LifeLine, $6.31 a month. There is no free lunch.

From The Wall Street Journal:

Under the Federal Communications Commission program, called Lifeline, phone companies receive money for providing discounts to low-income customers. In 2012 the FCC passed new regulations designed to reduce fraud in the program, including a requirement that all beneficiaries certify their eligibility annually. That led to significant declines in enrollment. But this year’s drop was especially large.

Among those dropped are people who appear to qualify based on the program’s criteria. Sofiya Altshuler, of Brooklyn, N.Y., said she was surprised when she received a Verizon bill for $59.89 in February, up from $6.31 in January.

In 2014 the Lifeline program spent $1.6 billion to discount 12.4 million phone lines.