This weekend, my friend Rainey Foster will be honored at the annual dinner of So Others May Eat, one of a number of terrific organizations in Washington that feed the hungry. It is an auspicious time for SOME to hold its dinner, because the number of people using its services is growing in this sluggish economy, and it will grow even more as the food-stamp program, known as SNAP, is cut further.
How much further, we do not know, as the farm-bill conference inches toward a possible resolution after a three-year-plus deadlock that may set the gold standard for dysfunction in governance. What we do know is that the farm-bill deadlock, which dragged on through the worst drought since the Great Depression, has been largely due to the insistence of House Republicans on cutting the food-stamp budget by $40 billion over 10 years on top of the $5 billion that has already been trimmed.
I was struck by a column by Katy Waldman in Slate personalizing the impact of the existing cuts, via a conversation with Debra, a single mother in Washington. Debra’s food-stamp allotment has been reduced from $203 a month to $130. Here is what she said about the situation before the cut.
It’s me and my daughter at home. She’s 21. It was bad enough before the cuts: We were eating lunch meat all week, and we only had enough for a can of vegetables a day. Divide $203 by 30 days, and then by three meals, and then halve it for each person. It’s not a lot. And now it’s going to be much worse. I don’t know if we can still do the canned vegetables every day. One thing we won’t do anymore is have three-course meals on weekends. We used to buy a dinner on Saturday and Sunday that would have three courses: a vegetable, a starch, and a meat. But meat is going to be a huge problem. It’s expensive for anyone. I don’t know what we’ll eat for the weekends anymore. Hopefully not lunch meats again.
Forty-seven million people are now on food stamps. I am sure that there are cheaters and those who game the system; many conservatives point to the California surfer eating lobster on food stamps, the classic “welfare queen” case. But the overwhelming majority are living on incomes below the poverty line. Five percent of all American families run out of money for food before the month is out, including a large number of working people.
The argument made on the House floor by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, when he killed the last attempt at bipartisan agreement on a farm bill was that the program encourages a culture of dependency and discourages people from working. It is true that for Debra and others like her, getting a minimum-wage job would probably leave them with less than they get now. But it is also true that most food-stamp recipients, including most of those added in the past five years as a result of the Great Recession, want to work and simply can’t find jobs. Talk to anybody at a food bank, and they will tell you of seeing people come by for food who used to contribute to them. They don’t want to take—they want to give—but find themselves, through no fault of their own, in dire straits. But what made Cantor’s argument so hollow was that he wanted to tie food-stamp eligibility to job training—without providing a dime for job-training programs, which have also been cut back.
I am happy that Representative Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, is quietly focusing on poverty and seeking conservative solutions; similarly, other conservatives such as the American Enterprise Institute’s Arthur Brooks believe in the essential role of a government safety net but want to find ways to reduce the culture of entitlement. I would love for all sides to find common ground here: Provide the kind of job training that will enable people to find work and move out of poverty while helping them with the basics of food, shelter, health care, and transportation. But to cut, slash, and burn that aid mindlessly without regard for the human cost is stupid, cruel, and reprehensible.
One last thing: As the holiday season approaches, don’t forget SOME, Martha’s Table, Bread for the City, the Capital Area Food Bank, the Central Union Mission, Feeding America, Share Our Strength, and other wonderful groups around the country that step in where government is stepping out.
We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.