Cutting SNAP doesn't work
Taxing billionaires will
Cutting food stamps has been a topic of debate for decades, but as the current administration is threatening to make sweeping cuts to SNAP, many are panicking. And not just recipients. Dietitians, teachers, doctors, social workers, nurses. People who care for and interact with folks in need.
Unfortunately, I understand the logic of people who hate social programs far too well. They’re the “pull yourself up by your boot straps” type. The “then just get a better job”, “go to school”, “do better” type. They’re also the “well I had it hard so you should too” type. “Everyone gets what they deserve”.
What a horrible life it must be to never know love.
Right-wingers simple hatred toward others is often disguised under the belief that social benefits enable ‘lazy’ poor people, and thereby eliminating food assistance benefits would motivate people to get jobs. But they often miss that most people who receive SNAP are employed. People are not on SNAP because they do not want to work. People are on SNAP because their employers don’t pay them a living wage.
Consequently, policymakers have advanced stricter work requirements for SNAP eligibility. But according to a research article from Center for Budget and Policy Priorities “Taking benefits like health care, income supports, housing, and food assistance away from people who do not show they are complying with a work requirement does little to improve long-term employment outcomes but increases hardship.”
“You’re not you when you’re hungry”
The expectation that hunger can motivate a person to lift themselves out of poverty not only undermines social barriers that trap one in poverty, but the physiology of poverty-induced hunger. Those who do not have their basic needs live in a different world than those of us who do. Especially compared to those of us who do and then some. When someone doesn’t have access to enough food, their brain goes into high alert to warn them of the danger of starvation. Once the brain is in “fight or flight”, it doesn’t have the capacity to think about much other than the next meal. This fight or flight state surges cortisol levels in the body, leading the entire brain and body to feel unsafe and insecure. Consequently, hungry folks are more on edge, irritable, paranoid, distrusting of others. A hungry brain will struggle to sleep, it’s attempt to motivate the body to search for food. This is more than psychology, it’s physiology baby!
The brain and body with unmet physiological needs is unable to think long-term. Instead, it is stuck in the right here, right now. Meaning - a hungry brain will scream at you to get food right now, rather than thinking about an enduring the long arduous process required to get a “better paying job”1 (apply to school, go to school, apply for jobs, interview, wait multiple weeks for your first paycheck).
You’ve been hungry, right? I’m sure there was a day in which you left work hungry, and on your commute home you spent the entire 45 minute drive in a daze as the hunger built, agonizing over the fact that when you got home you still had to make a meal. When you got home, I’m sure that instead of making the meal, you shuffled through the cabinets in desperation and ate a bowl of cereal, a few slices of bread, a cookie or brownie. And I’m sure as soon as you did, you felt human again.
Now imagine living with that desperation with little if any access to food. Sure, you might find strategies to cope such as drinking hot water or chewing on plastic utensils. You might choose to curl up in a ball and let the hunger-induced migraine knock you out. But if you experienced this everyday, I’m sure you’d make choices that feel foreign to you: accepting a cigarette to numb the pain, stealing, pandering, getting into fights, selling your goods or even your body.
Many folks, right or left, can’t understand why so many folks in poverty resort to vices like drugs or alcohol when they can barely if at all afford food. But a body has unmet physiological needs and is in constant fight-or-flight is also in constant pain. If one has to eat multiple times a day to avoid feeling ravenous, why not take a drug that quells that pain for an entire day? And until the body has it’s basic needs met, it will cling to any vice it can just to feel a sliver of relief. A brain that lacks adequate fuel is unable to make rational decisions.
Being adequately and consistently fed can help the brain feel more calm so it has the energy to care about other things. It can get better sleep and maintain healthier relationships. It can participate in a job. It can learn about housing options. But if we take away food assistance without fixing the system issues that require people WITH JOBS to rely on food assistance, we are creating more harm than good. We are taking away their economic opportunities, their ability to participate in school. Undernourished children are more likely to have developmental delays. Cutting SNAP forces parents in poverty to work multiple jobs (if they don’t already) and ultimately sacrifice time supervising or caring for their children. Children who experience food insecurity are more likely to engage in crime later in life than kids who are food secure. We are degrading the health and safety of our neighbors who will ultimately either die or depend on our social systems even more.
The “just do better” fallacy
When I was 25, I finally learned how capitalists really lived. Growing up, my parents were honest, hard workers. They chose the jobs they wanted, and because it didn’t earn them “enough”, they simply worked more.
My first big-adult relationship was the first time in my life I had corporate adults in my close intimate circles. I explained to my then potential father-in-law how disappointing my salary was for my level of education - and there was no negotiating that help. He suggested that I open a group practice and employee other dietitians, so that I can take some of the profits of the services of each dietitian.
But I’m a Dietitian because I wanted to be a Dietitian, not because I wanted to manage a business full time.
You can still do that and just make extra profit from the people you employ.
That’s wrong. It shouldn’t have to be like that. I shouldn’t have to skim wages from others just so I can afford a home.
*Conversation unravels into him yelling at me for being a Marxist*
Capitalists have an arguably hilarious recommendation for people who complain about their income. “Just do better” they say - but when you dig deeper, like I did with my ex’s father, they will admit it’s not possible for everyone. According to him, a class system is what keeps the economy balanced. A poor persons wage and poor persons work is essential so that others in the middle and upper class can have “enough”.
They own two homes, by the way.
How does one argue that poor people should “do better” but also argue for class systems? Should we just admit that they want poor folks to live in squalor? That they want them to die? Honestly, after listening to legislators argue about one topic as if they’re speaking different languages, honesty would make things much easier.
Help fight food insecurity
Food Empowerment Project https://foodispower.org/
Feeding America https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/food-insecurity
Food Corps https://foodcorps.org/
Find your local food bank https://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank
Friendly reminder that even people with higher education degrees are on SNAP.