$4.20. Purchasing a whole day’s worth of food with $4.20 is a piece of cake, right? Wrong. $4.20 is about how much money a person who relies on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) receives in order to purchase food for their entire day. So if you were to eat a bag of chips that costed about $1, well do the math. Now you’re left with $3.20. $3.20 for 3 balanced meals of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They only get $4.20 per day.

What is SNAP? SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and is the newer version of the federally run food stamp program. Programs such as these are useless and do not benefit many people. Wrong. Though many believe that the use of food stamps can be a disincentive to working, SNAP helps millions of people who are struggling financially and trying to find work, yet still moving closer and closer towards hunger.
As of 2 years ago, close to 60% of people in America were at risk of hunger and relied on programs such as SNAP or the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). The NSLP is a program that provides cheaper or free balanced lunches to families who qualify. Over half of the American population is near the poverty line, struggling, and hungry. For many of these people, food stamp programs and lunch reduction programs are a necessity in order to keep food in their stomach.

At the beginning of 2016, there were about 45.4 million people who were qualified to use SNAP and 75 percent of those who qualified for the program utilized it. This results in about 34 million people who rely on this program to eat food. 34 million people who live on $4.20 a day. 34 million people.

Not only did 45.4 million people use SNAP, but 22 million families also utilized the reduced/free school lunches and breakfasts through these programs. While some people lavishly enjoy eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles, fruit, others are eating cafeteria food for breakfast and lunch.

Because of these junk food induced, overeating trend we have in America, people are constantly worried about obesity and unhealthy lifestyle. Americans should be more cautious of the overweight people rather than the individuals who struggle to have food security. Wrong again.

Now I’m not saying that obesity is not an issue and should be completely overlooked, because it shouldn’t. But I would like to also point out that 1 out of 5 kids in America do not receive the proper  daily nutrition and a little under 50% of the individuals participating in the SNAP program are under 18 years of age.

Hunger has no impact on children. Wrong. Hunger can have quite a negative impact on a child’s mental and physical development. For example, children living in food insecure homes tend to acquire illnesses more easily than kids who are from food secure homes. Constantly being sick could not only impact their health, but also their education. If food insecure children get sick often, then there is a possibility for them to miss multiple days of school. Imagine a high school student taking a rigorous course load and constantly missing days of school and having to make up homework and tests and classwork and more tests. This could heavily impact their grades, education, and health as they try to combat the stress of school and the illness.

Also, similar to the food stamp program, SNAP allots individuals different amounts of benefits depending on how much income their supporter is making. SNAP users have access to all the basic food groups such as meat, carbs, dairy, fruits, and vegetables.  All the items that are purchased from SNAP do not include alcohol, liquor, or smoking products of any kind, thus preventing issue like the abuse of an individual’s benefits. This ensures that the money that is used in SNAP for the food stamps goes towards necessary foods and not just any cravings the person desires.

Speaking about cravings, one craving that almost all humans have is money. These food stamps do not benefit our economy. Wrong. In fact, it does quite the opposite. SNAP creates around 17,000 jobs for every $1 billion in benefits that is used. SNAP would have a positive impact on society because of all the jobs it’s creating. SNAP not only serves the people in the program, but it also benefits grocery stores. The money that the SNAP participants are given for food, is spent in local grocery stores, therefore, creating more jobs in the grocery store and behind the scenes from the farmers growing the food to the delivery of the food. This entails an economic cycle and therefore, stimulates the economy rather than hindering it.

One controversial government issue that has been brought up many times is whether or not to make budget cuts on food assistance programs such as SNAP. The government should cut down on the amount of money spent on SNAP. Wrong. In 2012, only about 2% of overall government spending was used toward these food stamps in comparison to the 19% that was spent on defense for the United States alone. 2% is nowhere near the other 98% of money that was spent elsewhere and yet, the debate is to cut that 2% spending even more. The government is debating to cut the 2% of spending that feeds the people that live in this country. Over the course of the next 10 years, the government is proposing to cut SNAP spending by $3.7 trillion which would result in reducing programs like SNAP by 42%.

What is a solution to help 34 million people keep food on their plates and keep the economy going? The most obvious choice would be to cut down these programs that 34 million people use. Wrong. One solution to make making SNAP more cost-effective would be to combine SNAP with the Women, Infant, and Children nutrition service (WIC). This would not only be cost effective, but it could make the application process much easier and allow small grocery stores to improve their food quality.

$4.20. $4.20 is about how much money a person who relies on SNAP receives in order to purchase food for their entire day. Cutting government funding to these programs would even greater reduce the amount of benefits that an individual receive. $4.20 is about how much money a person who relies on SNAP receives in order to purchase food for their entire day. Just $4.20.