The farm bill, which provides assistance to farmers and funds the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, was passed in December with bipartisan support in the House and Senate. Though controversial, SNAP funding was not fundamentally changed. However, after signing the bill, President Donald Trump announced he wants to tighten restrictions.
SNAP is controversial because it’s perceived as an entitlement conservatives want to cut. They overlook that SNAP helps promote good health by making up in part for the social and economic factors that contribute to poor health for people living in poverty. Based on a 2016 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the average 40-year-old man in the poorest 1 percent of American men will die 15 years sooner than a man in the richest 1 percent.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities think tank supports SNAP because its participants have lower medical costs and better health outcomes than low-income nonparticipants. Columbus Public Health Commissioner Dr. Mysheika Roberts stated at a Mid-Ohio Food Bank event in October that food-insecure adults are at greater risk for diabetes and obesity and that many chronic diseases can be prevented or reduced through access to healthy foods.
A 2013 study published in the Advances in Nutrition journal found that food insecurity is associated with more children having fair or poor health, more hospitalizations and developmental issues.
In 2017, 42 million Americans — including 15 percent of Ohioans — received SNAP. Seventy percent are in families with children, and more than 25 percent are in families with seniors or disabilities, according to the Center. Eligibility for a family of four to receive a $640 monthly benefit is limited to those with gross yearly income of $31,980 or less.
Access to food means better health, eligibility requirements are stringent, and individual payments are modest — what’s not to like? Answer: Those payments and related costs add up to about $65 billion annually, and conservatives don’t like that. The administration has proposed new rules that narrow eligibility guidelines and reduce benefits.
White House interim chief of staff Mick Mulvaney says he’s worried his unborn grandchildren will be strapped with the deficit that comes with supporting programs like SNAP. Funny, but he’s not concerned about the increased deficit caused by the December 2017 tax cut or the hunger that confronts kids right now.
A survey conducted more than a year ago by Mid-Ohio Food Bank illustrates that Ohioans have a broad variety of views on SNAP. While the majority of respondents favored food assistance, many share Mulvaney’s position and question the government’s role in nutrition assistance. Further, some see SNAP as a source of abuse, but Forbes contributor Simon Constable concludes that only 0.9 percent of SNAP money is subject to fraud.
Roberts believes “It’s time to start looking at SNAP through a new lens — as public-health policy and not as an entitlement program.” Matt Habash, president of the Mid-Ohio Food Bank, goes one step further: “We need to stop confusing public-health policy with employment goals for the poor.”
Habash is referring to the type of attitude voiced last month by U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Troy, who said that stiffening the rules for SNAP gives people “who are trapped in government dependency a helping hand transitioning back into full-time employment.”
It’s not clear what Davidson was saying. Does he mean that people prefer unemployment because of the modest amount of SNAP benefits they receive, or that by suddenly denying benefits to participants, they’ll be able to just as quickly find jobs? Regardless, he didn’t offer any evidence for either position.
Here’s how Habash puts it: “If we want to promote more employment for people at this economic level, and we should, then let’s offer them a sustainable wage that allows families to provide for their basic needs. By reducing SNAP eligibility, we accomplish only one thing with certainty — poor health for more people.”
[This post was published as an op-ed in The Columbus Dispatch on January 19, 2019.]
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Jack D’Aurora writes for Considerthisbyjd.com
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