Some student reflections on SNAP

  SNAP has always been something that’s controversial, in my mind.  Growing up I would hear and see people talking about others being poor in the grocery line, not knowing the context or implications that those words may have.  To the people it was directed it, they would get uncomfortable—which of course I understood at the time—but the real world implications of this happening everywhere is quite telling. 

Now the government provides EBT cards that look like credit or debit cards to help with some of the social stigma surrounding SNAP, allowing users to buy groceries without the judgment that they used to experience.  It’s not just the fact that these judgments happened, it’s the fact that people can look down on others for being poor or experiencing temporary hardships, which we all have in life.  I don’t understand why we need to constantly judge others for their situations; instead we should be kind and offer help where needed.

No, this doesn’t mean going up to every SNAP family and asking if they need help.  That would be silly and add to some of the social stigma; instead, gaining real world experience by volunteering at shelters or local programs that help the poor.  Understanding where these people are coming from, and recognizing that not everyone is the same.  Not everyone is abusing the system and driving Mercedes home.  There are people out there trying to get by and to be judged for that is immoral, in my mind.

Hopefully this paper isn’t controversial for those currently in Social Work or going through school to become one.  I don’t want to confuse anyone reading this, however—people can judge others for anything, but to vocalize it and put others down is wrong.  Therapists can judge clients, but they should never vocalize those judgments in a negative way.  

Emotions aside and judgment aside, I want to move towards the benefits and downfalls of SNAP in general.  The program is wonderful, but it has shortcomings as do most things that are government ran (some would argue all things).  One of those things is not accounting for specific circumstances per family.  What I mean by that is certain areas have higher costs of living than others.  So if a family lives in Washington DC, it’s probably going to be more expensive than a family that lives in Memphis, TN.  The government should focus more on cost of living areas rather than a static number based on how big a family is.

One of the great things about SNAP is how it allows families food security while letting them spend money that would have otherwise gone towards food to go to other important things, like rent or utility payments.  Having food security makes a world of difference when you’ve experience insecurity yourself.  It helps with depression; health outcomes; academic outcomes; life expectancy.  All of these things because of one single government program.

I have a friend that uses the program and she benefits tremendously because of it in her life.  She would say all the time that she wishes she didn’t have to always eat ramen noodles because she’s worried about the long term health effects of doing so.  When you get older, thinks like nutrition start to  matter a whole lot more than to a 19 year old collect student in a dorm room forced to eat the same thing for a couple of semesters.

Nutrition is very important.  Unfortunately, SNAP doesn’t necessarily accommodate the highest efficacy in nutritional returns, but some would say its good enough.  I’m in a similar mindset—as long as some nutritional goals are being met and ramen noodles aren’t being served for breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday, then clearly it’s a net benefit to be in the program.

An academic journal talking about poverty in America and how SNAP helps alleviate it had this to say: “We found an average decline of 4.4 percent in the prevalence of poverty due to SNAP benefits, while the average decline in the depth and severity of poverty was 10.3 and 13.2 percent, respectively. SNAP benefits had a particularly strong effect on child poverty, reducing its depth by an average of 15.5 percent and its severity by an average of 21.3 percent from 2000 to 2009.”

References:

Smith, J. A., & Doe, R. B. (2017). Alleviating poverty in the United States: The critical role of SNAP benefits. Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/262233/files/17742_err132_1_.pdf 

You mentioned that Not everyone is abusing the system and driving Mercedes home.  That is an important observation, as it seems to me that many people quickly raise the issue of cheaters who use SNAP benefits because they falsely report low incomes, or who have low incomes, but have hidden wealth or support. I think anyone who deals with the general public soon realizes that a small fraction of people (probably fewer than 5%) are sort of dishonest, slimy, predatory, or psychopathic.  In any system involving lots of people, there are going to be a fraction of people who cheat, steal, lie, and justify this behavior to themselves. However, the sort of cheating where people with hidden wealth or unreported incomes use SNAP must be extremely low (estimates from 2018 suggested a 0.14% fraud rate where recipients were investigated and found guilty of fraud.  If that is 20% of all recipient fraud, the actual level of fraud might be as high as 0.7%.  Fraud committed by retailers trafficking SNAP benefits is estimated at about 1%). 

Your citation from the 2017 article is also encouraging, as it suggests that SNAP makes a significant reduction in experienced (post-tax / post-benefit) poverty. 
I wonder sometimes whether it might be better to just give poor people cash rather than SNAP.  SNAP benefits can only be used to purchase uncooked food (although there are grocery stores that will cook some raw foods for you as a service, for no fee), and so while SNAP benefits help make malnourishment and starvation exceedingly rare in our society, the problems of housing insecurity or other problems of poverty cannot be addressed so much with SNAP, aside from the point you make that every dollar in SNAP is a dollar less the family needs to spend on food, giving the household more money to use for other necessities.

I'm a bit concerned about refusing to allow households to spend SNAP benefits on sweetened drinks, candy, or other morally suspect foods.  A goal of a welfare safety net is to give freedom and autonomy to persons who are suffering a period of low income, either because of an economic hardship they are temporarily passing through, or some more permanent problem, often related to physical or mental health conditions or disabilities. Restricting what people purchase with SNAP benefits will be justified by health concerns, which is why a person is not allowed to purchase cigarettes or alcohol with SNAP benefits, but at some point the restrictions on SNAP use cross from nutrition and science to moral or religious reasons, and I’m wary of that.  For example, I suspect that consuming most meat or animal-derived food products available in supermarkets is immoral, since much of that meat is generated through industrial livestock systems or industrialized marine harvesting, and so if we are going to forbid the consumption of alcohol or soda pop, why not also ban the purchase of animal-protein products and restrict SNAP users to vegetarian diets?  What if some persons thinks that only organic food is moral or healthy, and we start forcing SNAP to be used only for organic products?  This seems like a Reductio ad absurdum argument, but I think the assumption that we should be strict in limiting what welfare recipients do with the aid we give them is one that we must treat with caution and concern, if we highly value individual liberty and dignity.

The earlier part of your reaction where you think about how people are eager to judge others reminds me of some psychological experiments that show humans tend to be very good at detecting cheating and unfair exchanges where someone else gets an advantage.  Helping people overcome that innate tendency toward distrust, cynicism, paranoia, and judgmental prejudices is certainly a huge task we have in advancing civilization and improving society. I wish people were better at recognizing the actual levels of threat from cheating and deceit. 

As for government programs being inherently inferior.  Of course they are.  In an ideal or perfect society, people would be so honest, charitable, fair, and open-hearted that we would not need a public welfare system, nor police, courts, nor jails.  Taxes would be very low, paying mainly for infrastructural improvements and pooling risk.  Given the scope of the problems we face, given the actual material (humans and their human natures) we are dealing with, we must settle for government and coercive charity through social welfare systems, at least for the time being. I look forward to the utopian anarchy our remote descendants may someday enjoy when people are better than they are now.  

Student opposes drug testing of SNAP beneficiaries

SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), also called food stamps, is for low income people and families who cannot afford their food. Without this program, millions of people in the United States would go hungry. The United States Department of Agriculture provides SNAP, and it works by giving people a certain amount of money each month that can only use on food. It is put onto a card similar to a debit card. People get a certain amount depending on how many people are in their household, how much money they make, and how much their rent and utilities are. It is a great program for helping end hunger in the United States. 

One problem we face with SNAP is that Republicans and the Trump Administration are trying to make it so certain states are allowed to drug test food stamp recipients. The wrong-headed ideal of this policy proposal is that people receiving food stamps must be forced to go through drug testing, and without drug testing they will not be able to receive food stamp benefits. This is wrong in many ways. At the surface level, it may seem like a good idea that drug addicts cannot get food stamps, but what about their children? Should children of parents who have used drugs starve and suffer because of their parents’ illicit drug use? It really is not fair at all. I don’t, and I hope most people do not want children going hungry because their parents struggle with addiction, and even if someone does not have any children and they are addicts, do they deserve to starve? I have a very strong opinion that no one should starve, no matter what. Murderers and rapists in prison don’t starve, but they are trying to make someone with a drug addiction starve when they are not harming others, just themselves. 

Another reason why it is a bad idea to drug test food stamp recipients is because of how costly it is. Seven states have already tried this, but on TANF instead of food stamps (TANF is a different welfare program that gives cash grants to some poor families) and they have already spent one million dollars on these drug tests, and they will have to spend millions more as the years go by, but it has been shown that applicants who have been drug tested have tested positive at a lower rate than the general population. Drug testing does not work to help people get treatment for their addictions. Instead of spending this much money on drug testing applicants of welfare programs, we ought to be implementing better programs to help the poor move out of poverty, and help persons with substance use issues move toward sobriety. 

Hunger in the United States is a real problem, and forcing applicants to be drug tested will not help solve the problem. More people will starve. More people will steal, so they will be able to survive. Instead of spending millions of dollars to drug test food stamp recipients, we could increase the amount of benefits hungry persons receive because a majority of people who get food stamps do not get enough to last them the whole month. They do okay for the first couple weeks, but then they end up having to go to the food pantry because they run out of food. 

The SNAP program does need to be changed, but forcing people to be drug tested has more negative consequences than positive ones. People will also be losing a sense of self determination and autonomy over their own lives, because they already have to jump through many hoops just to get help from the government, but adding drug tests as something they have to do will just make them more dependent and less self-sufficient. 

I think the most important thing is that everyone gets to have the food that they need. Family members should not hurt because they have a parent or sibling who cannot stay clean. It is not fair to either of them, and there are other programs that we should have to help people who struggle with addiction. Not giving people food is not going to magically make them stay off drugs. 

I'd like to mention a few facts here to help support your editorial. 

In the first part of 2018, the maximum SNAP benefits for families in Illinois who live with no income are as follows:
single individuals: $192 per month;
single parents with one child or two-adult households: $352;
household with three persons: $504;
household with four persons: $640;
household with five persons: $760.

According to the USDA’s March 2018 food plans:
For a thrifty food budget, a family of two adults aged 19-50 years old need $382 per month; and for a family of four with two adults and two children aged 6-8 and 9-11 years old, the monthly food budget needed is $639.  

For the low cost plan, the amount needed for the two-adult household is $490, and for the family of four with two children and two adults, the amount needed for a month is $841.

For the moderate-cost plan, the amount for the two-adult household: $583.  For the four-person household: $1048.

In 2014, when there were about 120 million American households, total spending per month on food in and outside of home was about $1.15 billion, or approximately $960 per month per household (and the average American household has about 2.5 persons).  

Clearly, the SNAP benefits are not allowing poor persons to receive such lavish benefits that they can live with food consumption that matches typical American diets.  In fact, the SNAP benefits provide less than 40% of the resources that would allow a poor household without income to consume food at a level that matches the American average.  

SNAP benefits aren’t generous.  SNAP benefits do, however, combat hunger.  SNAP benefits reduce the number of Americans living in extreme poverty (looking at consumption levels to define poverty) by about half. 

Student examines welfare reform from the 1990s

In my social welfare and policy class we study the history of social welfare policy and services. The policies and services are introduced through lecture and text.  We also study the client(s) in relations to policy and services, sometimes as their advocates. One of the text required for the class is “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” written by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer. This informative book spoke on the history of welfare and its reform, formally known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), now known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The book explained the purpose of reform was to keep people from taking advantage of the system and to help those on the program become independent. Edin and Shaefer also gave insight, actual people, dealing with the system and the current effects of the reform. The requirements when you apply consist of an address proving where you reside (lease and rent receipt), your recent pay stubs (if working) or proof of any income (SSI, Disability, retirement child support,..etc), proof of income for everyone living in the household, your checking and savings account statements (cannot exceed $2,000), birth certificate, and social security card. I was a bit curious and decided to search the internet for more information on the welfare reform and came across a research report conducted in 1998 by Michigan State University. “Social Welfare Reforms in the Midwest: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio Wisconsin”, written by Dr. Fayyaz Hussain. Dr. Hussain received his Ph.D. from Michigan state University in 1991, his expertise includes: poverty, hunger, social demographics and rural sociology.

Per Dr. Hussain the new policy for food stamps in the state of Illinois states:

1. Food stamps will be given out for only 12 months (can be extended for 12 months if a person in the household is elderly or disabled)
2. People would be found ineligible for any of the following reasons.

 A) refuse to register for employment 

B) refuse to participate in job training programs

C) refuse to accept an offer for a job

 D) quit a job.

I feel the problem with the reform is it has narrowed the requirements so much that people who qualify and benefit from the program the most are denied or do not qualify at all, because of a technicality. I feel the system is not equipped to deal with individual cases that need special circumstances granted to ensure the health and wellbeing of the individual and/or children, mainly because it does not address the needs of the clients as individuals upon initial contact.

 This book read to me like a novel put together of some of my friends and family life experiences. I was born and raised in Chicago and knew stories like the ones in the book all too well. In the book, it shows how the system reformed to help people has put them in more chaos (poverty, hunger, and homelessness). 

The system was set up to serve and provide for the public the basic needs for survival but people’s circumstances and needs vary. The policy requirements can be unrealistic for someone homeless with children. What if a woman finds a job that requires her to be outside past the homeless shelters curfew time. It leaves her with the decision of being homeless with snap benefits and a job but will she be able to keep the job while fighting homelessness. If she quits she in most definitely going to be kicked from the program. An example in the book illustrated a woman and her daughter that was forced to live with distant relatives in which her daughter was sexually assaulted by the family member. The people in the book want what most of middle and upper class people take for granted, a stable home, stable work, and food. I think the system needs to be revised again to better serve the people in need. We all deserve to be fed and safe at night in a home with our loved ones. The US is a rich, powerful, and influential country yet our people are homeless and starving everyday. 

The welfare system in the USA has an assumption that people should be in the labor force.  They must take jobs if jobs are available.  The suitability of the job or the job conditions are not of much significance. This shows that the welfare system serves the needs of the employers, who need a group of desperate potential workers who will take jobs that are low-paying and dehumanizing.  If we allowed people to receive welfare support until they found satisfactory jobs that were suitable for them, our workers would be more selective about the sort of work they accepted.  But this gets at a fundamental problem of how work is organized: to get things made, it seems there are always going to be some jobs that are dirty, difficult, or dangerous.  If this was a society that valued the humanity of workers, we would let workers take those jobs only if they were well-paid, or we would use a system that allowed them to avoid such jobs.  But, as it is, our welfare system and our political ideologies are not oriented toward the well-being of humanity: we are instead most interested in the interests of owners and businesses and employers, and so we have a fairly miserly welfare system.