The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "Food stamps" ...
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Untested Safety Net
By all accounts, the 1996 welfare reforms have worked amazingly well in these boom times. But they are untried in a recession. The article answers the question of whether this reformed safety net is ready for a downturn.
Tags: welfare reform; Dunbar Family Investment Center; Congress; unemployment insurance; child care; cash assistance; food stamps
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Wheels and Meals
This story explains how a local car dealer committed fraud by accepting food stamps for car payments.
Tags: TAPE TRANSCRIPT welfare; benefits; USDA; police
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Swiping Benefits
The Progressive "reveals numerous significant downsides to the U.S. government's much-ignored new electronic benefit transfer (EBT), by which recipients access cash benefits and food stamps." The investigation uncovers problems for recipients, such as invasion of privacy and lack of consumer protection against lost or stolen cards, but big benefits for corporate contractors such as Citibank and Lockheed-Martin.
Tags: welfare reform fraud elderly disabled homebound training access paperless government
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1999 IRE National Conference Show and Tell Tape #6
1999 IRE National Conference (Kansas City) Show and Tell Tape #6 is the sixth of a nine-part series. This tape includes: 1.) Julie Nazzario (Fox-Milwaukee) Investigation uncovers the small sentences handed to child murderers in a town where a man gets 8 years for torturing animals. 2.) Kimberly Lohman (WYFF - Greenville, Asheville, Spartanburg) "Looking for Dad" A student photographer takes a picture of an old man and it ends up on an Internet site. Across the country, in Seattle, a woman recognizes the name and photo of her dad, a man for whom she's spent years searching. The story includes an interview with the woman from Seattle, and the photographer takes Kimberly back to where the picture was taken. Now the community is trying to help the woman find her 90-year-old father before he dies. 3.) Herb Weisbaum (CBS News) Herb runs a rather humorous test of personal bug zappers. These devices give off a high-pitched whine that's supposed to send mosquitoes flying away. Herb takes the units to the real-world laboratory of Minnesota and asks campers to try them out. They fail miserably and provide great video and soundbites. 4.) Mike Luery (KCRA-Sacramento) a. Unclaimed property. b. How one person stopped telemarketers by winning damages from a lawsuit. 5.) Tim Minton (WNBC-New York City) Federal judges in conflict of interest..deciding cases that involve companies in which they own stock. 6.) Michael Finney (KGO-San Francisco) Finney uses two stores to demonstrate how easily people will give away personal information such as social security number, mother's maiden name and signatures. By setting up fake sweepstakes and a bogus survey... Finney gets people to give up this info. He then shows them what just happened. If the scams had really been happening, these people could have lost control of their credit cards and phone bills, to cite just a few examples. 7.) Jim Strickland (WSB-Atlanta) Finding confidential patient information in the garbage. 8.) Sandra Chapman (WISH-Indianapolis) Food stamps fro sale at used car lots.
Tags: TAPE; Kansas City; conference; no transcript; IRE
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Our fine folks in the field
The bureaucrats who run the Division of Family Services are pleased as punch with recent progress, but the front-line employees are miserable. Welfare forms are changing faster than its substance, Riverfront Times reports, and caseworkers are trapped in the middle.
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Feeding Off Food Stamps
The federal Food Stamp Program has exploded in size since it was founded in 1964 and now costs taxpayers $60 million a day. That stream of money pours into the cash registers of thousands of food retailers across the country.
Tags: SERIES
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No title (id: 13446)
The Gazette looks at the national government's attack on federal farm subsidies and what effect cutbacks will have on the Iowa economy. Farm subsidies cost billions in tax dollars each year; however, more than half the federal agriculture budget goes to other support programs such as food stamps and food assistance programs. Cutbacks on federal farm subsidies will cripple many Iowa farmers and have a rippling effect on the entire economy of the state. (May 1-8, 1994)
Tags: Fleming Cash crop: ending the subsidy era Food Milk prices Wool Bee industry Foreign trade 26 pgs.
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No title (id: 13142)
It is an uncomfortable, even unthinkable, reality: hungry schoolchildren in the heart of suburbia. This Los Angeles Times article examines hunger among elementary and middle-aged school children in middle-class communities who come to class too hungry to learn. The hunger is caused by sharp growth in the nation's salvage food industry as corporations sell food they once gave away to food banks. (Nov. 20, 1994 - Sept. 4, 1995)
Tags: Nazario West Covina U.S. Department of Agriculture Food stamps 47 pgs.
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No title (id: 12922)
Through an extensive hidden camera investigation, Prime Time found USDA Food stamps being traded openly on the streets, mationwide, for cash and drugs. The report identified and documented a new trend of laundering food stamps through small grocers, rings of stores accumulating millions of federal dollars and in one case, PrimeTime reports those grocers acquiring large holdings in foreign countries. (January 11, 1995)
Tags: Wallace McGrady Rosen Lichstein et al A second currency Contest entry Fraud Poverty 16 pgs.
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No title (id: 12553)
A three-part KGO series found that people routinely traded food stamps for cash used to buy drugs. Instead of helping needy people with food, taxpayers are helping addicts buy drugs. (Nov. 6, 7 and 8, 1995)
Tags: Peele Ashley Keeshan Food stamp fraud Contest entry 13 pgs. TAPE