The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, once upon a time called food stamps, helps nearly 42 million Americans every month. While the 2025 government shutdown showed us what happens when SNAP dries up, we have yet to see the effects of major new legislative changes to the program.
So what, exactly, is SNAP? How does it work? Who gets it? Why do we have it to begin with, and what does it look like now? Our guide is Sara Bleich, Professor of Public Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Transcript
Hannah McCarthy: [00:00:02] Nick, we talk a lot about the citizenry. We the people, constituents. And those are important [00:00:10] terms, but also sweeping terms that I think can on occasion paint flesh and blood humans as an abstract idea or a [00:00:20] philosophy. But whatever an American is, there is a body representing that American, and that body requires [00:00:30] food, water, nutrients for survival, without which there would be no body politic.
Archival: [00:00:37] It's important to remember who participates [00:00:40] in SNAP and what SNAP actually achieves.
Archival: [00:00:42] SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program serves nearly 42 million people every month.
Archival: [00:00:49] That includes Samantha [00:00:50] Bandy. She's a working single mother with a medical condition, trying to balance a job while raising her children and struggling to make ends meet.
Archival: [00:00:56] Because I'm like, I'm already struggling. I'm already stretching food. [00:01:00]
Archival: [00:01:00] The vast majority of SNAP participants are children with working parents and the elderly and the disabled.
Archival: [00:01:06] The Trump administration announced it's ending the US [00:01:10] annual report on food insecurity and hunger in America.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:20] This [00:01:20] is Civics 101. I'm Hannah McCarthy.
Nick Capodice: [00:01:22] I'm Nick Capodice.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:01:23] And today we are talking about the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka SNAP. [00:01:30] It's a program that was in the news a lot during the latest and longest ever government shutdown. And then the government opened back up and lo and behold, we're not [00:01:40] hearing so much about it anymore. It may be out of the headlines, but SNAP is still very much something to pay attention [00:01:50] to. So we're going to talk about what it is, what it's for, and what is happening to it.
Sara Bleich: [00:01:56] My name is Sara Bleich. I'm a professor of public health policy at the [00:02:00] Harvard Chan School of Public Health, and I do research around food insecurity and health inequities, really trying to use available evidence to drive policy.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:09] I wanted [00:02:10] to start off by understanding why we have and need programs like SNAP, and for that we have to understand food insecurity.
Sara Bleich: [00:02:19] So food insecurity [00:02:20] is an economic definition, and it's defined as limited or uncertain access to food based on your resources. And so if you look at the most available data, [00:02:30] which is coming from the Household food Insecurity report, 47 million people live in households that are experiencing food insecurity. So it impacts about 1 in 8 Americans. [00:02:40]
Hannah McCarthy: [00:02:40] A lot of factors go into food insecurity. So we're talking about income, employment, race and ethnicity disabilities. And then there are neighborhood conditions, [00:02:50] access to transportation, literal physical access to food.
Nick Capodice: [00:02:55] So if you live in a neighborhood without a full supermarket, for example, and you don't have the [00:03:00] means or the ability to leave that neighborhood to get what you need.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:03] And let's say there is a convenience store nearby and you might say, okay, great, but convenience stores often have higher prices [00:03:10] compared to supermarkets.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:11] The price of convenience.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:13] And they might not have the quality or variety of food. You need to be healthy and sated long term. So [00:03:20] you get the picture. Someone can experience food insecurity for any number of reasons, and millions of Americans do.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:27] And the way the federal government tries to address that [00:03:30] problem is SNAP.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:32] One of the ways.
Sara Bleich: [00:03:34] So SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It used to be called food stamps. And the [00:03:40] US Department of Agriculture runs a suite of 16 different federal nutrition assistance program. Of that, sweet SNAP is by far the largest. It's funded by the [00:03:50] federal government through the farm Bill, and it's administered by states.
Nick Capodice: [00:03:53] Hang on the farm bill.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:03:55] The farm bill is a law. Congress typically renews it every 5 or 6 years. It's an [00:04:00] omnibus that supports a whole range of stuff related to agriculture. So we're talking farm credits, trade, horticulture, forestry and food assistance programs like SNAP. [00:04:10] The first farm bill was called the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:19] All right. [00:04:20] 1933. So four years into the Great Depression. Three years into the Dust Bowl.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:25] Yeah. And to complicate matters, we had a food surplus.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:29] Hold on, Hannah, I think [00:04:30] Great Depression and dust Bowl. And I think long breadlines and ruined farms. I think famine not feast.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:38] Well, during World War One, Europe's [00:04:40] agriculture production tanked. Us farmers were encouraged to overproduce food for export, take out loans to buy more land and equipment. There was [00:04:50] a US agricultural boom. And what typically comes after a boom neck.
Nick Capodice: [00:04:55] A bust, in this case a bust with dust.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:04:59] Farmers are in debt. [00:05:00] Us crop prices have dropped as European farms come back to life. Then there's this cycle of produce, more food so you can pay off your debts. But then the more food there is, the lower the prices get. [00:05:10] And then, you know, Great Depression. So even though we have all this food, nobody has enough money to buy it, even though the prices are so low. So the [00:05:20] government starts passing farm bills to help out farmers. But you still have all these hungry people across the nation and you still have a food surplus.
Sara Bleich: [00:05:29] SNAP, [00:05:30] as we talked about, was originally called the Food Stamp Program, and it was actually created way back six decades ago, in 1939 during the Great Depression. And it was designed the [00:05:40] original program to address two problems. One was that there are huge food surpluses around the country at farms. The other is that there was widespread hunger among the unemployed. [00:05:50] And so the original food stamp program worked by allowing families who had low income to buy orange stamps for food and receive blue stamps for [00:06:00] free to buy surplus foods. Now, the original program was planned to reach about 20 million people. It operated for about four years and then was discontinued in 1943 [00:06:10] because the economic conditions of the Great Depression began to improve.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:14] So you could buy one kind of food stamp and get another kind of food stamp for free, right?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:19] Orange [00:06:20] for anything on the shelves. Blue for surplus.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:23] Wow. What counted as surplus?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:26] Any number of things that were the result of overproduction. So like flour, [00:06:30] butter, eggs, oranges, beans.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:34] But then the grocery stores are left holding the stamps.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:37] Which they could then exchange for money at the bank.
Nick Capodice: [00:06:39] Okay. [00:06:40] And then once things stabilized, they stopped the program. But that doesn't mean food insecurity went away.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:06:46] You are correct on that one. So after a couple of decades of proposed legislation [00:06:50] and studies and reports and pilot programs.
Sara Bleich: [00:06:54] The program became permanent with the Food Stamp Act of 1964, which was signed into law by President Lyndon [00:07:00] Johnson. And then in 1977, Congress passed legislation that eliminated the requirement for recipients to pay for their stamps, which made the program that much [00:07:10] more accessible, and it became nationwide in the early 1970s and 1974. And then to increase the ability for participants to use their [00:07:20] benefits just like everybody else. In 1990, Congress authorized the use of EBT cards to replace that paper stamp system, the food stamp system. And in the program [00:07:30] was renamed in 2008 to SNAP. And that renaming was really to reduce the stigma that was associated with having those food stamps and to better reflect the program's focus on nutrition. [00:07:40]
Nick Capodice: [00:07:40] Okay, so SNAP is the rebranding of the food stamp program because it reduces stigma and supplementary nutrition assistance is [00:07:50] especially by 2008, a more accurate description.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:07:53] Bingo. So here's how it's designed.
Sara Bleich: [00:07:57] Importantly, the program is designed to be countercyclical, and [00:08:00] what that means is that as you are in times of economic downturn. So think Covid 19 or the Great Recession, enrollment is going to increase. And then as the economy improves, [00:08:10] enrollment is going to decrease.
Nick Capodice: [00:08:12] But how does Congress know if enrollment is going to go up or down? How do they predict that?
Sara Bleich: [00:08:17] So it's actually built into the design of the program. And [00:08:20] so when Covid happened, there was no need to go back to Congress and say, we need more money because the program was designed to do exactly what I'm describing, which is the program is designed [00:08:30] to get bigger as the economy worsens, and it's designed to get smaller as the economy improves. So that is built in to how the SNAP program was developed.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:08:38] Sara explained that the [00:08:40] average monthly household SNAP benefit is $332. That's about $177 per person.
Sara Bleich: [00:08:47] So to qualify for benefits, participants [00:08:50] have to meet certain eligibility standards. And that's based on a number of things their income, their assets, their household size, their immigration status and proof of employment. And so when it comes [00:09:00] to income, a household's gross monthly income has to be at or below 130% of poverty. And that specific amount is going to vary depending on the household size. [00:09:10] So if we, for example, take a three person household and 2025, they would have to have a monthly income, a gross monthly income of $2,798 [00:09:20] or less to be considered at or below 130% of the poverty line. And the benefit itself is based on something called the Thrifty Food Plan, which is essentially [00:09:30] a calculator which determines the benefit amount.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:33] The Thrifty Food plan.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:09:35] Yes, I encourage any curious listeners to look this up. The US Department of Agriculture [00:09:40] comes up with a breakdown of what it should cost to buy food for a, quote, nutritious, practical, cost effective diet prepared at home per your age [00:09:50] sex group. You've got bracket breakdowns for children between 1 and 11 years old, and men and women between 12 and 71 years old.
Nick Capodice: [00:09:59] I have [00:10:00] so many questions about so many elements of that.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:03] The Thrifty Food plan has been questioned on many points, having to do with wide variations in the cost of healthy food across the country, time [00:10:10] and resources for preparing food, the availability of that food at the grocery store, the rainbow of dietary needs and restrictions depending on your personal human body, etc. but [00:10:20] that is what they use.
Sara Bleich: [00:10:21] And then if you're eligible, the way that you apply is you apply in the state where you currently live because the program is state administered. So the money [00:10:30] comes from the federal government for the most part, and it's administered by the states. And this can be done online, by mail or in person. And then once you're approved for SNAP, you receive what's called an electronic [00:10:40] benefit transfer card or an EBT card. And this essentially is a debit card. And it can be used at more than 250,000 approved stores around the country, and every month, [00:10:50] benefits are loaded onto the card by the state.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:10:53] So you can use that money to buy just about everything you can consume at the grocery store except for alcohol, nicotine, [00:11:00] hot prepared foods, non-food items like toilet paper, household cleaners, etc.. Pet food or medicine? Vitamin and supplements.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:09] So you can't [00:11:10] use Supplemental Nutrition Assistance to buy nutritional supplements?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:15] Yeah, the wordplay wasn't lost on me.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:16] All right. And as you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, Hannah, everyone [00:11:20] was talking about SNAP for a while because during the recent and longest ever government shutdown, it ran out of funding.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:27] It did.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:28] And now the government is back. And [00:11:30] so is SNAP.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:31] Putting it very simply, yes, the government is running in part via a continuing resolution that ends on January 30th, 2026.
Nick Capodice: [00:11:39] Which is two months from [00:11:40] when we're making this episode.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:11:41] It is. And the government is in part running via a continuing appropriation that funds, among other things, the Department of Agriculture, which [00:11:50] administers SNAP. That continuing appropriation carries through September 30th, 2026.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:00] But [00:12:00] what happened during the shutdown? We have had government shutdowns in the past, but I don't remember hearing that SNAP recipients were ever at risk.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:09] That is because in the past, [00:12:10] SNAP was funded even during shutdowns.
Nick Capodice: [00:12:13] How does that work?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:15] Contingency funds.
Sara Bleich: [00:12:16] You can use this fund, called a contingency fund, to pay for those benefits, [00:12:20] which has been used in past administrations to ensure that SNAP participants receive their benefits in times of shutdown. And that's been done by Republican administrations, and it's been done by Democratic [00:12:30] administrations.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:12:31] By the way, I interviewed Sara during the government shutdown. So you will hear her refer to certain things in the present tense. But what Sara is talking about here is the [00:12:40] fact that the executive branch can make and in the past has made the decision to fund SNAP using money that has specifically been put aside to fund necessary programs [00:12:50] in the event that the government cannot do it the normal way, aka a budget. Now, during the most recent shutdown, the Trump administration refused to do [00:13:00] that. So a bunch of states sued.
Sara Bleich: [00:13:02] So then the judges ruled that the Trump administration had to cover the benefits, and the Trump administration said we can do about [00:13:10] half, because that contingency fund has about $4.5 billion in it. And the cost of funding benefits for the month of November is about $8 billion. The [00:13:20] story continues. A federal judge came back another one and said, you have to make participants whole. There is another pot of money that sits within an agency called the Food Nutrition [00:13:30] Service, and agencies have the legal authority to transfer money across accounts. And so within that suite of nutrition assistance programs, there's SNAP, which we're talking about, [00:13:40] but there's also child nutrition, which right now is flush with money and has about $30 billion in its account. So it would be very easy for money to be moved from that account over to [00:13:50] SNAP to make participants whole for the month of November. In no way jeopardizing the child nutrition programs like school meals.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:13:57] So again, as of right now, SNAP is back. It is fully funded, [00:14:00] people are receiving their full allotment. SNAP has all but vanished from the headlines. But this battle over food assistance revealed exactly how much [00:14:10] of a balancing act life is for so many people in this country.
Sara Bleich: [00:14:14] Yeah, well, first and foremost, I want to talk about the families, because this scenario creates a huge amount of [00:14:20] stress for families, and they are going to be required to make very difficult trade offs. I mean, another thing that happens at the beginning of each month is rent is due. And so you potentially don't have your [00:14:30] SNAP benefit, your rent is due, and you then have to make very difficult trade offs. Do I pay for my medication? Do I pay for my rent? Do I pay for food that is really hard and for 20% [00:14:40] of SNAP participants. There is no other source of income, so these families are really in a tough spot. So then what happens? Well, then there becomes increasing demand on the charitable food sector [00:14:50] and the emergency food sector. And we are seeing that around the country. Lines at food banks are becoming increasingly long. But there's a capacity problem. So for every meal that [00:15:00] a food bank serves, SNAP serves nine more. And it's just not possible for the charitable food sector to completely fill the gap that is left by the federal government [00:15:10] if whole payments are not made, and if there's a delay in those whole payments being made. Another thing is that SNAP is supporting hundreds of thousands of local stores. [00:15:20] And so if that money is not flowing into local stores or flowing into local stores, in part that can potentially lead to layoffs. And of course, all of this [00:15:30] has health implications because SNAP reduces food insecurity. If food insecurity goes up, that's linked to all sorts of chronic health conditions. So think diabetes [00:15:40] and blood pressure, high blood pressure. And so there's lots of ways that restricting or cutting these health benefits are going to hurt real people from a stress perspective, are going to hurt real people from [00:15:50] a health outcome perspective, are going to have a negative impact on businesses and tax a charitable food system that is just not equipped to fill in the gap.
Nick Capodice: [00:16:02] I [00:16:00] never considered that domino effect, but of course you'd take support from one part of the system and the pressure is [00:16:10] on for all of these other parts that are not equipped to handle it.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:13] And just because SNAP is now funded, at least through next year, that doesn't mean the pressure is off. [00:16:20]
Nick Capodice: [00:16:20] Say what.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:16:20] Now? Yeah, I'll say it after the break. But before that break, if you are increasingly noticing how very systematic this whole system is, how departments and programs and laws [00:16:30] and leaders are part of an interconnected organism that we call the United States government, and you want to know what exactly the component parts are supposed to be doing just [00:16:40] in case they, you know, stop. You can find a great many explainers, as in hundreds of them on our website, civics101podcast.org. [00:16:50]
Nick Capodice: [00:17:05] We're [00:17:00] back. We're talking about SNAP, what it is, what happened to it recently, what [00:17:10] it means for millions of people, etc.. And Hannah, before the break, you said that despite the return of SNAP funding, there might be something else going on with [00:17:20] this program that the pressure might not be off.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:23] Are not might and not May. Most definitely.
Sara Bleich: [00:17:27] One of the things that we're seeing happen right now is that there are [00:17:30] huge changes through the one big, Beautiful Bill act to the SNAP program, and there's a whole lot of confusion. And this happens anytime there's a massive shift in policy. And so what that can do for families [00:17:40] is it can really have a dampening effect on their willingness to apply, because they may assume that they're not qualified, even if they might actually be eligible for the program.
Nick Capodice: [00:17:49] The quote [00:17:50] unquote, one big beautiful bill changed SNAP.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:17:53] It sure did.
Sara Bleich: [00:17:57] So with the one big, beautiful Bill act, there were a number of major [00:18:00] changes to SNAP. So one is that the overall program was cut by $186 billion through 2034. And that's about a 20% [00:18:10] reduction in the program, which is the largest decrease in the history. What that means practically is that millions of people, including many children, are going to lose all or a substantial [00:18:20] amount of their benefits. And we know from a huge amount of evidence that SNAP helps reduce food insecurity. And so this change is going to mean that food insecurity is going [00:18:30] to increase. The other thing that the One big Beautiful Bill act did is it created stricter work requirements. So for the first time ever, the SNAP work requirements include [00:18:40] parents of school aged children over 14 and older adults ages 55 through 64. These individuals have to work 20 hours per week, [00:18:50] or they can only receive SNAP benefits for three months out of a three year period.
Nick Capodice: [00:18:54] So Sara said SNAP work requirements now include this other group of people. So [00:19:00] did work requirements already exist?
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:02] They did. This new law means that more people are going to have to meet them.
Sara Bleich: [00:19:07] Yeah. So the work requirement is 20 hours per week. [00:19:10] And one of the things that we know from lots and lots of research about work requirements across various programs is that people who can work do work. And right [00:19:20] now, we are in an economy where there's not a whole lot of jobs available. So a work requirement is being introduced. There's not a whole lot of jobs. People can find jobs [00:19:30] who are on SNAP. And then what that means is they can only receive SNAP benefits for three months out of a three year period if they're subject to this requirement. And so what all the estimates are [00:19:40] suggesting is that as a result of the work requirement, hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions of people are going to fall off the SNAP rolls.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:19:48] And it's not just that fewer people are going [00:19:50] to be eligible. When you introduce a new requirement, you introduce a new process, something that has to be tracked and verified.
Sara Bleich: [00:19:58] Now the individuals have to work the 20 [00:20:00] hours per week. They have to document the 20 hours, and they have to share that with the state who then has to record it. And so it creates this enormous paperwork burden.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:20:09] While [00:20:10] we're on the subject of the states, SNAP is, as we have said, something that is funded by the federal government and at the very top, administered by the USDA. But states do a ton of work to administer [00:20:20] this program as well, and that comes at a cost that is about to get a lot higher.
Sara Bleich: [00:20:25] Another important thing that happens is through the one big Beautiful Bill act is that starting [00:20:30] in fiscal year 27 states will have to cover a higher percentage of administrative costs of the program. Historically, states have paid 50%, but with the [00:20:40] change from the One Big Beautiful Bill act, states will have to pay 75% of administrative costs. And then one other big change that's happening is with [00:20:50] respect to the shifting of costs to states, is that beginning in FY 28 or fiscal year, 28, states will actually have to pay a portion of the benefit itself, which is the really [00:21:00] big price part of the SNAP program. That's what costs the most money, and that's going to be based on their error rate. So for example, a state will be required to pay 10% [00:21:10] of SNAP benefits if they have an error rate, which ranges between 8% and less than 10%. And the error rate is referring to to what extent are participants being underpaid [00:21:20] for their benefit or overpaid for their benefit?
Nick Capodice: [00:21:24] Hang on. Let me just make sure I understand this. Anna. Basically, Sara is saying [00:21:30] that sometimes states give recipients too much money and sometimes they give them too little money.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:21:36] Yeah, and the USDA has been tracking those rates for years. The [00:21:40] national average error rate was nearly 11% in 2024. Starting in 2028, if states make mistakes in 6% [00:21:50] or more of their payments, they are essentially going to be penalized. They'll have to start covering up to 15% of SNAP payments in that state. [00:22:00]
Nick Capodice: [00:22:00] In other words, if they make enough mistakes, they're going to get less money from the government.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:05] Yeah.
Sara Bleich: [00:22:05] And so if you look at that more concretely, North Carolina had an error rate that was [00:22:10] a little over 10% in FY 24. So their benefits that they received were about $3 billion. So 15% of that is $450 million. [00:22:20] So these are real costs that states are going to have to absorb beginning in the not too distant future. If their error rate is on the higher side.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:22:28] By the way, as of last year's data, [00:22:30] only seven states had an error rate low enough to get that full funding. So you're looking at a combination of states having to cover more administrative costs and having to significantly [00:22:40] improve the accuracy of that administrative work.
Sara Bleich: [00:22:44] One other thing that's important to know about a change in the One Big Beautiful Bill act is it eliminates a program called SNAP [00:22:50] education, which is the largest nutrition education program in the country. And what it does is it helps individuals on a limited budget to prepare [00:23:00] food. And so that program has been zeroed out and will no longer be available.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:23:04] The new changes to SNAP will also limit eligibility for certain lawfully present non-citizens who [00:23:10] were previously eligible for SNAP, including refugee and asylum seekers. Legally, in the United States, undocumented immigrants are not now and never have been [00:23:20] eligible for SNAP. Now, the current Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, has stated that the USDA uncovered massive fraud in the SNAP [00:23:30] program. She cited 118 arrests and the removal of, quote, almost 700,000 people from the program. But lawyers and political scientists who [00:23:40] analyze SNAP data are skeptical and point out that a 100 some odd arrests in a program of 42 million recipients is a drop in the bucket, and that removing people [00:23:50] from the program is likelier because of these new legislative changes. And looking at these changes more broadly, Sara sees a common theme.
Sara Bleich: [00:23:59] There [00:24:00] is certainly a posture in this administration towards self-sufficiency, meaning moving individuals from safety net programs off of [00:24:10] safety net programs. And that's the big push behind many of the changes in the One Big Beautiful Bill act.
Nick Capodice: [00:24:16] You know, self-sufficiency has long been an American [00:24:20] thing. Bootstraps, right? By the way, I recommend our listeners check out your episodes on American myths, specifically on the myth of the self-made man. For more [00:24:30] on that. And this is just not a prevailing philosophy in other countries. So I'm wondering how we compare. We are not the only nation with people who need to eat [00:24:40] but don't have the money to do it.
Sara Bleich: [00:24:42] So if you compare the United States to other high income countries, you look at food insecurity and you look at how they're dealing with it. There's a [00:24:50] fundamental difference, which is in the US, there is higher investment in the consequences of food insecurity, as opposed to [00:25:00] the upfront investment in children and families. So what that means practically is that in the US, we are paying for food insecurity in the form of higher health care costs and [00:25:10] other costs once it occurs. But we're not doing enough front end investment. And so an example of an effective investment in children and families is something called the universal child [00:25:20] allowance. And what that is is a stable source of cash income to families with young children. There is a version of this that has been implemented in several countries, including Canada and Germany [00:25:30] and the UK, and it has been shown to significantly reduce food insecurity. So there are other models that we can look to that take a more preventive approach that might [00:25:40] help us over the long term, pull down our rates of food insecurity. What I can say is that from a societal perspective, as a country, the US spends [00:25:50] much, much more money on health care than it does on prevention. And so the fact that we are really paying for the consequences of food insecurity once they show up in the health care system is very similar [00:26:00] to how we deal with a lot of other issues. And so a shift toward a more preventative approach would require a real shift in terms of how we think about where investments [00:26:10] can make a big difference. And with a Congress that turns over so quickly, it's frankly harder to get commitments to make those big long term investments.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:26:18] While we're on the subject, Nick, I [00:26:20] wanted to know how specifically people argue for SNAP and how they argue against it. It's hard to argue with everybody's gotta Eat. How we get that done. [00:26:30] Exactly. That's the question.
Sara Bleich: [00:26:32] So in support of SNAP, there are four main arguments. One is that it is the nation's most important anti-hunger program, and [00:26:40] it serves 42 million Americans each month. There are mountains of evidence that shows that SNAP lists families out of poverty. It reduces food insecurity, and it is a counter-cyclical [00:26:50] program. So it's expanding during times of economic downturn, and it's reducing as the economy improves. And it also is helping to boost local economies. So every dollar [00:27:00] invested in SNAP is generating about a dollar and a half in additional economic activity. And in fact, because of that and because SNAP is one of the most effective forms of [00:27:10] economic stimulus, because the money is spent right when it's received. It was used during the Great Recession to really try to boost the economy. But [00:27:20] then you'll hear arguments on the other side. So what do you hear for why SNAP benefits shouldn't be provided? Some conservative critics argue that the program encourages dependance [00:27:30] rather than self-sufficiency, although the evidence says that pretty much all those who can work do, and so people that are taking advantage of the program are using it to supplement the income [00:27:40] in large part, that they already have coming into the household.
Sara Bleich: [00:27:43] Another criticism that you'll hear is that the program costs are going up, and that's true. You know, between 2019 and 2023, [00:27:50] the program costs roughly doubled. But that was also a time when there was a lot of temporary pandemic relief for Covid. There was a permanent boost to the overall size of the program, [00:28:00] and it increases with inflation. And even with all those changes, we still know that the average benefit is not enough to afford a modest [00:28:10] meal in 99% of counties. A fourth area of criticism that you'll hear about SNAP is that, well, people that receive SNAP benefits have higher obesity risk. The evidence [00:28:20] on this is very mixed, with most studies pointing to null or negative findings. And then the final thing is that some conservative critics will argue that SNAP has a lot of fraud, [00:28:30] and actually SNAP has very low administrative costs, with the overwhelming majority of money going to benefits that help pay participants to buy food. [00:28:40] And relative to other safety net programs, the fraud rate in SNAP is particularly low.
Nick Capodice: [00:28:48] Something that Sara just said that [00:28:50] the average benefit is not enough to afford a modest meal. So whether you're for SNAP or against it, are we talking about a program that doesn't [00:29:00] actually provide enough money to get enough food?
Sara Bleich: [00:29:04] So from my perspective, and people might argue this point, but from my perspective, no SNAP benefits are not sufficient [00:29:10] for most recipients. And here's the main reasons I would give. One is that many families, and that's about 80% are using up their SNAP benefit within two weeks [00:29:20] of receiving it. And so for the second two weeks of the month, then they could have increased food insecurity. Another is that the average SNAP benefit is approximately $1.40 [00:29:30] per person per meal, which if you just think about that, that for many families is insufficient for a nutritious diet. And in fact, there was a study that was recently done which [00:29:40] found that SNAP benefits do not cover the cost of a modest meal in 99% of US counties. And the final reason why I would argue that SNAP benefits are [00:29:50] not sufficient. It is intended the benefit itself is intended to be supplemental. That's why it is called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. But that said, there [00:30:00] are 20% of households who are in SNAP that have no other source of income.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:30:09] We started [00:30:10] this conversation by talking about people. There are a lot of numbers, a lot of arguments, and a lot of documents in the SNAP story. But what about the [00:30:20] human beings who need food and cannot afford it? Given all of these changes, all of the chaos, everything that the government shutdown taught us about food insecurity in the United [00:30:30] States, what can people do if they're hearing this and thinking, where do I go from here?
Sara Bleich: [00:30:36] One important place is the food banks often have people on the ground [00:30:40] that are helping with information and helping individuals navigate. That's one place. Another place is the state agency. So because SNAP is federally funded and [00:30:50] state administered, everyone has to go to their state to understand what are the changes that are happening. And so the state agencies can help provide information. I will say, though, [00:31:00] that because of the reductions in force that have been happening, the state agencies may not be as well staffed as they were, you know, a year ago, and that may increase whole times. [00:31:10] And so I would say that if you know of resources, you need to connect people with resources that are available in their local community. Help people understand where they can go to understand [00:31:20] if they're eligible. And again, it's probably going to be in the charitable food sector, going to the state agency, but trying to help the information flow is going to be really, really important [00:31:30] because confusion is very high. And then the way that this is going to be implemented at the state level is going to also be very instructive of the impact [00:31:40] on participants. Some states may implement, like the work requirement, for example, more efficiently than others. And that could be something as simple as how hard is the paperwork to navigate [00:31:50] when it comes to the work requirement? The easier it is, the more people are going to stay on the program.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:31:58] I know this episode has been pretty [00:32:00] numbers heavy, so in the event those were not helpful, I will leave you with a couple that might be. You can call 8663 hungry. That's 8663 [00:32:10] hungry or 8778 Amber. That's 8778. H a m b r e to reach the National Hunger Hotline and access [00:32:20] free food near you. Oh, and one more thing.
Sara Bleich: [00:32:24] So I am a SNAP baby, and I always take opportunities to tell people that about why I care so much about [00:32:30] the program and how I really understand the real world impacts. I'm happy to say that if it's helpful.
Hannah McCarthy: [00:32:42] That [00:32:40] does it for this episode. It was produced by me, Hannah McCarthy with help from Nick Capodice. Rebecca Lavoie is our executive producer. Marina Henke is our producer. Music in this episode [00:32:50] comes from Epidemic Sound. You can apply for SNAP at your local SNAP office. To find out where that is go to www.fns.usda.gov. Civics [00:33:00] 101 is a production of NHPR, New Hampshire Public Radio.