2. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
● What is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP)?
○ Overseen by the United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA)
○ Also formerly known as food stamps
○ Federal nutrition program that helps millions of
low-income Americans put food on the table
■ Monthly balance is given on a EBT
(electronic benefits transfer) card
■ Can purchase food at grocery stores,
convenience stores, some farmers’
markets, and co-op food programs
● Food may include bread, cereal,
fruits, vegetables, fish, and dairy
products
● Alcohol, tobacco products, and
nonfood items such as household
supplies, medications, and
vitamins cannot be bought
3. SNAP applicants and statistics
● Who can apply for SNAP?
○ Eligibility is restricted to people
whose gross income is up to 130%
(~$27,700) of the federal poverty
line
○ Must be a U.S. citizen or legal
noncitizen
● In 2018, around 40 million Americans
under SNAP
○ Around 16.7% of children lived in
households using these benefits
4. New restrictions regarding SNAP
● Policy changes
○ People whose incomes is >130% the
federal poverty line or have more than
$2,250 will no longer qualify
● Policy changes affect mostly
children and elderly
○ Around 500,000 children will no longer
be eligible for free school lunch
5. Why is this issue surfacing now?
● Republicans argue against a broad-based categorical eligibility
○ Loophole in the food assistance program
● By proposing these changes, the Trump administration hopes to:
○ Kick out people whose income status or assets value exceeds what is stated in the
requirements of SNAP participants
○ Make people more self-reliant and push them into the workforce
○ Save around 2.5 billion dollars that is spent on this program each year
6. Opposition towards the policy changes
● Democrats and SNAP consumers
are strongly against the policy
changes
● Eric Failing
○ “proposed rule, rather than
helping address these issues,
will make them far worse.”
● Many cite that benefits of the
program should be increased, not
decreased
7. Population most affected by the proposed changes
● News media are most concerned
about reporting about how the
changes of SNAP will affect children
○ Focus on impact on children's’ ability to buy
lunch at school
● These changes will affect participants
of all ages due to malnutrition and lack
of food
8. Conclusion
● Kicking people out of SNAP
does not solve poverty
○ Only creates more hardships for
these people who desperately
rely on these programs for food
● SNAP greatly helps individuals
get supplied with food they
need
○ Forcing people out will only
increase the number of food
insecure households
9. Conclusion (cont.)
● Majority SNAP
participants are
joining the workforce
at high percentages
after a year of being
in the program
○ Kicking members out
will only make it more
difficult for people to
obtain food
10. References
Policy Basics: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). (2019, June 26). Retrieved October 20, 2019, from
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/policy-basics-the-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap.
Santhanam, L. (2019, September 5). Here’s who could lose food stamps under Trump’s proposed changes. Retrieved October 20, 2019, from
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/heres-who-could-lose-food-stamps-under-trumps-proposed-changes.
Luhby, T. (2019, October 16). Half a million students would lose free school lunches under food stamp rule changes, USDA says. Retrieved
October 20, 2019, from https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/16/politics/trump-food-stamps-school-lunches/index.html.
11. References (cont.)
Pennsylvania Capital Star. (2019, November 8). Food stamps literally keep families alive in Philly. Help us stop the Trump benefit cuts
| Opinion. Retrieved November 17, 2019, from
https://www.penncapital-star.com/commentary/food-stamps-literally-keep-families-alive-in-philly-help-us-stop-the-trump-benefit-cuts-
opinion/
New Food Economy. (2019, March 12). Everything you need to know about how Trump’s 2020 budget would affect American food.
Retrieved November 17, 2019, from
https://newfoodeconomy.org/trump-2020-budget-food-system-usda-agriculture-snap/
Fessler, P. (2019, November 1). Comment Period Ends For Proposal That Would Cut SNAP benefits For Millions. Retrieved November
17, 2019, from
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/01/775078148/comment-period-ends-for-proposal-that-would-cut-snap-benefits-for-millions
Editor's Notes
In my presentation, I will be giving an overview about the SNAP program and the implications between the proposed changes to the eligibility status to those currently enrolled with these benefits.
To start off, what exactly is SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program? SNAP (or also formerly known as food stamps) is a program that is run by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) on the federal level. The premise of SNAP is to provide low-income individuals and families that have successfully applied and been accepted into the program, the opportunity to be able to meet their basic nutritional needs by providing these people with an electronic benefits transfer, or EBT card. The balance on this card is refilled monthly. By holding this card, the individual will be able to purchase groceries at authorized grocery stores, convenience stores, some farmers’ markets, as well as co-op food programs. Some of the potential groceries that can be used with the EBT card includes food items such as bread, cereal, fruits, vegetables, fish, and dairy products. However, items such as alcohol, tobacco products, household supplies, vitamins, and medications are not covered under this card.
Eligible applicants for SNAP is limited to individuals or families whose gross income must be at or below 130% of the federal poverty line. They must also be a current U.S. citizen or a legal noncitizen.
There is estimated to be around 40 million Americans who used SNAP benefits in 2018 in the United States. Amongst the population of children in the United States, about 16.7% of children lived in households with SNAP benefits.
Recently, a policy proposed under the Trump administered could potentially affect around 3.6 million of Americans that benefit under this program. The new rules state that people whose income is 130% above the federal poverty line or people that have more than $2,250 in assets will no longer qualify for the program. In Laura Santhanam’s pbs.org article on September 5, 2019, “Here’s who could lose food stamps under Trump’s proposed changes,'' she refers to an analysis from policy firm Mathematic that states that 9% of households that are currently under SNAP would no longer receives these benefits under the proposed rules (Santhanam, 2019). These rules will majorly affect a vulnerable population, including elderly and children. In particular, Tami Luhby’s CNN article on October 16, 2019, “Half a million students would lose free school lunches under food stamp rule changes, USDA says,” reports that with these changes, around 500,000 children will lose access to free school lunches. These students would have to pay the reduced school lunch fee. Additionally, around 40,000 children who were previously eligible for free school lunches would have to ultimately pay the full price of the lunch fee
Recently, it has also been noted in Luhby’s article that Republicans have argued against a “so-called broad-based categorical eligibility” which allows Americans with somewhat higher incomes and savings to benefits from the SNAP program. These Republicans claim that this expanded eligibility is a loophole that allows people who do not fit the requirements needed to have access to SNAP, the ability to receive public assistance. Thus, with the Trump administration proposing more restrictions to this policy, these people will be kicked out of the program. Through this change, the article from New Food Economy, “Everything you need to know about how Trump’s 2020 budget would affect American food,” predicts that 4.5 billion dollars will be saved over 10 years (New Food Economy, 2019). Additionally, in Pam Fessler’s article from npr.org, “Comment Period Ends for Proposal That Would Cut SNAP Benefits For Millions,” posted on November 1, 2019, she also mentions that U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue mentions that a reason for implementing harsher restrictions is because they believe that food stamps should be seen as a “temporary safety net” for low-income families. The administration is hoping to move people off of government aid in an attempt to push them towards the workforce and become more self-reliant.
In particular, many Democrats and consumers of SNAP have spoken against the changes. Referring back to Fessler’s article, the author mentions Eric Failing, an executive director of the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, who wrote in a comment that the “... proposed rule, rather than helping address these issues will make them far worse”. The issues that Failing mentions relates to the Trump administration’s attempt in trying to restrict the higher-income families from being able to partake in the program. However, like Failing, I also agree that these changes will do more harm than good. Many of people speaking about the policy changes are saying that instead of limiting the availability to food and increasing hunger and financial hardships for those in the SNAP program, benefits should be increased instead.
Ultimately, the news media have been focused on talking about how the proposed changes to the policy will affect children. Naturally, by cutting out the access to SNAP for many children, it will be more difficult for their parents to afford to pay for their school lunches. Unfortunately, that may lead to some children having to go without having eaten lunch because they are unable to afford the price. This will lead to an increase in malnutrition in school children and may cause them to develop diseases in the future. In particular, in the article, “Food stamps literally keep families alive in Philly. Help us stop the Trump benefit cuts,” from the Pennsylvania Capital Star posted on November 8, 2019, there is a statement made that says that some of these food programs are literally keeping individuals, young or old, alive. By cutting out these programs, many people will have to go these days starving because they lack the funds to be able to afford their meals. These changes are very harmful to a substantial part of the population.
By taking away access to food, that does not fix the reason why they are under these programs, because of poverty. I do not think that these proposed changes should go through because even though these rules may have been made with the intention to only allow eligible people to take advantage of these benefits or to encourage more people to work, that does not solve the problem. For some people, it is difficult for them to find work, whether it may be because of health or personal reasons. Thus, by excluding a substantial amount of people out of the SNAP program, they are bound to kick out people who genuinely rely on the program to survive. On the photo that I included on this slide from the article “Policy Basics: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) posted on June 26, 2019,” it shows how SNAP helps families afford food. In the blue, it shows the original percentages of families/children who were unable to afford food or had very low food security before the program. Then, next to right of the blue rectangles, in the orange, it shows the difference after of people who were able to take advantage of SNAP. It shows drastic decreases in food insecure households. Some of these households are bound to get affected by the policy changes. This will end up leading back to an increase in food insecurity among the population. This is not right, and it is a serious concern that must be addressed.
Additionally, one of the reasons cited for the increasing restrictions on SNAP was to get more people to become self-reliant and join the workforce. In another chart from the same article, “Policy Basics The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP),” it shows the percentages of SNAP participants who start working a month into taking part of SNAP benefits (blue) and after a year (orange). Over the course of a year of taking part in SNAP, the percentages rise significantly from what it was a month after joining. It is clear that by taking part in SNAP, members are not becoming lazy and self-reliant on the program. In fact, the vast majority of them end up joining the workforce. Thus, it is not fair to suddenly cut a significant portion of SNAP participants out of the program in hopes that they will be more motivated to find jobs. It is likely that because they are in the program, it is easier for them to search for work because they will have less time worrying about how they will get their next meal. Even then, many SNAP participants who do work struggle to make ends meet. It is not fair to disqualify so many individuals who rely so heavily on this program to survive.
