People in Ohio,
Michigan and several other states found themselves unable to use their
food stamp debit cards on Saturday, after a routine check by vendor
Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure. Shoppers from Maine to
Oklahoma had to abandon baskets of groceries because they couldn't
access their benefits.
Ohio's cash and food
assistance card payment systems went down at 11 a.m., said Benjamin
Johnson, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
Ohio's cash system has been fixed, however its electronic benefits
transfer card system is still down. All states that use Xerox systems
are affected by the outage.
Xerox spokeswoman
Karen Arena confirmed via email Saturday afternoon that some EBT systems
are experiencing temporary connectivity issues. She said technical
staff is addressing the issue and expects the system to be restored
soon.
