It now costs Iowa grocery stores and other businesses more to accept payments through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Merchants now have to pay for their own equipment and processing services whenever SNAP cards are used. Kevin Concannon, the U-S-D-A’s Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services and a former Iowan, says the change was designed to prevent the illegal use of the program.
About 421-thousand Iowans now receive SNAP benefits, or about 13-percent of the population. Concannon says the goal is to make the use of those benefits more secure.
Concannon is the former director of the Iowa Department of Human Services.
