Big Data “Fraud Detection” Connected to Child’s Health Problems

Advocates say Massachusetts residents who need food stamps are facing an undue burden.

This USDA poster promotes healthy eating for kids — but advocates say some Massachusetts children are suffering after losing food stamps.

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A data-mining program aimed at streamlining Massachusetts’ entitlement programs has left thousands of deserving residents without food stamps. The Boston Globe reports that the program:

… matches food stamp records with those at other state agencies, such as the Department of Revenue, to uncover unreported income. As a result, people who might have earned small amounts of money — for example, poll workers on election days — have received threatening letters from the state Department of Transitional Assistance demanding they provide proof of eligibility for food stamps or lose those benefits.

In many cases, people couldn’t take the extra steps to prove their eligibility. However, even in some cases where people did try to clear up the misinformation, they were unable to rectify their situation, putting them and their families at risk. According to the Globe:

Earlier this month, Children’s Health Watch, a network of pediatricians, health researchers, and policy experts, said in a letter that the system had created serious problems for parents, citing the case of one mother whose toddler was diagnosed with “failure to thrive,” a condition when a child is unable to gain weight and grow as expected.

A working entitlement program is one of the many pieces of the puzzle in helping people out of poverty. (The process of proving eligibility for government programs is already daunting, particularly for those most in need. That’s why tech entrepreneur Jimmy Chen created the app Easy Food Stamps.)

Between December 2013 and 2014, the number of Massachusetts residents receiving food stamps dropped by 9 percent (or 70,000 fewer people). There’s no way to say for sure whether the decline is due entirely to the new detection system, but the national decline was around 1 percent.

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Jenn Stanley is a freelance journalist, essayist and independent producer living in Chicago. She has an M.S. from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

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Tags: bostonfood desertssocial services

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