I’m from the UK and am used to living in a welfare state, or “Benefits Britain” as we are sometimes called. I’ve noticed the odd YouTube video about something called SNAP & EBT and was shocked to learn more than 40 million people in the USA are on these benefits.
What is the total amount being spent on this? Like most socialist programmes they will eventually backrupt the country. All these people are complaining about haveing no food and yet I don’t see many skinny people in these videos:
As a previous PM in the UK called Margaret Thatcher said:
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money
The average SNAP benefit is less than $200 per month. Most of the people on SNAP are children, the elderly and disabled. The income cutoff is high enough that many students and working people qualify for SNAP.
But that’s not the budget killer in the U.S. The real budget killer is Medicare (for old age and disabled). You U.K. folks take the NHS for granted but many (if not most) bankruptcies in the U.S. include medical spending.
SNAP is small potatoes by comparison to Medicare. And I don’t like to see people starving in the streets or freezing in winter.
SNAP has a duel purpose of combating hunger and supporting agriculture, so there is broad political support for the program. In fact, every five years Congress authorizes what is called the Farm Bill, which deals with things like crop insurance, price supports, agricultural research funding, and such. Since its creation, SNAP (and its predecessors) has been authorized and regulated in the farm bill.
Let me add to what @McLovin1981 said about support for SNAP from farmers whose surplus produce is bought by SNAP recipients…
Remember that SNAP funding doesn’t just evaporate – it is spent at grocers. In fact, about 1/4 of all SNAP spending is at Walmart (a large retailer you might have heard of) and much of the rest is spent at small grocery stores in rural areas which rely on this spending. Because SNAP is federal spending which comes from outside the local area it is a significant support for small communities.
That’s why SNAP has such widespread support. It benefits the poor, the farmers and also the grocers. Not to mention that feeding the hungry (especially children) is simply the right thing to do.
The idiots who cut SNAP simply didn’t understand that this comparatively small program has a lot of beneficiaries.
First of all…all government benefits are abused to one extent or another. The question is whether it’s worth throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Second, social media is highly politicized and a lot of it is outright lies designed to elicit an emotional reaction. This is similar to the “welfare queen” accusations by Ronald Reagan. So it takes some digging and critical thinking to decide whether a program should be terminated or modified.
In a very general, game theory sense…what is the proportion of cooperators (genuine participants) and defectors (parasites) that tips the balance to terminating a program that feeds poor children?
I think what got my attention more than anything were the numbers on it, 40+ million, almost 2/3 of the UK’s population (and I know that there are many more people in the USA than the UK). That’s still 15% of the USA’s population though.
I agree that I was also shocked by the proportion of the U.S. population that is on SNAP. The official U.S. poverty rate is 10%. The most recent data from 2024 shows the U.S. child poverty rate is 13.4%. This rate is significantly lower than it would be without government assistance, which would be around 25%.
In fiscal year 2023, approximately 39% of SNAP participants were children. For comparison, adults aged 18–59 made up 42% of participants, and adults age 60 and older accounted for 19%.
Many of the working-age recipients actually do work but their family income and structure put them into the SNAP-eligible rules.
When comparing the U.S. and U.K. look at the map. The U.K. (with all its pomp and history) overlays “New England” in area (the northeast part of the U.S.). That excludes the rest of the U.S. including huge states like California and Texas.
It would appear that poverty in the UK is higher although I suspect the method of defining poverty and collecting data is different:
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data shows that around 17% people in the UK were in relative low income (relative poverty) before housing costs in 2023/24. This rises to 21% once housing costs are accounted for.
1poorMIL is getting SNAP. She has no income, and does not qualify for SS (she doesn’t have enough “points” to get SS). So, she recently got communication that SNAP will be resuming as of this week (I think it said the 7th, which was yesterday).
Of course, she has us to backstop her, so she was in no danger of going hungry. But I can imagine the panic some people who didn’t have family who would step up on their behalf.
It seems to be consistent with the judge’s order, and I haven’t seen any update after the administration tried to get an “emergency” hearing. So, I’m assuming it resumed yesterday.
I have seen reports that 50-70% of Adults (Not elderly or disabled) SNAP and Medicaid recipients are employed. A GAO report commissioned by Senator Bernie Sanders showed that Walmart and McDonald’s were the top employers of SNAP/Medicaid recipients.
Runner ups are: Dollar Tree, Dollar General, Amazon, Burger King and FedEx.
