A system failure that left people in Georgia and 16 other states unable to use food stamp debit-style cards has been restored, said Xerox Corp., the vendor that operates the program.
The outage forced food stamp recipients to walk away from their grocery carts Saturday when the electronic payment system connected to their benefits failed during a routine test. Called Electronic Benefits Transfer, the system allows people to spend welfare benefits with payment cards.
In an initial statement, Xerox said the system suffered a “temporary shutdown” during a test.
The company said that restarting the EBT system required time to ensure service was fully functional. The system was restored late Saturday.
“Beneficiaries who required immediate access to their benefits could work with their local merchants who could activate an emergency voucher process where available,” the company said. “We appreciate our clients’ patience while we resolved this issue and apologize for any inconvenience. We realize that access to these benefits is important to families in the states we serve.”
About 1.9 million Georgians were receiving such benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as of June, according to the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington-based nonprofit group focused on eliminating hunger.
Xerox said EBT card systems in 17 states had been affected. In addition to Georgia, other states experiencing problems included: Alabama, California, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Mississippi, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in a statement released Saturday, said the outage was not related to the federal government shutdown.
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