National statistics for 2008 and 2009 show that despite an increase in the prevalence of poverty, the percent of households who experienced food insecurity held steady. This was possible because SNAP expanded to meet growing need and because benefit amounts were temporarily boosted by the 2009 Recovery Act. In contrast to unemployment insurance (UI) or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), SNAP is available to almost all families who meet the Program's stringent financial requirements. Many who lose jobs, unfortunately, don't qualify for UI. Those who do qualify face time-limited benefits.
Bottom line: SNAP lessens the hardship of poverty and unemployment .
Myth # 4: SNAP wastes taxpayer dollars through inefficient federal administration.
In 2010, SNAP costs for federal administration were less than 1 percent of total federal SNAP spending. Even after adding the federal share of state administrative expenses, 95 percent of federal spending went directly to low-income participants in the form of benefits.
Bottom line: SNAP dollars go overwhelmingly to participating families.
Conservatives continue to attack food stamps, but SNAP is working. A report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that "The food stamp program"reduced the poverty rate by nearly 8 percent" in one year, 2009, alone.
Would those who would cut or end the program send the 46 million food recipients to the streets to fend in trash barrels, as happened before the New Deal?
Dr. Carol Olander was Director of SNAP Research and Analysis at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service and a top official there for 31 years. Robert Weiner was a spokesman in the Clinton White House, spokesman for the U.S. House Government Operations Committee under Chairman John Conyers, and Chief of Staff of the House Aging Committee under Chairman Claude Pepper, He wrote the epilogue to Bankole Thompson's seminal book, Obama and Christian Loyalty. Richard Mann, executive assistant at Robert Weiner Associates and a Roosevelt University Journalism M.S. recipient, assisted in this article.
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