NBC News
The Guardian
When food is a luxury...
The Trump administration has proposed rule changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that include creating "stricter work requirements for program eligibility, cap deductions for utility allowances and "reform" the way 40 states automatically enroll families into SNAP when they receive other forms of financial aid" (McCausland). It is estimated that because of these changes, 3.7 million fewer people will receive assistance in an average month and 2.2 million households dropping by approximately $127.
With regards to the last rule change, this may force some families to choose between whether to have a functioning roof over their heads, or food on the table. This is especially true in metropolitan areas with dense populations and high living costs (*cough cough* California).
A counter-argument some make is that SNAP enables poor people to be lazy and does not incentivize people to work. The article addresses this by arguing that if these nutritional needs are met through SNAP programs and the like, it would actually incentivize people to work more and be more healthy in their day to day lives. Some also argue that these programs are a waste of tax payers dollars (*glare*). Ah yes, I forgot. We should spend tax dollars on trillions of dollars on the military and let our fellow citizens starve. Makes complete sense to me...
Personal opinion: The only people who call people who use programs such as SNAP or WICS or other programs lazy are those who have never been poor, never been hungry, and exemplary of what is wrong with America and humans and life in general. Why don't these people realize that the ones who suffer the most from these losses are THE CHILDREN **please note pic above** Lest I punch a wall, I will stop here. Too edgy? Too bad.
~What do you think of these changes to the SNAP?
~Are there any alternatives to the pitfalls of these programs?
13 comments:
I think one of the worst parts of this proposed chain is how it might make people living in poverty want to work even less than they do currently. It seems that the changes would put many people in a higher income bracket than they were before, giving people who rely on food stamps for food a choice: do they work to try to support themselves, or stop working completely to get food stamps. Both these decisions something that shouldn't have to get made, and there should indeed be more money allocated for SNAP instead of less.
I think that the justification that “poor people are just lazy” is such an insensitive argument and only serves to reveal a complete lack of empathy. Most people who are in poverty do not choose to be there. Most of the poor aren’t lazy or resigned to their circumstances, but are trapped in dire situations. Not everyone has the luxury of childcare during work hours or disabled accessibility, as 87% of these families do. Cutting down on the number of people who rely on SNAP will only worsen their situations and perpetuate the cycle of poverty; this won’t push people into the workforce, but rather push those who are already struggling to make ends meet to the breaking point. It’s sad and disappointing that the Trump administration is focusing on kicking someone when they’re already down, rather than giving them the resources and opportunity to succeed.
I would also agree that trying to justify the proposal with the notion that poorer people are not motivated is insensitive, but there probably are a portion of those people out there. Not to say I agree with the proposal though. Even if there are some people that are poor because they are "lazy," there are much more people that desperately want and need to work, and may just be trapped like Olivia pointed out. Another article I found, stated that implementing this plan could mean a lot of students losing their eligibility for free school lunches, which I know applies to Aragon as well. Apparently this proposal was put out with the goal to "restore integrity to SNAP" and promote "self-sufficiency," but such claims seem to reveal a disregard for the difficult circumstances many of these people are in (KSHB).
Link: https://www.kshb.com/news/national/millions-could-lose-food-stamps-under-new-snap-eligibility-proposal-from-trump-administration-study-says
I disagree with the argument that “food is a luxury.” Although food-tasting could be seen as luxurious and unnecessary, people need food to survive. put many Americans in a worse position, increasing hunger and health issues. It seems that President Trump is attempting to encourage poor people to work. However, as Olivia pointed above, most poor people are not poor because they are lazy, but because they have been trapped in a cycle of poverty. After all, SNAP is not a program made to discourage people from working. It’s a program that provides nutrition, safety, and guidance for people who are in need. For many families, they are already barely getting by even with the help from SNAP. Trump’s proposed rule changes only intensify these unhealthy circumstances and maybe even lack of diversity.
In light of the recent rent cap bill passed by California, the new SNAP provision is counter intuitive. The rent cap alleviates the housing crisis in CA, but now eligibility for aid is getting stricter? SNAP should receive more funding if anything, and like Steven pointed out, the news provisions will only serve to worsen poverty for American households.
I find it ironic that people who deprive families of nutritious food can blame these families' impoverished state on their own "laziness" or "lack of intelligence." There's a wide consensus among modern psychologists that IQ is half inheritable and half the product of one's environment. This means that children who don't have access to nutritious food wouldn't able to reach their full genetic potential for intelligence, in terms of IQ. Moreover, the pattern of genes that are expressed in a person changes within a lifetime because of experience, and these patterns are heritable, so malnourished parents actually pass on characteristics they developed because of malnourishment, such as decreased intelligence, to their children. It's vital to understand the order of cause and effect in this situation: it's the environment of low-income families, especially the lack of access to nutritious food, that decreases an individual's IQ, not the other way around.
The Department of Agriculture spends about $68 billion each year maintaining SNAP and related food security programs. The Department of Defense spends about $278 billion each year maintaining the United States armed forces' overseas presence, which includes expenditures involved in maintaining the United States' overseas military bases. The reason I mention the huge expenditures involved in military bases is because of the mentioning of military spending in your insight, and because the massive size of military expenditures is arguably unnecessary, and a large portion the funds used in maintaining our armed forces should be diverted to programs like SNAP. Looking at a map of the United States' overseas bases (http://images.politico.com/global/2015/06/23/backpage-11601.jpg) we can see that bases are concentrated around Russia, China, and the Middle East. In theory, all three regions hold strategic value to the US military (Russia and China because of the presence of hostile state actors and the Middle East because of ongoing US military involvement in the region), and thus these bases are necessary to maintain a strong military presence in these regions. In practice, however, this mindset doesn't hold up. Taking a look at Russia, we can see that the United States has an oversaturation of military bases in Germany (over 100), Britain (over 50), and Italy (also over 50). These bases are leftovers from the Cold War--when Russia (then the Soviet Union and its satellite states) posed a significant military threat to the United States and its European allies--but they are unnecessary today because Russia just doesn't pose a serious threat to the United States. Russia's economy is stagnating. It's simply unable to support a massive conventional military, and on top of that, Russia no longer has the Warsaw Pact--Poland, the Baltic States, Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria are now US-aligned NATO members. The United States also doesn't even need to use its military to force Russia to respect the sovereignty of its neighbors and American strategic interests. When Russia annexed Crimea, the United States initiated harsh trade restrictions on Russia, devastating its already-stagnating economy, turning public opinion against the annexation of Crimea, and crippling Russia's already-reduced ability to develop militarily. Russia is a shadow of what it used to be, and we don't need all of our European military bases to keep Russia in check (It's also important to note that in Germany, the presence of US military bases has led to a decrease in German public approval of the United States). Dismantling a number of our European military bases (each base costs, on average, several hundred million dollars to maintain annually), many of which serve no real strategic purpose and harm our standing in the eyes of people living in allied nations, would free up funds to be diverted into more important matters, like feeding American citizens.
I find this counterintuitive; food and nutrition is integral to being a productive member of society, yet there are those that posit that people do not deserve food and nutrition based on the fact that they are unable to attain it as a product of their poverty. The percieved "laziness," of course, is a result of economic woe that leaves the impoverished impoverished. The restrictions on SNAP, therefore, will only perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
Low-income Americans already have it hard and I don't see why the President and his administration have to make it harder in doing this. As stated in the post, the government loves throwing money at the military and corporations that harm the planet, but using federal funds to help those who need them most is too much? The government is responsible to people before it is responsible to big corporations and should act like it. Yes, the government spends a lot of money, but if we are going to make budget cuts shouldn't cuts that hurt Americans be cuts we want to avoid most? Not being able to afford professional clothes, because that money is now going to food, lowers one's chances of getting a job, the whole goal of this rule change. Moreover, being hungry does not help one to look for, get, and work in jobs as their minds are always on their next meal, and how it is going to get to them, not their current task.
Although the changes to the SNAP program are truly saddening, I can't say it comes as a shock. The president and his administration have made it a mission to decrease funding to many welfare programs in hopes of "saving" tax dollars. I'm hoping I live to see the day where the president might take a step back and say, "wow, that was pretty cruel of me to do." I really agree with what Diana wrote at the end of her article, those who claim that users of welfare programs are "lazy" have never experienced poverty before. I think calling welfare users "lazy" is a lazy justification for wanting to save money and lower taxes. It does not make any logical sense to cut from another American's food supply to save one's own money but this is just added to the list of shocking things done from the 2016-2020 presidential term....
I don't think that the changes to SNAP are the best and will get the most beneficial outcome but at the same time, I know very little about this new change. I do, however, have a feeling that these changes will be reversed in a couple of years when Trump is out of office and more attention will be drawn upon this subject. I also agree with the ridiculousness over how much funding the military gets but not these other important organizations like SNAP. The reason why so many people come to America is because of the opportunities, if a family can't even get food on the table while paying for a house then do we really deserve the reputation for having the opportunity for a better life?
Agreeing with what other people have stated, I find it ironic that the Trump administration would pursue limiting SNAP and the nutritional aid distributed to those in need. What we have learned from the past is that people are not always the reason for their misfortune and they should be supported in their time of need, like in recessions and the Great Depression. As a nation, we should be pushing for programs that improve the lives of the citizens, instead of pushing for a stronger military presence in the world while neglecting the programs at home. If this decision comes through, there will certainly be outcry against it because as a nation that prides itself on championing rights and freedom, what does that mean if we cannot ensure that the nation itself is functioning and that people are not starving. Furthermore, as prices go up in areas that become more urbanized, families are not always able to make ends meet, so having programs that give people a safeguard would enable them to get more time to become financially stable, not give them a way to be lazy.
Many people rely on SNAP for food assistance in order to feed their families. I don't feel that this "reform" is fair as often times, many other factors beyond than what can be read on paper affect families and their need for support. I really disagree with the claim that people who utilize food assistance are lazy and unmotivated to work as most often, only people who truly need it are the ones to use it, as the program is meant to enforce. The reasoning behind this argument is flawed as people need nutrition in order for themselves and their families to be healthy enough for them to work. I don't really see the problem as food is perishable anyways and it's not like it can be saved to sell more of later. Increasing regulations on who is eligible for this program will only cut off people in need. In doing so these people will be unable to work and excluded from basic things needed for survival.
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