Our research shows why it's counterproductive to increase work rules.
every day. Patricia Washington, her daughter Saundra and her two young grandchildren were evicted during our study when they couldn’t keep up with the rent and the utility bill. As Saundra searched for a job, SNAP benefits meant they could afford to buy frozen TV dinners that Patricia could prepare in their cramped motel room. Even so, their SNAP benefits didn’t go very far; sometimes Patricia skipped meals so that Saundra and the kids could eat.
The bottom line is that food stamps are now the only form of public assistance available to many struggling families during hard times: when their jobs don’t pay enough, when they face eviction, or when they experience health problems and other emergencies. These hardships can strike anyone: 1 in 5 AmericansIt’s worth recalling the original rationale for the program.
SNAP is as essential now as it was when it was established. Our research suggests that the current proposals to tighten work requirements are mean-spirited, counterproductive and mostly symbolic, sending a message about the importance of work that most recipients don’t need. If the government wants to make food-assistance programs like SNAP obsolete, it needs to address the real problems in our economy that make it difficult for families to afford food: things like miserly wages, expensive housing, exorbitant health care costs and inadequate support for the unemployed. Until those changes are made, the least we can do is expand and bolster our existing food-assistance programs. Otherwise, more children and adults in our affluent country will go hungry.
Sarah Bowen is associate professor of sociology at North Carolina State University; Sinikka Elliott is assistant professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia; and Joslyn Brenton is assistant professor of sociology at Ithaca College. They are the authors of “Pressure Cooker: Why Home Cooking Won't Solve Our Problems and What We Can Do About It.”
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