So I get a little over 250 a month and that's the max for a single person in CO. It varies state by state, the programs are federally funded but state managed/run. Most of them are pretty close to the same save a few areas like Hawaii where the cost of living is significantly higher.
I have a step daughter with 5 kids and she gets somewhere around 700 a month. Typically people don't carry much of a balance at all it's usually not enough to last the entire month especially since food costs have gone way up over the last 4 years and there have been NO increases to food stamp allotments. So any significant balance higher than the monthly allotment is very hard to achieve for most people.
I've never met or actually heard of
anyone with that kind of a balance, until now. Even if you had 30 kids or dependents I don't see this ever happening.
As far as immigration status? Well it's hard to say, for sure, except they were not of Latin descent (the people who left the receipt behind were most likely Haitian and did not speak a word of English) so yeah it's mostly an assumption but based off of very obvious evidence.. My wife asked the same question to the cashier "How you know for sure?" And her answer was "They tried to buy lighters and when I asked for ID they couldn't present it" so no ID but 53k on an EBT card, non English speaking non Latin folks in an area very prominent for Latin folks, kinda nails it in my opinion but
At any rate, yeah when you buy something with an EBT card, it always shows before and after purchase balance on the receipt no matter where you go if they take EBT the receipt will show it. Most places including 7-11 automatically print out these receipts and most of the time people want them when they buy something so they know how little they have left. Unless you already know your balance well or are getting a ridiculous amount on your EBT card then, you might not ask for it.
Personally I always ask for mine just for privacy reasons. Cashiers usually glance at them before they wad them up and throw them away as was the case here. The huge number, though, made her do a double take. Also my wife happened to walk in like right after these people left so that's why the cashier showed her the receipt, she said "hey come look at this number does that say what I think it says?" And that's how the conversation started.
Pretty damn crazy in my opinion. Like I said I don't know how *anyone* gets that much money on an EBT card even if you had 30 kids lmao
Oh and last detail - the card was brand new. My EBT card looks like it's been run over by a tank on concrete and gravel

But she said it was one of the newest ones with the latest design on it and everything and there weren't many marks on the magnetic stripping.