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Policy analysis of the SNAP program
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Millions of families all over the world are not receiving a reliable income to properly feed their children or themselves. SNAP is a program that helps supply the needed families all over America with necessities to keep their families fed and healthy. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This helpful program provides families monthly with the average benefit of $4.40 per person, per day towards groceries. Given how much this program provides for the families, proponents are still arguing that they need more. It is argued that they are still not being given enough money to provide healthy and nutritious meals.
Due to the debate of SNAP not providing families with enough money, I tried developing a meal plan for me and a ten-year-old child for two weeks. With my personal experience, I found the SNAP process to be completely attainable. The amount of money given by the provider was a suitable amount for a family to get by. Additionally, the guidelines for what was and was not allowed
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The menu I have created includes all of the major food groups important for child growth and a healthy diet. However, if any flaw was to be found, it would be the factor of variety. Given that I am a very picky eater, my eating habits tend to be similar on a weekly basis. If I was to ignore the fact that I am a picky eater and change the variety of my menu, I would add more range of protein options for my family. Protein is something that I am very sensitive to. This is unfortunate due to its importance in the human body. One challenging battle I faced dealing with my sensitivity to what proteins I eat occurred when trying to ensure that my child was getting enough calories. The meats that included high calories were usually not a part of my meal plan. This lead to me having to think of additional foods I could supply to raise calorie
I did not participate in the snap challenge because I am on the university’s meal plan. However, I still participated in the snap challenge process and afterwards I came to the following conclusions. The grocery list was very challenging; I decided to shop for my food online instead of going to the grocery store. My first resource was Walmart, but they did not have the prices for many foods. It was then that I started to realize my monies were depleting quickly. Throughout this assignment I realized that dollars add up and purchasing the store brand items are not always the cheaper way. I thought about which grocery stores provide the pickup option and I chose Lowes Foods. When I finished my list I realized that I forgot to calculate tax, as
According to the “Hunger and Poverty Fact Sheet” on Feeding America’s website, in 2014 there were over 48 million Americans living in food insecure households, which included 15 million children. During the school year, these children rely on free or reduce breakfast and lunch. When the summer vacation months arrive, these children loose the security of these meals. Feeding America, working alongside the United States Department of Agriculture, provide free summer meals to these children. Unfortunately, not all children and families are aware that these programs are taking place; therefore missing out on a vital resource to help stretch their food dollars throughout the summer
Jenson & Fraser’s (2011) discussion on the impact poverty has on children is even more relevant today because of the impacts the recession has had on childhood poverty and the need for more thoughtful social policies which will better elevate families out of poverty. Raedle (2013) reports that enrollment for SNAP has increased and now 15% of Americans are enrolled in SNAP. Raedle’s (2013) report on the rising enrollment in SNAP coincides with Sell, Zlotnik, Noonan & Rubin’s (2010) article discussing how the recession has impacted outcomes for children; Sell, Zlotnik, Noonan & Rubin (2013) discuss how food insecurity can have a major negative impact on childhood wellbeing and can produce negative outcomes into adulthood (p. 14). According to Sell, Zlotnik, Noonan & Rubin (2013) the last recession has resulted in high rates of unemployment, which can take years after a recession to recover, and “unemployment is a known contributor to food insecurity” (p. 16)
This SNAP program originates from the latter half of the nineteen-thirties around the Great Depression. One of the worst problems from this era in our history was feeding everyone. SAMP was first introduced in New York in 1939 and they actually used orange and blue stamps, thus creating the term “Food Stamps.” John F. Kennedy helped to fuel the second stage of the process through his campaign. There was pilot program between 1961-1964 filled with studies, reports and legislative proposals”(FNS). “The Federal Food Stamp Act of 1964 is the most significant food plan in the united states” this act started it all. “It provides food stamps for needy individuals that can be exchanged like money in authorized stores” (Cornell). The same year the act was passed “there were 380,000 people in twenty two different states.”
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a Federal food assistance program that can be traced to 1933. Since then SNAP has helped millions of Americans, who live below the poverty line, to purchase food and has been a safety net for Americans who have experienced hard times due to economic downturns. SNAP is an amazing federal program that without it, millions of Americans would be starving and economic activity would be down.
In the year 2015, around 40 million U.S. citizens were food insecure (Randall para. 3). Food insecurity can be defined in paragraph 3 by “[having] difficulty at some time during the year providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources. This 12.7% of American citizens also contains another group - children. Aged 10-17, 6.8 million adolescents struggle with a food insecurity. There have been several years of cuts to the social programs designed to help these people, along with the Great Recession continuing to leave an impact on the U.S. economy (para. 6). Under the Obama administration, $8.6 billion was cut from the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps. From 1993-2001 under the Clinton administration, former President Bill Clinton’s administration “gutted the welfare system” (para. 15). Because of these budget cuts, the families who rely on food assistance from the government have been allotted less throughout the years. From a sociological perspective, the concepts of sociological imagination, class stratification, and social location are in effect when it comes to child hunger in the United States. Being hungry is an issue larger than any one individual can control.
Poverty is regarded as the major cause of food insecurity. A household food security depends on access to food. America has access to good healthy food. However, a family too poor to buy them do not enjoy food security. Rosenbaum and Neuberger (2005) report that each year the number of people using government food assistance programs grows. “Food stamps are targeted to those with the greatest need for help in purchasing food… [and] helps to lessen the extent and severity of poverty (Rosenbaum and Neuberger 2005)”.
Food insecurity is an issue faced by millions of Americans every day, and the biggest group affected by this is working families with children. Food insecurity is so big that the United States government has now recognized it and provided a definition for it. The United States government has defined food insecurity as “a household level economic and social condition of limited or uncertain access to adequate food” (USDA.gov). Food banks and anti-hunger advocates agree that some of the causes of food insecurity are stagnant wages, increase in housing costs, unemployment, and inflation of the cost of food. These factors have caused food banks to see a change in the groups of people needing assistance. Doug O’Brien, director of public policy and research at Chicago-based Second Harvest says “’we’ve seen a real shift in who we serve. A decade ago, it was almost always homeless, single men and chronic substance abusers. Now we have children and working families at soup kitchens’” (Koch). These families that are feeling the effects of food insecurity will not be only ones affected by it, but all of America. Studies have shown that there is a link between food security, performance in the classroom, and obesity. If this issue is not faced head on, America will have a generation of children not fully prepared for the workforce and high health insurance rates due to obesity health issues.
Food insecurity can be “broadly defined as having limited access to adequate food” (Nguyen, Shuval, Bertmann, & Yaroch, 2015). While one might think that low income individuals who do not know where their next meal is coming from would be thin or underweight, many of those facing food insecurity instead struggle with obesity. This paradox may be a result of the very programs implemented to combat food insecurity in low income families. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a federal assistance program that gives money to households for food based on income and need. According to a study done by the USDA, “SNAP participants were more likely than income-eligible and higher income nonparticipants to be obese,” with SNAP participants being 40 percent more likely to be obese (2015). The problem is that even though SNAP provides resources to food insecure individuals, the food being provided is not nutritious and is thus contributing to the high rates of obesity in SNAP participants. Healthcare costs and mortality increase as more individuals become obese. Preventing these problems from happening by implementing nutrition education will increase SNAP participants’ health overall and bring down their healthcare costs.
According to the American Psychological Association, “In 2010, the poverty threshold, or poverty line, was 22,314 dollars for a family of four” (2). People living in poverty may be forced to depend on public assistance programs such as food stamps, or more formally known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. On the exterior, this program seems to benefit hungry families, but in all actually it is actually facilitating their obesity. The formerly mentioned family of four would be qualified to receive a maximum of 688 dollars a month in food stamps (North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services). That equates to just over 170 dollars a week or 40 dollars per family member. A paltry amount such as this forces families to make difficult decisions regarding the amount and type of food they provide their family.
With just food stamps alone, a family of five gets $700 or more a month. However, people who are on food stamps average at least $100 per person alone. Mind you, this is only food stamps. This does not include housing welfare, free college payments, infant assistance, free public schooling, or actual cash from the government. Last year there were a reported 12, 800,000 Americans on welfare. That adds up to a grand total of $131.9 billion dollars used to help them survive. Many people have found it easier to live off of this money rather than go out and get a job. This is known as Abuse of the Welfare System. When I say Abuse of the Welfare System I mean the unlawful use or spending of Governmental funds that are meant to aid those in need.
The information should be readily available and geared towards meeting the needs of the elderly in the community of interest. SNAP is a federally funded program that offers nutrition assistance to millions of eligible, low-income individuals and families. It is also the largest program in the domestic hunger safety net. Texas has the fourth highest rate of senior food insecurity in the nation, with 8.9% of Texas seniors at risk for hunger.5 SNAP has partnered with state agencies such as the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas (CAFB), Meals on Wheels and More (MOWAM) and Feeding Texas to fight against hunger in the city of Austin. Nutrition educators, neighborhood and faith-based organizations, and state agency representatives have done a phenomenal job in outreach and effective communication of available resources. Volunteers are educated on cultural competence when speaking to eligible elderly citizens. Pamphlets, brochures, and newsletters are distributed throughout the city to combat the modern technology gap associated with the older generations. Low socioeconomic neighborhoods are targeted because older citizens in these areas are more likely to need food assistance. Volunteers also sign up eligible participants for resources such as energy bill assistance, phone bill assistance, and farmers market resources as well as state and federal
The hunger problems in the United States are often exaggerated. We often see news stories of children going hungry or starving kids out on the street. I am not saying those problems do not exists, I am saying they are not as common as the media portrays them to be. There are 50 million Americans classified in poverty, yet only 4% percent of American parents say their children are ever hungry. I firmly believe that no child should go hungry, but 4% is a very small percentage, considering a record high 46 million Americans (1 in every 7 citizens) are receiving food stamps (Kozak). I am aware many families need the support of food stamps to help keep food on the table for their children. I am not convinced, however, that 1 in every 7 citizens need this help. I believe the government could do a much better job of investigating families or making requirements a little tighter to make sure only the people that need these benefits may receive
It is regarded as temporary help and it is attached with stigma. Snap would be considered residual welfare. Institutional welfare is seen as normal way of fulfilling social needs. There tends to be no stigma attached and it is services that all categories of people. As recently announced lunch will be free for every child in NYC public schools regardless of income. Prior to this school year some families had to pay for lunch depending on income. Additionally for the children that did qualify for the free lunch sometimes skipped out of not eating for fear of bullying or the stigma that comes along with subsidized school meals. This universal lunch program will meet the universal needs of children. Universal welfare are services that do not require children or families to meet specific eligibility criteria. It is available for all and attracts all categories of people such as public education. On the other hand, selective programs are eligibility determined on a case-to-case basis. In order for one to qualify for SNAP they are screened
a factor at home, and Mom creates meals with that in mind. A new food group