DiNitto (2011) noted public assistance programs both cash and in kind, may not reduce national poverty rates dramatically, but they can substantially increase the quality of life of those who are poor. Has the American society effectively reduced food insecurities? With the reduction in hunger, is the society better off now than it was 5 years ago?
Supplemental Nutrition Program Assistance
According to DiNitto (2011), the most basic subsistence need the government meets is for food. The federal government’s main food program for low income individuals and families is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP is designed to reduce food insecurity and disrupted eating patterns in a household due to lack of money or other resources (FNS, 2013). SNAP replaced the food stamp program, the program utilizes the use of electronic benefit transfer which made paper coupons obsolete. The benefits cannot be used to buy material items such as soap, toilet paper or other personal hygiene items (DiNitto, 2011). The Food Stamp Act of 1964, was intended to help feed needy people at a time when hunger was one of the nation’s main dietary problems (Brownell & Ludwig, 2011). Based on recent research published by The United States Department of Agriculture, SNAP is associated with substantial improvements in food security (FNS, 2013).
Effects of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
In 2007, 13 million households the equivalent of 11.1 percent of the American population were food insecure. Food insecure means that at some time during the year, these families had difficulty providing enough food for all their family members due to lack of resources (Dinitto, 2011). In 2008, the maximum SNAP benefit for a family of four was $542 dol...
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... leaves the American Society better off than it was five years prior.
References
Blumenthal, S., Ludwig, D. & Willett, W. (2012, December). Opportunities to Reduce Childhood Hungry and Obesity. Journal of the American Medical Association, 308(24), 2567-2568. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from JAMA database.
Brownell, K. & Ludwig, D. (2001, September). The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Soda and USDA Policy, Who Benefits. Journal of American Medical Association, 306(12), 1370-1371. Retrieved March 16, 2014 from JAMA database.
DiNitto, D. (2011). Social Welfare Politics and Public Policy. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Food and Nutrition Service. (2013) Nutrition Assistance Program Report. Retrieved March 15, 2014 from http://www.fns.usda.gov
Food and Nutrition Service. (2014). Research and Evaluation Plan. Retrieved March 15, 2014 from http://www.fns.usda.gov
The United States is one of the richest nations in the world and food is plentiful; fifty million people should not experience food insecurity. The problem is that people who live in poverty do not have access to enough food. Policies governing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program need to be changed. The policies cannot be relaxed to the extent that everyone tries to get assistance, but they should be reasonable enough for a family provider to qualify for food stamps and hold a job which pays him enough to sustain a family. Legislators need to look at increase funding for programs like the National School Lunch Program in a manner in which NSLP does not have to compete with funding for budget items that have major lobbyists’ support. Funds to feed hungry children should not be a political budget item. The allocation of subsidies to farmers should also be revisited. Eighty-four percent of subsidies goes to commodity crops and only one percent goes to growers of fruits and vegetables. Even if they had the money to buy food, people living in poverty could not buy the healthier fruits and vegetables; they are too expensive. “If you only have a few dollars to eat, in other words, processed foods will fill you up far cheaper than fruits and vegetables,” (Horn par.12). The unhealthy diets are
With more and more people becoming unemployed and applying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), it is imperative that we understand the benefits as well as problems this causes. Even while researching this topic and talking to some of my family and friends about it, it surprised me the amount of those who do not understand food stamps. Coming from the SNAP website, “Food stamps offer nutritional assistance to millions of eligible low-income individuals and families and provides economic benefits to communities” (United States). This program helps millions of people per year and gives upwards of $75 billion and rising. With the prices of food increasing due to inflation, beneficiaries are receiving around $400 at most per month. Using the Electronic benefit transfer systems (EBT), beneficiaries can buy goods from a grocery store using a credit-card like transaction, which takes the money off of their card. The benefits are received monthly on a specific date and vary in amounts from person to person. One family may receive $300 per month because they have three kids and need the extra money, while another may receive $100 or less depending on financial status. The application process includes completing and filing an application form, being interviewed, and verifying facts crucial to determining eligibility. In the past, these applications did not require a drug screening to get benefits, but more and more states are adopting this. There are many drawbacks to SNAP as well such as taking money from working people’s paychecks every week and people abusing the system. Talking about a very opinionated subject, we must remove bias and answer whether or not the Food Stamp system should be limited.
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.”
Many families and people have become too dependent on food stamps. “Critics of food stamps and government spending, however, argue that too many families have become dependent on government aid.”(NoteCard #1) But if they did not have this program people would go hungry. “11.9 million people went hungry in the United States”... “that included nearly 700,000 children, up more than 50% from the year before.”(NoteCard #2, Point 2) The program does good and helps people but it also spends a lot of money to get people food stamps. “..food-stamp recipients has soared to 44 million from 26 million in 2007, and the costa have more than doubled to $77 billion from $33 billion.”(NoteCard #5) But in the end, is it worth it? People need the assistance. It does help people from going hungry and keeps them at least with a little food in their stomach to that keeps them from starving. A lot of people who could not get jobs, were eligible for the program because they did not have a source of income. “Critics of food stamps and government spending, however, argue that too many families have become dependent on government aid.”(NoteCard #1) Since not everyone could get work, the government changed the requirements and it went for the better and for the
Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana. (2013). Food programs . Retrieved from http://www.curehunger.org/Programs/FoodPrograms.aspx
Kennedy reestablished the Food Stamp Program in 1961 but instead of having stamps for surplus foods Kennedy eliminated this option for citizens. “Major revisions were made to the program in the Food Stamp Act of 1977, including the elimination of the requirement that participants purchase the stamps” (Snap to Health). During the time Ronald Regan was president, the Food Stamps Program received budget cuts because of the increase in number of hungry people in America. “Some funding was restored to the Food Stamp Program in 1988 and 1990 in order to combat the hunger crisis in America” (Snap to Health). A certain amount of funding was restored, but it was harder to obtain food stamps and use them. Paper food stamps have been used ever since the beginning when they were first introduced, but in the late 1990s the Electronic Benefit Transfer cards were made current. “The cards were instituted to reduce program fraud [and] ensure ease of use of food benefits by program participants” (Snap to Health). After EBTs were made, children eighteen and younger were able to start participating in the benefits of the Food Stamps Program. Since children were now able to participate, society considered that most of the concerns with child poverty would be gone, but is child poverty actually
Throughout the years, social welfare policies have been created, reauthorized, and amended. Social welfare is all social interventions intended to enhance or maintain the social functioning of humans. Many programs have been created through social welfare policies to ensure people are having their needs met. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is one of those programs that were created from the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 that was designed to meet the needs of people.
United State Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2010, December). Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010, 7th Edition, Retrieved from http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/DietaryGuideli
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program has been very beneficial to many households that do not know where their next meal is coming from by providing them with resources to acquire food. Many of those food insecure households, however, are faced with high rates of obesity that leads to a variety of other health issues. Research has shown that increasing nutritional education through programs that teach people to read labels and balance their diet works and can decrease obesity rates. Low income and minority households, the populations most affected by the issues of food insecurity and obesity, are especially in need of nutritional education. By expanding nutritional education for those households most at risk of obesity, a public health initiative could decrease the obesity levels in SNAP participants.
North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Food and Nutrition Services. 15 Oct. 2013. Web. 25 Oct. 2013.
Many people here in America are hardworking and resourceful, but an insecure economy can have a long-lasting effect on a diverse group of people. One of the greatest manifestations of this is the inability to consistently afford a healthy diet. In a report by done by researchers in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, ‘in 2011, 14.9 percent or 17.9 million people in America were food insecure (Coleman-Jensen, Nordic, Andrews, & Carlson, 2012).’ Although many different organizations such as the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” or the SNAP food stamp program has set out to eradicate hunger, by giving assistance to low income participants, to help them afford food, it does still exist in many different people’s lives, at one point or another. While many other underdeveloped countries have harder times with hunger, many of them, due to socioeconomic difficulties, hunger still causes many problems for different people in America.
“Nutrition Standards for School Meals.” USDA Food and Nutrition Service. United States Department of Agriculture, 6 Mar. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
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.
"U.S. Food System Facts Sheet." Center for Sustainable Systems . The University of Michigan , 2010. Web. 29 Nov. 2011. .
In the United States of America, the richest nation of the world, one in six Americans do not have enough food to eat. Have you ever wonder why there are so many food banks and food pantries throughout the country? They are not simply, as you thought, existent to offer emergency food assistance. Indeed, they are the main sources of food to millions of food-insecure Americans. Food insecurity, the state of not having sufficient quantity of affordable and nutritious food, has been very widespread and common in America. It affected millions of Americans and has been increasing dramatically in recent years; in 2012, more than 48 millions of food-insecure Americans rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (McMillan). The depth