Snap Benefits

Welfare Abuse “Today, we are ending welfare as we know it, but I hope this day will be remembered not for what it ended, but for what it began” (Welfare Reform). These words were spoken by President Clinton during the signing ceremony of his passed legislature that called for a drastic reform of the welfare system. After years of implementation, the current welfare system of the time, the AFDC, had been said to cause familial issues when it was meant to be providing aid to families in poverty. It had been accused of promoting fatherless children and providing the poor and out-of-work with reasons and motives to stay unemployed. Being funded by taxes, it does not make much sense to continue a program that hinders both those receiving it

“A group of big-city mayors released a study showing that in 2000, requests for food assistance from families increased almost 20 percent, more than at any time in the last decade. In Quindlen's essay “Schools Out for Summer” she addresses many of the food struggles happening not only in other places but right under our noses. During school months it's much less of a problem because of the students going to school and the food programs. So the question is how many kids during the summer are getting the necessary amount of food.

Throughout history, dating back as early as the 1800’s, the government has worked to reform the welfare system in the United States. The goal of reform is to reduce the population of government dependent people and to assist those who are dependent in finding self- sufficiency (Welfare Reform …). In July, Scott Walker addressed the need for reform in his budget proposal. In the revision, he omitted any wording that would limit the ability of government to test applicants and recipients of Food-share and unemployment in Wisconsin. He claims the testing will be used to better prepare individuals for the workplace and rehabilitate those, testing positive for drugs, with state funded treatment plans (Scott Walkers Light …).

What are the values and ethics that inform The Agriculture Act of 2014 that focus on the SNAP program? Considering that this policy addresses the adequacy of low-income individual and families meeting the standard needs that have been established for the country based on the adequacy and distributive justice. The policy also addresses the equity, which is the concerns of fairness in the distribution of resources. The U.S government values and ethics is to provide healthier, fair, and sustainability of resources to those in poverty. Adequacy can be defined as “a minimum standard of need is established and the provisions within a policy meet the need” said Cummins (pg. 217). SNAP has been shown to alleviate food insecurity among adults and children

As the economic troubles increased after 2007, the use of food stamps also grew as well for several years. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that an average of 44 million people were on food stamps in 2011; that's up from 17 million in 2000. Economic troubles does not only make it hard for people financially but emotionally as well. According to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education posted on http://news.wfsu.org/ the number of people with master's and doctorate degrees who have had to apply for food stamps, unemployment or other assistance more than tripled between 2007 and 2010. A higher amount of people are needing a government assistance.

The war on poverty has been established by president Lyndon B Johnson more than fifty years ago and yet according to the census Bureau it has changed very little. The taxpayers has spent almost twenty-two trillion dollars on this program. The program was created to help the poor and to bring poverty rates down. A family would be considered “poor” if their income falls below specific thresholds, but while counting “income,” the Census disregards almost all of government spending on the poor. It ignores almost all welfare state when it calculates poverty.

Being a person who is in the low income of things right now, I do receive public assistance in Child Care and I also receive SNAP. Both programs are beneficiary for my needs as I try to better myself by getting an education so that I can have a career that will provide me with the financials I need so that I will no longer need these assistances and I can give someone else the opportunity who does need them to receive them.

Gentrification has not only been hard on individuals who have to worry about transportation, paying a mortgage or even finding a job is mortifying but there’s more to it. They also have to worry about how they are going to be able to bring food to the dinner table. “Price is a function of demand and the demand for things once dismissed as “poor man food”—like beans, peanut butter, brown rice, sweet potatoes, and assorted greens—is clearly on the rise.” (Inside the Gentrification of Food) This is demonstrating that not only food in general is going up, but even what we know as poor people food is increasing its prices. If people can’t make enough to even get enough money for food..what makes them think they can survive in a new and improved

Further, many citizens feel as though SNAP promotes unemployment by allowing members to stay home and collect benefits at taxpayer costs. However, SNAP does not provide a substantial amount of benefits to support a comfortable life without work. In normal economic periods, most adults can only receive three months of benefits every three years if they are unemployed. (Id.) At that point, the average benefit is less than $1.40 per meal. It should be safe to assume that no citizen is willing to live off that alone.

The year of 1932 was rough for the unemployed people of America and relief was struggling within the states, so the federal government and other were begged to help put an end to the problem and pull the country out of the recession. This event in history was important to overcome to recover for a stable economy and give people the chance to have jobs so they can fulfill their “American Dream”

The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program is a federal program helping those families of low-income combat food insecurity. This program was previously known as the Food Stamp program as many of us knew it by. In 2008, the USDA changed the name of the program to what we now know as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). The purpose of SNAP is to provide resources to those in need to be able to purchase nutritious foods.

If all of the American citizens were to picture a person without access to food, the majority of them would call up the image of the bony barefoot child in a third world country wearing nothing but rags and a sad expression that they saw featured in a Red Cross commercial. Unfortunately, the gruesome reality is that about 49.1 million citizens will have a completely different vision; one of themselves (Scharnberg). Take Roxann, (her last name is withheld for privacy purposes) a married mother of three living in Michigan. Her husband has a full time job with health care and because of that they just outside the income brackets required to qualify for financial assistance. And yet after paying bills and taxes each month they are left with a

America today is striving to make our country stronger as a whole. Many people in our country struggle every day for the items needed in one’s life. Welfare is the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group. Welfare, for many, is very beneficial and provides the food and shelter they need, but many people take advantage of the things they receive. Welfare is different in each person’s situation, such as people using it in different manners. Welfare is a big part of foreshadowing situations that American leans upon. The government shouldn’t provide welfare to all less fortunate Americans; in conclusion, many of those people take advantage of the things the government gives them in the wrong ways. (Jeffery)

Regressive Tax – A tax in which the burden falls relatively more heavily on low-income groups than on wealthy taxpayers. The Opposite of a progressive tax, in which tax rates increase as income increases.

The United States of America implements many programs to aid its citizens in need. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program aims to help feed those who cannot afford to support themselves financially (“SNAP”). They do this by evaluating the financial need of a household based off of their resources, income, deductions, employment requirements, special rules for elderly or disabled, and immigrant eligibility (“Eligibility”). As many governmental programs do, SNAP has battled issues with fraud since the beginning of the program. Unfortunately, some individuals exploit this resource and undermine the integrity of the program (Food Stamp Fraud). Despite extensive efforts by the United States government, people continue to commit