mayor Bloomberg's does not. The mayor contends that fingerprinting is not stigmatizing and that it is an effective tool to combat fraud. On this, the Mayor is out-of-touch, losing sight of his admirable reliance on evidence-based public policy and humanitarian respect for human dignity.

The city's Human Resources Commissioner, Robert Doar, said fingerprints helps the city find nearly 2,000 duplication errors each year, saving taxpayers $5 million.

But, as the New York Times noted, "He could not say how many are due to fraud and how many to administrative errors."

Neither Doar nor the Mayor can cite a single fraud prosecution involving food stamps.

No one condones fraud and it should be rooted out – and prosecuted where appropriate – but not one single man, woman or child should go hungry in New York City because City Hall insists on an outdated, invasive practice with a dubious success rate.

Requiring applicants for food stamps to be fingerprinted is wrong. This Mayor should not go to bed bearing responsibility for any New York children going to bed hungry.

Robert M. Hayes is Co-Chair of the Business and Labor Coalition of New York (BALCONY) www.BalconyNewYork.com and Senior Vice President for Health Quality, Universal American Corp.