Why Cut SNAP While Hunger Increases?
The letter came yesterday, announcing the elimination of emergency food stamp support. Child hunger is already a national emergency, the cost of food has skyrocketed, and the decision to cut SNAP benefits is going to thrust millions more into severe poverty and hunger. If you wonder why government leaders have calculated that children don’t need the extra food assistance, it is a data problem — and a moral one.
A New York Times article reported that child poverty rates in the US fell to 5.2%, “the lowest rate ever recorded”, and hailed it as a sign the nation is doing a great job caring for children. This announcement was a big deal, because of the US ‘s reputational high rate of child poverty, scoring 38 out of 41 developed countries.
The reason that the child poverty rate fell was because the US stimulus packages helped families during the pandemic. Their success is a sign that investing in families helps children to live healthier, better lives. Yet the stimulus packages were merely bandages to slow existing bleeding; hunger, homelessness, and poverty grew during the Trump era, as did cuts to health coverage, making what was bad before the COVID-19 pandemic even worse. The stimulus packages helped significantly — and improvements could continue — if funding was continued.
Except it wasn’t.
Stimulus checks stopped coming in 2022. In almost no time after the termination of many family-friendly financial programs, the data reflected the woeful, predictable, preventable results. It should not come as a surprise when Columbia University found that 3.7 million more children fell into poverty when the monthly Child Tax Credit payments expired. Child hunger spiked in the weeks right after the child tax credits were repealed.
SAMHSA, the government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reports that family and child homelessness is a crisis and it is not getting the attention it deserves. Shelter costs have dramatically increased, with mortgage rates doubling, and utility rates going through the roof. Homelessness has spiked, causing both personal and community distress.
This is happening while efforts to stifle student loan debt suffocate young parents struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.
Now that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program emergency allotments have been cashiered, over 16 million households will see their monthly benefits cut by $82 a person. While that amount may be equivalent to “a nice dinner out” for some, it will result in rising hunger for children. A person will receive $197 per month — $6.10 a day to eat on, or $2 a meal, which is less than the cost of a single cup of coffee.
Over 50 million school-age children are finding out that the free lunch program created during the pandemic has been eliminated. Children’s choice –rack up school lunch debt, eat less or cheaper foods, or don’t eat at all. Lunch-ladies have to turn hungry students away or suffer the wrath of school administrators if they give them food. Children’s inability to pay for school lunches has resulted in skyrocketing organizational debt, with some schools punishing students by not allowing them to go to prom or graduate because they are poor. Backpacks filled with food have become commonplace as volunteers prepare them for students to take home so they will have something to eat during the weekend. Summer may be the worst for hungry children when schools aren’t in session.
Despite COVID being a potential killer even for young children, Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children and Families found that half of the children in the United States (40 million) are insured through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), but this protection is likely to expire. They estimate at least 6.7 million children may lose their healthcare insurance.
Matt Bruenig at the People’s Policy Project examined the NYT data and concluded that saying that America’s high levels of child poverty no longer exist “is just laughable”. He notes the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] child poverty rate in the US was 21% in 2019 but using the same measure, Finland’s child poverty rate was 3.5% and Denmark’s was 4.9 %. A US child poverty drop falling from 21% to 5.2% in a three-year period of time would be “nothing short of a miracle”.
The way we measure poverty in America today is horribly outdated, flawed, and requires a serious overhaul. It is based on a 1960s calculation that grossly underestimates the number of people who live in poverty in America. Middle-income families are struggling to get by — it’s not just those who fit the official calculation of what it means to be poor.
All this seems hidden in plain sight. Most of us lack an understanding of how public policy relates to children. In 1981, the top 1% of adults earned on average 27 times more than the bottom 50% of adults; today the top 1% earn 81 times more than the combined incomes of the bottom 50%. The amount the government spends for welfare to individuals is about $59 billion but $92 billion for corporation “welfare”.
America’s economic systems are not designed to support all families. The US economic system is designed to support the wealthy and it fails both the lower and middle-classes. American billionaires got $12 trillion richer during the pandemic, while the majority of families suffered a loss of jobs, incomes, and homes.
The public is so wedded to the notion of American Exceptionalism that it’s hard for us to fathom that there are really so many poor children in our country. Yet there are. And more there will be, unless we make different investment choices. We are teetering on a precipice, with one option being innovative, creative, education , healthcare, and social service systems that are of excellent quality for everyone. Or we can make further investments in classist, racist, gender-biased systems that ferment further individual and socially structured inequality.
The nation will decide, depending on who we choose to elect.
Appreciation is given to the Op-Ed Project for their editorial assistance.