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Food Stamp Program Pros And Cons

877 Words4 Pages

Chad Johnson
Suna Ridouane
ENGL 1302
12 September 2014
Have Food Stamps Contributed to an Overly Dependent Underclass?
Imagine it is 3am and you awake from a dream that has your mouth watering for some chocolate chip cookies and vanilla ice cream. You head to the kitchen and open the refrigerator and behold, every food product you ever wanted to purchase was there. The design of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) is to provide government assistance to purchase food for low and no income people. While some may argue that SNAP contributes to an overly dependent underclass by diminishing the value of work, becoming a burden on taxpayers, and often fraudulently used, others believe …show more content…

The rules for receiving SNAP benefits have allowed individuals to become dependent on the program to the point where there is no urgency to cancel the program. Because benefits are available monthly, a person’s eagerness to find a job has diminished. Likewise, in 2013, SNAP assisted 47 million Americans costing taxpayers $82.5 billion dollars. It is illegal to knowingly use, transfer, acquire, change or possess SNAP benefits in any way not authorized by the Program. States have different thresholds for prosecuting food stamp fraud. For example, In Tennessee, there is a $100 minimum fraudulently obtained before officials will consider prosecuting, but in Texas, the minimum is at …show more content…

The disabled and elderly, children, and the homeless can all benefit from SNAP. The purpose of this program is to provide supplement wages to service low-income individuals during an economic crisis such as unemployment. SNAP is also accommodating when one income in the family is not sufficient to sustain any longer. Nearly 91% of the families availing SNAP are below the poverty line, whereas more than 55% of recipients are currently sustaining below half the line of poverty. The program ensures that the participants in need of more support are given greater

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Further, many citizens feel as though SNAP promotes unemployment by allowing members to stay home and collect benefits at taxpayer costs. However, SNAP does not provide a substantial amount of benefits to support a comfortable life without work. In normal economic periods, most adults can only receive three months of benefits every three years if they are unemployed. (Id.) At that point, the average benefit is less than $1.40 per meal.

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Without food stamps today a lot of people would go hungry. Reply Reply to Comment Michael Johnson Michael

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The government spent $76 billion on SNAP benefits in 2014. Are the benefits of SNAP worth the amount spent on it, and does this program effect the economy negatively? Food Stamps are given to people who are below the poverty line. Not all people think that Food Stamps should be available because they think if people are poor, they should get a job rather than rely on the government to give them money. Food Stamps help poor people and should continue to be available because they prevent hunger, help poverty-stricken families, and boost the economy.

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While some insist the Welfare programs help families in need. They imply without such programs a person would not be able to support themselves nor their children. Both sides have a valid argument and both sides

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Others were listed as ineligible or disqualified but still receiving benefits from SNAP. Reasons like this is why it is so controversial for me. Being 20 years old I have seen the harsh environment of our world. Everybody needs help even me. People taking advantage of this ruins it for everyone for me.

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Many American’s do enjoy the help of SNAP and that it supports their need for food that they cannot support with their income, but there are others taking advantage of SNAP in the wrong way. A percentage of American’s are illegally selling food stamps to buy drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and etc. and there are possible solutions to this issue that are being denied. An estimated 10 percent of food stamps are said to be trafficked (illegally selling food stamps for drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and etc.) according to the General Accounting Office (Abuse, 56-57).

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The price of food is increasing, and there is both benefit and no benefit. But whether or not you receive the benefits depends on whether or not you receive SNAP or not. Today, purchasing food with your own money is very expensive. And you will get a very small amount of groceries for hundreds and hundreds of dollars. But with the assistance of programs like SNAP people are able to purchase sufficient meals and be relieved of the stress of purchasing food and able to pay for other responsibilities that they have.

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It is not made to sale for money or drugs and alcohol beverages. There are many people effected negatively and positively by this issue for example people who are affected positively are those sale or trade their food stamps because they get what they

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During the Great Depression of the 1930s, local and state governments as well as private charities were overwhelmed by needy families seeking food, clothing, and shelter. In 1935, welfare for poor children and other dependent persons became a federal government responsibility, which it remained for 60 years (Constitutional Rights Foundation). Over the years the federal government has begun to spend approximately $668 billion per year on 126 different welfare programs, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report. Over 50 million people are using hard working people’s tax dollars for their own needs. There should not be millions of dollars wasted away on welfare abusers.

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The United States welfare system was created to assist those in situations where they couldn’t work or were in bad financial situation. The aid offered can be received through multiple different federally funded programs. This has helped many of those kinds of people who couldn’t help themselves get out of financial crisis. However, the system has been abused by those who are too lazy to work. Plenty of people use welfare to gain an income while avoiding work or looking for it.

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Apparently, the government is spending $1 trillion a year on welfare programs in which there are about 80 programs (Glenn, 2015). It makes one wonder where, so much money comes from and if consideration is even being taken when ideas to create so many assistance programs. Also, dependence on food stamps have increased. In 1972, 11 million people were on food stamps and in 2011, 44.7 million (Glenn, 2015). The government is over extending its help.

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That being said, every day, welfare is being misused. The American welfare system consists of over 80 means tested programs. The programs provide cash, food, medical care, housing, and other social services to low income people. Total spending on these programs was over 1 trillion dollars in 2015 (Marshall, 2015).

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According to information released by the United States Census Bureau in 2014, there were more than 5.4 million Americans (approximately 1.8 percent of the Unites States population) on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families in the fourth quarter of 2012; there were 109,631,000 people on one or more means-tested programs (housing, supplemental security income, food stamps, TANF, WIC, Medicaid, and other cash assistance), representing 35.4 percent of the US population, during that same period. The total number of Americans on food stamps was nearly 51.5 million in 2012 (Issitt, M. L., & Flynn, 2015,

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Many Americans don’t qualify for SNAP benefits (food stamps) which helps many lower income families with food

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Some believe that if there is more money distributed that it will help more people out of poverty. That is not necessarily the case because welfare is supposed to be a temporary government assistance to help people get back on there feet and not having to rely on it so much. Lawmakers and business officials believe that money should be earned more than given out, that’s why these programs that are a part of the welfare debate would probably help people get out of poverty described as the

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