Most people assume that holding a job — any job — automatically bars them from federal food assistance. That assumption costs working low-income Americans hundreds of dollars a month in benefits they are legally entitled to collect. Lester Womack believed it too, right up until the afternoon a credit union manager in Louisville quietly suggested he might be wrong.
I first heard Lester’s name from Deandra Pitts, a member services manager at a community credit union off Bardstown Road. She called me in late January 2026 after Lester had come in asking about hardship loan options. She couldn’t share his financials, but she told me she thought his story was worth telling. When I reached out, Lester took two days to call back. When he did, he was blunt: “I don’t usually talk to reporters or bankers or anybody like that. Every time I have, it’s cost me money.”
We met at a diner near his apartment in the Shively neighborhood of Louisville on a Tuesday morning in February. He arrived early, ordered black coffee, and did not take off his jacket for the first twenty minutes of our conversation.
Four Decades of Work, Then a Garnishment Notice
Lester Womack has driven for UPS since 1987. At 66, he is still on the road — part-time, reduced routes, mostly early morning shifts that end before noon. He earns roughly $2,410 a month in gross wages, which sounds workable until you understand what comes out of it before he sees a cent.
In October 2024, a debt collector obtained a court judgment against him for a medical bill that dated back to a 2019 emergency room visit. The original bill was $4,200. By the time it cleared collections and reached a Louisville circuit court, the total with fees had grown to $6,880. A wage garnishment order followed, and beginning in November 2024, $340 was deducted from every paycheck.
On top of the garnishment, Lester sends $375 a month to his younger sister, Denise, who is finishing her junior year at Kentucky State University at age 39 after years of stops and starts. He describes paying her tuition and housing as non-negotiable. “She’s going to finish,” he told me, with the kind of finality that ends conversations. “That’s not up for discussion.”
After taxes, the garnishment, and the money to Denise, Lester was taking home approximately $1,340 a month to cover rent, utilities, food, and transportation in a city where the average one-bedroom apartment now runs close to $900. His hours varied week to week depending on route availability, which made budgeting feel, as he put it, “like trying to plan dinner when you don’t know when the grocery store closes.”
The First Denial and Why It Was Wrong
Lester applied for SNAP benefits through the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services in December 2024. He filled out the online application himself, submitted pay stubs from his last three months, and waited. The denial letter arrived in his email on January 6, 2025. The stated reason: his gross monthly income of $2,410 exceeded the 130 percent federal poverty level threshold for a one-person household, which sat at approximately $1,580 at the time.
Lester told me he read the denial letter once, set it down on his kitchen table, and didn’t pick it up again for three weeks. “I figured that was just how it was,” he said. “They said no. I’m not the type to go begging twice.” He is not a man who has ever asked for much, and the rejection confirmed what he had half-expected going in.
What changed was the conversation at the credit union in late January. Deandra Pitts, who could not help him with a hardship loan given his debt-to-income ratio, mentioned she had heard about the elderly household exemption from another client. She did not advise him — she was careful about that — but she suggested he look into it and perhaps speak with someone at a local legal aid office before walking away from the SNAP application entirely.
Reapplying Under the Correct Standard
Lester contacted the Louisville office of Legal Aid Society in early February 2025. A paralegal there confirmed what Deandra had hinted at: because Lester was 66, his SNAP application should have been processed under the elderly household rules, which apply only the net income test — not the gross income test that triggered his denial.
Under SNAP’s net income calculation, several deductions apply before the household’s countable income is determined. For Lester, these included:
- A standard deduction of $198 per month (the 2025 figure for one-person Kentucky households)
- An earned income deduction of 20 percent of his gross wages, equaling $482
- A medical expense deduction for out-of-pocket costs exceeding $35 per month, available specifically to SNAP applicants aged 60 and older
After applying those deductions, Lester’s net countable income came to approximately $1,190 per month — just below the net income limit of $1,255 for a one-person household at the time. He qualified. The gross income that initially disqualified him was never supposed to be the deciding number.
Reapplying was not a smooth process. Lester’s irregular income created friction with the caseworker assigned to his case. His hours at UPS fluctuated by as much as $300 a month depending on route coverage, and providing a consistent income figure was difficult. He submitted six months of pay stubs rather than three, along with a written explanation of how his scheduling worked. “They kept asking me to prove something I couldn’t prove exactly,” he said. “I just gave them everything and told them to average it out.”
The Approval and What $187 a Month Actually Means
Lester’s revised application was approved in March 2025. His monthly SNAP benefit was set at $187 — less than the maximum of $292 for a one-person household in 2025, but more than nothing, which was what he had been receiving for the previous four months while the appeal moved through the system.
Lester is not celebratory about the outcome. When I asked him how the benefit had changed his day-to-day life, he was measured. “It means I’m not choosing between protein and paying the electric bill every week,” he said. “That’s not a small thing, but it’s also not a solution. The debt’s still there. The garnishment’s still coming out.”
He is still paying off the judgment. At the current garnishment rate of $340 a month, the remaining balance of roughly $5,900 — as of early 2026 — will take another eighteen months to clear, assuming no additional fees accrue. His hours at UPS have remained unpredictable. Some months he earns closer to $2,100; others push past $2,600 depending on holiday volume and available shifts.
What lingers with me from our conversation is what Lester said about the system itself. He does not trust it — not banks, not government offices, not the process. Being burned by a medical debt that ballooned in collections hardened that distrust into something close to certainty. The SNAP approval did not undo that.
He said that without bitterness, which somehow made it harder to sit with. He was simply stating the math of his life as he understood it. The rules changed around him, or maybe they were never what he thought they were, and at 66, with Denise two semesters from her degree and a garnishment order still active, he is threading what he has through whatever gaps remain open.
According to USDA SNAP participation data, adults aged 60 and older represent one of the fastest-growing demographic groups applying for food assistance, yet senior enrollment remains significantly below estimated eligibility rates — a gap researchers attribute in part to stigma and in part to exactly the kind of procedural confusion Lester encountered. Being told no once, incorrectly, is often enough to end the process for someone who never wanted to start it in the first place.
When I left the diner, Lester was still on his first cup of coffee. He had a route the next morning at 5 a.m. He was not looking for sympathy, and he did not seem to want any. He was just a man who had done the math and was still doing it, every month, with whatever numbers were in front of him.
Related: This Sacramento Uber Driver Thought She Earned Too Much for Tax Credits — She Was Wrong by $3,200
Leave a Reply