Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

           The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as “Food Stamps,” was established in 1964 when the Food Stamp Act (see Appendix 1) was enacted. In 2017, SNAP served 42 million people, including almost 70% families with children, with $63.6 billion in benefits (FY2017). SNAP also provide nutritional support to low-income senior, minimum and low-wage working families, as well as people with disabilities living paycheck-by-paycheck or with no income at all. In this paper, we will address SNAP as a social issue, its goals, and effects. Furthermore, we will provide possible alternatives to make SNAP more accessible to individuals.

SNAP AS SOCIAL PROBLEM

SNAP is one of the main sources of support for those with earnings less than 50% of the poverty line (Pathways: 2015), and it is considered by the USDA as the largest program in the domestic hunger safety net due to providing nutrition assistance to millions of low-income individuals and families. To be eligible for SNAP, applicants must meet work requirements including registering for work or accepting a job opportunity when offered, participating in employment/training programs (if assigned by the State), and not reducing hours or voluntarily quitting a job. However, some restrictions may apply for those not subject to those requirements, for example, children, seniors, pregnant women, people with a disability or mental health issues.

Another requirement to apply for/or maintain your SNAP status is income. With the exception of households with a disable or an elderly member, the gross monthly income of the adult-applicants must be at or below 130 percent of the poverty line, this is $2,213 (about $26,600 a year) for a family of three (see Appendix B). However, this does not indicate that everyone could be eligible if s/he meets the requirements, like in the case of undocumented immigrants and most college students. Another social issue linked to SNAP is that when it comes to having a job, some employers, such as retailers, do not guarantee hours to employees, which means that if a person works over 20 hours within a week at Market Basket (per say), s/he can find that her/his hours were cut for the following week. This not only could have a negative impact regarding SNAP requirements but also could affect their household and lead to other social issues such as food insecurity.

In 2017, the Trump administration’s budget proposed cutting $193 billion or 25 percent from SNAP with the goals of tightening eligibility and work requirements. Although Congress has not yet voted on this budget, this action could increase the percentage of households and individuals who are facing or could face food insecurity. About 15 million households were food insecure according to USDA data in 2017. Although the USDA points out that the number has declined from 12.3 percent a year earlier, the Center for Poverty Research claims that, in a study made in 2011, a comparison was made between birth outcomes among children born in counties that were early adopters of the Food Stamp program and other counties that adopted a few years later. The study found that among all families who received Food Stamps, “the incidence of low birth weight was about seven percent lower for White infants and about three percent lower for Black infants.” This is one of the goals or purpose of SNAP in the first place.

POLICY GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

From its beginning, the primary goals of the Food Stamps Program was to allow individuals on relief to buy ‘orange stamps’ (which were used to buy any food) for an equal value of dollars, and to receive $.50 towards blue stamps per each time they used $1 worth of orange stamps (which could only be used to buy surplus food determined by the Department of Agriculture). In 1964, the program became permanent per the request of President Johnson who urged Congress to pass legislation on a law which objectives were to provide better-quality nutrition among low-income households regardless of race, national origin, religion, or political beliefs, as well as to strengthen the agricultural economy. The department named this law as The Food Stamp Act (1964), even though, the program became available nationwide in early 1975 (in the case for Puerto Rico).

THE FOOD STAMP ACT OF 1964

Public Law 88-525

88th Congress, H.R. 10222

August 31, 1964

 [An Act] To strengthen the agricultural economy; to help to achieve a fuller and more effective use of food abundances; to provide for improved levels of nutrition among low-income households through a cooperative Federal-State program of food assistance to be operated through normal channels of trade, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that this Act may be cited as “The Food Stamp Act of 1964”

Nowadays, the goal of SNAP is to increase food security and reduce hunger by increasing access to food, a healthful diet, and nutrition education for low-income Americans. In the same way, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council include that SNAP goals are “raising the level of nutrition among low-income households and maintaining adequate levels of nutrition by increasing the food purchasing power of low-income families.” Another goal the National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine states is that SNAP purpose is increasing resources for the purchase of food for a nutritious diet in order to alleviate hunger and malnutrition.

POLICY EFFECTS

             Like many policies, SNAP has its positive and negative effects in our society. One of the negative effects of this policy came after some crimes committed throughout the years. To exemplify, between 1981 and 1983, federal taskforce discovered up to 1,390 indictments of food stamp fraud nationally -that when the term ‘Welfare Queen’ was born. Nowadays, the idea of people claiming that groups of ‘welfare’ recipients are “ripping off the American taxpayer by claiming benefits for which they aren’t eligible, claiming more benefits than those to which they are legally entitled, and by selling off food stamps to buy other non-food items, such as guns or drugs,” as TIME reported.

Stigmas and misconceptions are also big barriers for individuals who need the nutritional assistance but are ashamed or afraid of using their EBT card on the public. This is a social problem that has been known by the USDA. Feeding America relates the story of a person named Dawn who have struggled with the stigmas around SNAP. In the entry, Dawn explains that despite having worked full time the entire life, Dawn was laid off when the economy fell and, “I could not afford to feed my family.” Dawn decided to apply for SNAP, but one day, while waiting in line at the grocery store, Dawn heard a woman complaining about "all these losers and their food stamps… I could never eat as well as these people and I work for a living.” Ashamed, Dawn leaves the line and the lady told, “Well you don't look like you're on food stamps!" Sadly, stories like Dawn’s keep showing around the internet and across the country.

On the positive side and as a response or fight to the stigma around the Food Stamp Program, the USDA changed the program’s name to SNAP. In the same way, the department changed the food stamp coupons to an electronic card named “Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT)” that looks and works like a debit card. Participants of SNAP, Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC) and Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled, and Children (EAEDC) can use the EBT card. Additionally, the USDA created strategies to help prevent program fraud, like the SNAP Fraud Framework which combines “innovations in the use of analytics with concepts and practices from industry in order to more effectively detect potential fraud and improve administration and oversight.” Moreover, the department recognizes that “fraud is not a static concept and one size does not fit all.”

Safety net like SNAP not only helps cutting poverty by half but is also attached to health benefits. A 2016 study found that the “availability of food stamps leads to more food consumption and thus one clear channel is through an increase in nutrition in the critical in utero and early life period” (Hoynes: 2016). The study concludes by stating that this safety net has a positive effect on its consumers or participants, as it helps in the strong, “long-term improvements in health.” Another outcome is that SNAP helps bridge the gap between the need for food and the ability to purchase it.

IMPLICATIONS

For the most part, SNAP depends on federal funding since ‘day one.’ The 2000 Congressional Research Service Report for Congress claims that amendments to the 1977 [Food Stamp] Act during the early 1980’s “significantly restricted eligibility and benefits but beginning in the mid-1980’s and continuing through amendments in 1990 and 1993, program benefits were generally increased.” However, funding and benefits have been shifting. For instance, CRS report that the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (P.L. 104-193) “incorporated the most extensive changes in the program since the 1977 rewrite of the law,” and lowered expected spending by an estimated 13 percent, over $20 billion through FY2002. Unfortunately, this era is not an exception when it comes to such cuttings.

Trump administration had a new proposal to replace half of SNAP benefits with a box of canned or packaged foods. This can be considered as taking away the ability of a SNAP participant to choose her/his meal/food. In the same way, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities claims that Trump’s 2019 budget proposes to cut the SNAP by 30 percent or over $213 billion within the next ten years. The Center express their concern in how this cut would affect 4 million people, “the unemployed, the elderly, and low-income working families with children would bear the brunt of the cuts.” (see Appendix C for more details on Trump’s 2019 budget proposal). With news like this is inevitable for one to ask ourselves why? why basically taking away the opportunity for the supplemental nutrition of millions of individuals who are living with wages under poverty?

SNAP not only support families but also our macroeconomic spending and production. According to a USDA report, “ERS research has estimated a multiplier of SNAP benefits on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 1.79, that is, an increase of $1 billion in SNAP benefits increases GDP by $1.79 billion and results in an increase of 8,900-17,900 full-time equivalent jobs.” Furthermore, the study states that each dollar spent on SNAP stimulates US economy by adding $1.73 in economic activity.

ALTERNATIVE VALUES

SNAP should be seen as a nutrition program, not linked to the stigma attached to the word “welfare.” Throughout years, people who benefit from safety nets such as SNAP have been exposed to misconceptions, bullying, and rude behavior. This has been part of my life as well, as a single parent who benefits from SNAP because my income does not allow me to be nearly as independent as I wish. Just like my case, many other lives depend on SNAP; for that reason, this social issue should not be taken in a light manner. I agree with some restrictions such as the work requirements for able-bodied individuals who are capable of work and become more self-efficient; however, how do we successfully recognize who is consider an able-bodied person? On another note, I wish SNAP recipients who are also college students could have the opportunity to use their EBT card at their school marketplace. Even further, I would like to see more efforts made on creating a program that gives the students to SNAP the access to hot meals in the dining halls. Meanwhile, we ought to keep on being a voice for those who do not have one.

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice” -Nelson Mandela

Works Cited

Hoynes, Hilary et al. 2016. “Long-run impacts of childhood access to the safety net.” The      American Economic Review. 106(4): 903–934. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.20130375

“Safety Net” (pp. 38) in The State of the States: The Poverty and Inequality Report 2015.

Pathways. Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality.

APPENDIX A: THE FOOD STAMP ACT

APPENDIX B: SNAP INCOME

Household Size	Gross monthly income (130 percent of poverty)	Net monthly income (100 percent of poverty)
1	$1,307	$ 1,005
2	$1,760	$1,354
3	$2,213	$1,702
4	$2,665	$2,050
5	$3,118	$2,399
6	$3,571	$2,747
7	$4,024	$3,095
8	$4,477	$3,444
Each additional member	+$453	+$349

Source: US Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service. FY 2018

APPENDIX C: TRUMP’S CUTS

The President’s budget would also expand the reach of a stringent three-month time limit under the existing program.  Currently, SNAP participants age 18 to 49 who are not raising minor children cannot receive benefits for more than three months in a 36-month period unless they work 20 hours a week.  States can exempt particularly vulnerable individuals, such as those in high-unemployment areas.  But the President’s budget would make qualifying for those exemptions much harder.  It also would raise the maximum age for those facing the time limit to 62 beginning in 2021, exposing 2 million more individuals to the limits, including older Americans who face additional obstacles to work.

Text and Table (below) Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

TABLE 1
SNAP Cuts in the President’s 2019 Budget
Proposal	Ten-Year Federal Savings from SNAP Cuts
Cut SNAP benefits and shift a portion to food boxes		-$131.7 billion
State administrative costs for distributing food boxes		$2.5 billion
Restrict categorical eligibility		-$30.6 billion
Limit time-limit waivers		-$17.8 billion
Apply time limit through age 62, and change “elderly” definition to begin at age 63		-$5.9 billion
Eliminate “15% exemptions” from time limit		-$3.2 billion
Eliminate minimum benefit		-$2.7 billion
Cap large households’ benefit		-$1.7 billion
Eliminate Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)/Terminate the SNAP-LIHEAP Connection		-$13.1 billion
Impose standardized utility allowances across states		-$10.2 billion
Cap state administrative expenses		-$9.8 billion
Eliminate SNAP nutrition education		-$4.7 billion
Mandate the National Accuracy Clearinghouse		-$1.1 billion
Eliminate state performance bonuses		-$480 million
Interactions/effect of other budget proposals on SNAP*		about $17 billion
Total		-$213.5 billion

* The savings for individual proposals exceed total projected savings because some of the provisions impact the same households.  This line captures the difference between the reported ten-year savings and the sum of the individual proposals, which we believe represent interactions between proposals and the indirect effect of proposed policy changes in other areas on SNAP.

Source: The estimates of the size of the cuts throughout this paper are based on the Fiscal Year 2019 Budget of the U.S. Government at https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/ and the “Explanatory Notes” the Department of Agriculture (USDA) provides to Congress, available at https://www.obpa.usda.gov/32fns2019notes.pdf.

Social Policy and Gender: Subsidized Child Care

Photograph by Getty Images

The differential treatment of a person or a group due to their gender is known as gender discrimination. Discrimination based on gender has been rooted in US history until the present time. Whether it is the social movements on making sure LGBTQ+ members enjoy the same rights and privileges as someone who does not identify as such to the never-ending fights for women’s rights, gender discrimination has been addressed across the nation and beyond. Women, in particular, have been facing gender discrimination even at the hiring process. According to Pathways’ State of the Union 2018 Report, women face a penalty when they have children, with callback rates declining from 6.6 percent for women who are not parents to 3.1 percent for women who are, because “mothers are perceived as being less committed and less competent” (Pathways Magazine, 2018: 35). Furthermore, mothers face challenges in a more difficult level than men who are parenting children by themselves, especially when it comes to women of color.

During our Social Policies and Inequality class, we learned how policies can promote equality among groups and individuals, but how they can also disproportionally affect individuals based on their genders and sexualities. In her book, Under the Bus, Caroline Fredrickson (2015) argues how some policies have failed to help many low income/women of color/immigrant/working women, especially women who need child care in order to work and become more self-efficient and/or independent. Although we recognize that the child care system in the US is a challenge for all parents, these challenges are noticeably high for women of color as well as for working women. In this paper, we will discuss how child care policies have contributed to gender discrimination since this type of aid originally provided support to a group over other. Finally, we then will talk about what changes have been implemented to make sure our government provides equal treatment and opportunities for all, regardless of one’s gender. 

CHILD CARE AS A SOCIAL PROBLEM

In the United States, 42 percent of families with children have women as the household’s primary breadwinner; many of them cannot afford to pay for childcare, which leads to challenges affecting working-class women, Black, and Latinas, especially (Vogtman, 2017). The author of Under the Bus, Caroline Fredrickson (2015) claims that one of the easiest ways to fall from poverty into destitution is to have children and that one of the biggest challenges for families in the US is taking care of their children while working towards a better future for their families. Fredrickson also discusses how many women, who don’t have access to childcare or who don’t count on someone who they can leave their children with, have (1) dropped out from college due to the cost of day care being more than their tuition and fees, (2) missing work (2015:173) or been fired,  and (3) forced to leave their children unattended.

The Nation shared the story of Tasheva, an 11-year-old girl who was left alone with her four younger siblings in her family’s New York City apartment. After throwing water balloons out of her window onto their neighbor’s terrace, the police were called. When the police came to the apartment and found Tasheva and her siblings were home alone taken to the police station and then put into foster care. Three years later, Tasheva was raped by her foster-care brother for a period of two years. Although Tasheva’s story primarily focuses on how the child-welfare system is like the criminal-justice system, by devastatingly pulling in poor people whom the majority are people of color, the story can also be interpreted from the stance of not having child care options.

So, what’s the issue?

The child care system is a challenge for all parents regardless; however, the risks are worryingly high for working-class women as well as for 70.7 percent of Black women who are their household’s main source of income. The average weekly cost of full-time (40 hours per week) daycare is approximately $196 per child (about $10,000 per year). Anne Branigin states, “America’s current child care system does more to exacerbate inequality than it does to alleviate the struggles of the working class or offer assistance and nurturing to the children who need it the most,” especially when “affordable care means that low-income families increasingly rely on relatives or unlicensed caregivers” (2018).  

The first federal program Child and Dependent Care Credit was created into law by President Gerald Ford, in 1976. Four years later and under the Reagan administration, the federal child care funding shifted, causing the growth of for-profit child care often unaffordable by low-income families who ended up receiving some aid from the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), passed in 1990. Despite this safety net been designed to allow or, like Fredrickson said, “to force mothers to work” (2015:171), there is no guarantee that eligible children will be supported and, if they would be taking care of, poor families would have to spend 30 percent of their income to pay for child care (177).

POLICY OBJECTIVES

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), then known as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, came after the Congress “acknowledging the need for expanded child care to support a welfare-to-work plan…combined along with several smaller programs, into a single block grant” (Michel, 2011). In November 2014, the reauthorized CCDBG offered a framework for states to better allowing parents to go to work or school, encouraging children’s healthy growth, and improving child care assistance programs in order to help families access safe, reliable, affordable child care, for the first time since 1996 (Matthews, 2017). To be eligible for child care assistance, families must have income below 85 percent of the state median, working or engaged in an educational activity, and have a child under 13 (or under 19 if the children have special needs).  

This policy is considered as the primary federal grant program that funds child care quality initiatives through vouchers or certificates that can be used by parents for the provider or program of their choice and that provides child care assistance for low-income, working families, especially single mothers (Child Care Aware of America). The CCDBG Act of 2014, under the Obama Administration, included four primary goals:

• Enhance the quality of child care and the early childhood workforce (including required training and professional development for caregivers, teachers, and directors working in child care)
• Help parents make informed consumer choices and access information to support child development (including the posting of monitoring reports, an easily accessible website, and best practices in child development)
• Protect the health and safety of children in child care (including comprehensive background checks, health and safety training, and monitoring of child care providers)
• Provide equal access to stable, high-quality child care for low-income children (including strengthening payment rates and practices to promote access to care and minimum time periods of child care assistance to families)

POLICY EFFECTS

As a larger scope of this policy effects, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014, the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF), part of the CCDBG, provided child care assistance to 1.4 million children (nearly 64 percent of infants and toddlers) from nearly 1 million low-income working families in an average month: 40 percent of whom are Black children and 32 percent Latinx (Administration for Children and Families; Child-Care Aware of America). Another long-term effect is that low-income parents receiving government aid will be receiving more stable assistance as they work toward economic independence. Furthermore, parents can receive up to 12 months of assistance before re-applying for childcare while keeping their child care aid as long as they are searching for a job. On the same not, a positive short-term effect is that background checks will be implemented to child care providers, which could bring a piece of mind to parents whose children benefit from child care and it will ensure them that their children are taking cared in a safe environment.

Matthews (2017) states that when Congress reauthorized CCDBG, they did not provide enough funding to support states, forcing them to use funds from other federal safety-net such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), not only to meet the new requirements on spending, consumer education, and comprehensive criminal background checks, but to ensure children and families don’t lose access to child care. Fredrickson (2015) uses the example of a single mother whose daughter was benefiting from child care, and when her job gave her a raise of fewer than 50 cents per hour, she found out that she was no longer eligible because her income was now “too high to qualify” (173). Moreover, in numerous cases, parents who have access to childcare vouchers must cover a portion of the costs, which can lead to economic struggles for many low-income families.

Not surprisingly, throughout American history, Fredrickson (2015) mentions how people tend to have a sentimental view of white mothers who stay at home but a judgmental view of Black mothers who do so. She states that this was also the case during Nixon administration when “hypocritically and cynically” demanded that poor women, pronominally women of color, “keep working while they have young children or lose important financial support for their families” (Fredrickson, 2015:178). So, choosing to stay at home to take care of your children was never a ‘good option’ -for Black mothers. Therefore, the lack of funding is the primary obstacle for states being fully acquiescent with the policy and disproportionately harmed marginalized genders, such as low-income, Black and Latina women.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Many studies have shown that children, especially children from low-income families, who participate in high-quality early care and education programs are “more likely to perform well in school, complete their education, be in good health, and achieve financial security than their peers who did not participate in such programs” (Vogtman, 2017:16). Childcare not only benefits children and parents but the economy at large by providing nearly 30,000 jobs and generating $1.5 billion in gross receipts.

Although having access to childcare is considered “one of the most effective policy instruments to facilitate low-income individuals’ transition from welfare to work” (Herbst 2011: 901), as Fredrickson (2015) claims, “the lack of good childcare has long-term implications, and the children of teen-mothers, parents without a high school diploma, and those who do not speak English suffer the worst consequences” (177). Hence, this policy interacts with the forces affecting the social evolution of human being, especially with low-income families.

Our hopes are to have more comprehensive policies when it comes to the requirements for accessing child care because, when parents have peace of mind that their children are in a nurturing child care, with a safe environment (in combination with benefits such as maternity leave and paid sick time), they are more likely to be productive at work, and possibly advance to a position with higher pay.  

ALTERNATIVE POLICIES

Last year, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Congressman Bobby Scott (D-VA) introduced the Child Care for Working Families Act (CCWF). The new legislation attempts to set down a strong marker for what is truly needed to make improvements to the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) across the nation. Some of the CCWF provisions include:

• Increase mandatory federal funding to ensure that no family under 150% of state median income pays more than seven percent of their income on childcare and establishing a sliding fee scale for families from 75 percent of SMI to 150 percent of SMI to assure that no family pays more than 7 percent of their income for care.
• No co-payment for families earning no more than 75 percent of SMI or families eligible for Head Start.
• Help all Head Start programs meet the new expanded duration requirements and provide full-day, full-year programming.
• More than doubles the number of children eligible for child care assistance and ensures all those who are eligible have the ability to enroll their child in a quality program.
• Build more inclusive, high-quality child care providers for children with disabilities, and infants and toddlers with disabilities, including by increasing funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Although this Act has only been referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, on March 23, Congress passed the FY 2018 Omnibus Appropriations Bill, which included a $2.4 billion increase for the CCDBG. We have still a long road to walk; yet, as Oprah states, “The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance, and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning.” We will continue fighting for our children, especially for those within low-income families.

Works Cited

Branigin, Anne. 2018. “The Future of Child Care: How to Create a Fairer, More Equitable

System for Working Women and Women of Color.” The Root. Retrieved November 12, 2018 (https://www.theroot.com/the-future-of-child-care-how-to-create-a-fairer-more-1824129090).

Fredrickson, Caroline. 2015. Under the Bus. New York, NY: The New Press.

Herbst, Chris M. and Tekin, Erdal, 2011. “Do Child Care Subsidies Influence Single Mothers’

Decision to Invest in Human Capital?” Economics of Education Review. Ed. 30. Pp. 901–912. Elsevier. Retrieved November 9, 2018. Doi: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2011.03.006

Matthews, Hanna, et al. 2017. “Implementing the Child Care and Development Block Grant

Reauthorization: A Guide for States.” The Center for Law and Social Policy (Clasp). The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC). Retrieved November 10, 2018 (https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/final_nwlc_CCDBGUpdate2017.pdf).

Michel, Sonya. 2011. “The history of child care in the U.S.” Social Welfare History

Project. Retrieved November 9, 2018 (http://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/programs/child-care-the-american-history)

Pathways Magazine. 2018. “State of the Union: The Poverty and Inequality Report”. Stanford

Center on Poverty and Inequality. Retrieved November 9, 2018 (https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/Pathways_SOTU_2018.pdf).

Vogtman, Julie. 2017. “Undervalued: A Brief History of Women’s Care Work and Child Care

Policy in the United States.” National Women’s Law Center. Washington. Retrieved November 9, 2018 (https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/final_nwlc_Undervalued2017.pdf).