Not quite in the spirit of the season, EJ Antoni on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP):
“…for many of these people, [poverty]’s a choice!”
In point of fact CBPP indicates:
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that nearly 80 percent of participants are in households with a child under age 18, an adult age 60 or older, or an individual who is disabled. Children under age 18 constitute 40 percent of all SNAP participants.
and:
Most SNAP participants who can work do so. Over half of individuals who were participating in SNAP in a typical month in 2015 were working in that month. Further, 74 percent worked in the year before or after that month (in the 25-month period). Rates were even higher when including work among other household members: 89 percent of households with children and a non-disabled adult included at least one member who worked in this 25-month period. More than two-thirds of SNAP participants are not expected to work, primarily because they are children, older adults, or disabled people.
Don’t forget the last line of the exchange:
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
gosh no wonder he sees so many recessions. People choose it over a boom any day of the week
“The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as SNAP or formerly food stamps) helps low-income Americans by providing benefits to buy food.”
But like most Federal government programs involving large amounts of money, there are issues:
https://www.gao.gov/blog/stolen-snap-benefits-cost-beneficiaries-millions
It shouldn’t be considered oppressive to verify identity, eligibility, and ability to contribute to one’s own welfare. SNAP was not designed as a free-ride grocery store.
Search Assist
“SNAP work requirements are rules that require certain individuals, particularly able-bodied adults without dependents, to work, volunteer, or participate in job training for at least 20 hours a week to qualify for benefits. Failure to meet these requirements can result in losing SNAP benefits after a specified period.”
what is your point bruce? most people satisfy the requirements. quit the griping while you feed off the teets of social security and medicare. bruce, you collect far more from the federal government than you ever paid into the system. some call that a moocher.
Brucie was worried that he was no longer Trump’s dumbest racist since little EJ is racing to the lead with his incessant lies about poor people.
Wow, Bruce, another disingenuous comment! First, none of the “it shouldn’t be considered oppressive…” items would affect any of the theft methods outlined in your linked GAO report. Second, the GAO report indicates a total loss of about $320M… over a 2 1/4 year period, or roughly $150M/year. Since SNAP is about $100B per year, this amounts to about 0.15% of benefits… How much are you willing to spend increasing the already in place verification of all this stuff for 42 million people in order to stop about $4 of theft per recipient per year?
exactly. the problem is that bruce simply wants to impose his will on others, and simply chooses a group who is unlikely to fight back. it is the same tactic trump uses, act like a bully and pick on those who cannot fight back. then sit back and feel like you are a tough guy.
Rats! Your math is better than mine.
Bruce quoted: “Failure to meet these requirements can result in losing SNAP benefits after a specified period.”
That is a half-truth. SNAP recipients can meet all of the requirements you quoted and still lose their benefits.
The recipients must also document, to the satisfaction of the state agency’s rules and subject to the judgement of agency management and staff, that they have spent the required hours in the required manner. They also must repeat the documentation process at the required frequency by the required deadlines. The time spent on the documentation activity is unpaid and, presumably, does not count as volunteer hours.
Bruce tells us that “It shouldn’t be considered oppressive to verify identity, eligibility, and ability to contribute to one’s own welfare.” Your use of the passive voice to disguise your opinion as a statement of truth won’t fool the Econbrowser crowd.
Here’s my non-passive rejection of your opinion: I believe that the Federal and state governments should strive to make it as easy as is practical for SNAP recipients to locate and access work, training, and volunteer opportunities and make it as non-oppressive as is practical for SNAP recipients to report their qualifying hours.
The budget for SNAP benefits last year was $100.3 billion:
https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-government-spend-on-snap-every-year/country/united-states/
Brucie’s own link reports puts the figure at $96 billion, and the amount reported stolen at $320 million. That means reported theft amounts to 0.3% of benefits, give or take. Brucie thinks this extraordinarily low level of theft amou ts to an argument to do something or other. Actually, any prvate enterprise with a 0.3% shrinkage rate would dance a colective jig.
What does Brucie thing should be done? “…verify identity, eligibility, and ability to contribute to one’s own welfare.” Ability to contribute to one’s own welfare has nothing to do with theft of benefits. So Brucie has opened his argument with a theft “problem” which is almost nonexistent in order to slip in a work requirement which has nothing to do with theft.
I am willing to believe that Brucie isn’t bright enough to do the math or to understand that he is just aping somebody else’s slimey effort to link two entirely unrelated issues; Brucie has often demonstrated a limited understanding of logic. I’m just as willing to believe that Brucie knows that his argument is dishonest. It has to be one or the other. Only ignorance or dishonest could explain the deficiencies in Brucie’s argument.
bruce does not understand the dishonesty of his argument. he is swept up in the power over others, telling them what they can and cannot do. he does not even realize this is a bully mentality that he is offering. these poor people are at a disadvantage, so let me tell them to jump. if they do not respond with “how high”, they lose benefits because they have ingratitude. you saw it with trump and Ukraine in the Oval Office. power trip.
Sounds so reasonable if you are ignorant of the implementation.
The paperwork associated with documenting requirements is so complicated that most people fail approval several times before they finally get officially recognized as eligible. Most will go hungry for 6-10 months before they get approved. Part of the wait is that the offices processing the paperwork are grossly understaffed so it takes months get get the rejection (on some little technicality) back so you can resubmit.
Documentation must be submitted every 6 month so you quickly end up in a cycle of never ending rejections – even as you clearly are eligible.
Work requirements should be paired with work guarantees. If we require work we should provide the jobs. Most of the marginally employed cannot get jobs in the private sector because they stable performance day in and day out.
so 40% of snap recipients are children under the age of 18. but they seem to CHOOSE poverty, because yeah, that’s what all the cool kids do. I am going to extrapolate to guess that what Antoni is arguing is pretty much in line with much of the republican and maga world. I would guess that bruce hall readily agrees that poverty is a choice as well. bruce is the poster boy of an inept baby boomer who was lucky enough to catch the demographic wave and ride it to retirement.
what percentage of snap recipients are repubican (or lets just say, not democrat)?