The government has been shut down for over a month now, and in the midst of mass layoffs, air travel disruptions and national park closures, one of the greatest concerns among Americans has been the end of food stamps funds that support millions living in poverty.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly referred to as “food stamps,” ran out of funds on Nov. 1. This means that, after recipients use their remaining benefits from October, the nearly 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP will no longer be able to purchase food for themselves through the program.
The day before funds were set to run out, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to use emergency money to fund November SNAP benefits. However, only about half of SNAP’s typical budget is available through a Department of Agriculture contingency fund, and there will be delays between a couple weeks and several months before these funds are made available to recipients.
Recent discussions about the program in the wake of its potential expiration have revamped rhetoric against government-provided food aid for low-income Americans. Many people subscribe to the belief that their tax dollars are going towards feeding illegal immigrants, individuals who are too lazy to work or anyone else who doesn’t meet their personal requirements for deserving SNAP benefits.
At the heart of these discussions is a lack of understanding of the facts. Misinformation is spreading aggressively as people are seemingly scrambling to justify the program shutting down indefinitely.
Matt Walsh, a popular conservative commentator and host for the right-wing network, “The Daily Wire,” laid out many of the concerns held by himself and those who share his views on the Oct. 29 edition of “The Matt Walsh Show.”
“The ongoing government shutdown has finally drawn attention to the scale of this fraud, and it is astronomical,” Walsh said. “It has exposed a vast network of criminal activity that needs to be shut down.”
Against Walsh’s claims, only 14 out of every 10,000 households participating in SNAP contained a recipient who was determined to have committed fraud in order to receive benefits.
There’s an idea that SNAP recipients are freeloading off taxpayers’ dollars instead of working as hard as everyone else to provide for themselves. The reality is that people who receive SNAP benefits and can work, do work.
In fact, they could be one of the over 700,000 federal employees who are working without pay during the government shutdown. They’re also the retail, service and hospitality workers who don’t make enough to cover all their expenses because of low wages, unreliable hours and lack of paid sick time, among other reasons.
The basic requirement to be eligible for benefits is 80 hours per month, with exceptions for the disabled and elderly. Investigations have proven that people aren’t lying about employment status, hours or wages in order to receive food stamps.
There have also been accusations by a number of conservative news hosts and influencers — Walsh as well as right-wing YouTuber Benny Johnson, Newsmax host Rob Finnerty and Fox News host Laura Ingraham — that SNAP benefits are going to noncitizens.
“There are not food shortages in this nation,” Johnson said on an episode of “The Benny Show” in October. “There is a parasitic shortage of people who want to just leech off of the productive class. I am so sick of paying half my income to able-bodied Americans and illegals who refuse to work.”
Regardless of whether or not undocumented immigrants are struggling to afford food for themselves and their families, they are not eligible for SNAP benefits. Even though the majority of undocumented immigrants pay taxes that help fund the program, a Social Security number is required to receive the benefits.
Additionally, in the 2023 fiscal year, 79% of SNAP households included a child, an elderly individual or a nonelderly individual with a disability — none of which constitute able-bodied Americans who refuse to work.
There is also the myth that SNAP recipients are purchasing luxury items, with Johnson claiming they purchase expensive caviar and lobster, or that they are unrightfully living unhealthy lifestyles.
Reviews of billions of transactions reveal that households on food stamps spend their benefits similarly to households that are not, with recent data showing SNAP recipients purchase slightly more fruits and vegetables per dollar spent than non-SNAP shoppers.
SNAP recipients’ food purchases shouldn’t be micromanaged. If they choose to treat themselves as their budget allocates, then they deserve to do so just as much as anyone else.
Even with all the facts laid out, there will still be people who hate to see a single dollar of their money go to SNAP. People will keep protesting about their hard-earned wages going to feeding children that aren’t theirs. They will continue to criticize everything someone buys with an EBT card because they don’t want someone who gets food through SNAP to have similar luxuries — like soda, pricier meat or pumpkins to carve at Halloween — that they do.
People’s reluctance to fund SNAP has revealed a lack of empathy and deeply-rooted classism in our country. People are unwilling to spend a small fraction of their income on a program that puts food on the table for millions of fellow Americans, or they feel the need to control what people on this program buy for themselves, based on the dehumanizing lens through which they view poor people.
Even though these people are wrong about the facts and undeservingly attack SNAP recipients, they do get one thing right — there’s something wrong with the system. People working full-time jobs shouldn’t need food stamps, and taxpayers’ money shouldn’t be what feeds them; their employers should.
Companies like Walmart that sit on a net profit of approximately $20 billion shouldn’t have thousands of full-time employees who can’t afford to buy groceries without government assistance.
The issue in our country is not people who depend on food stamps to eat — it’s the fact that Americans are so opposed to a small percentage of their taxes going towards supporting those who are struggling, and that people who work upwards of 40 hours per week can still need aid in order to buy groceries because their employers don’t pay them living wages.
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