(I am blessed enough to not qualify for SNAP… )
I have been hearing about the SNAP (formerly known as foodstamps) benefit being cut later this month… And there have been people, including Panera CEO Ron Shaig, weighing in on this, and he is even trying to ‘live on $4.50 a day,’ and having a very hard time doing so.
My first thought about this was that SNAP self-defines itself as the “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.” Merriam Webster has these definitions: “Supplemental - added to something else to make it complete” and “Assistance - the act of helping or assisting someone.” Please note the program does not pretend to ‘provide for’ or ‘fully feed’ or anything like that. It is a form of HELP. It is to supplement the grocery budget for those who need help…
And then I ran the math…
For a family of 5 (like mine), $4.50 per recipient per day is $22.50 a day, $157.50 a week, and $675 a month (30 days). How is a family of 5 supposed to live on that (if we ignore the ‘supplemental assistance’ concept)?
The outrage! The cruelty!
In fact, my (wealthy?) family of 5 has a monthly grocery budget of $500. Wait… how much? $500. Obviously, I must starve my kids… Please call DCS!
I will admit, we do eat out occasionally, and that doesn’t come from the grocery budget. It comes from our dining out budget, which is $200 a month. And since I am pretty sure that dining out generally costs more than a home-cooked meal, I think I just proposed that meals for a family of 5 for $675 actually seems quite reasonable. I also get non-food items out of my grocery budget, which is not possible when using the SNAP debit cards…
A local columnist (Wendi Thomas from the Memphis Commercial Appeal – I would provide a link but they have a crappy paywall on their site preventing access to the content…) argued it would be ‘hard to eat healthy’ on $4.50 a day. I guess I want to point out here that the opposite is true:
My family eats a reasonable amount of fresh (and frozen) vegetables and fruit. We have bananas, blueberries, strawberries, grapes, apples and pineapples in our house right now. We have boxes of salad mix (which is more costly than buying by the head of lettuce), carrots, celery, lima beans, peas, corn, green beans, black beans and bell peppers in our regular rotation of vegetables. We eat a lot of chicken breast (again more costly than a whole chicken), lean ground beef, pork chops, tuna (canned) and fresh salmon. We only buy whole grain bread. We consume a lot of (whole grain (read: more costly)) frozen waffles, Cheerios (brand name), Nutella, peanut butter, greek yogurt, quinoa (great deal at Costco!) and other tasty and mostly wholesome foods. Oh, and tons of luxury foods… Scallops, fancy orange juice, desserts, juice boxes, snack foods, the occasional six-pack of beer, etc. We eat well.
While I get some of these items at Costco, I get most of my groceries at Kroger and Target. I am enough of a snob to avoid Wal-Mart for groceries, and I have only been inside an Aldi once – it just didn’t click for me. I know I can save $10-20 a week by shopping at Wal-Mart and Aldi instead of Kroger and Target… My sister-in-law loves taking the Aldi flyer (with all the super low-price fruits and veggies) to Wal-Mart and make use of their larger selection and price match policy.
Did I mention I do all this for essentially $675 or less a month? I guess that sounds a lot richer than $4.50 per recipient per day…
My kids’ elementary school (they are 10, 8 and 8) serves free breakfast to everyone. And, of course, free lunch to those who qualify (which any SNAP recipient would). But I make their (wholesome I think) breakfast each morning, and they carry their lunch boxes which contains a balanced meal (and a cute note from mom). Would using those school meal benefits reduce a recipient’s SNAP funds? No. Some, if not most, local schools also provide free dinner on days with after school activities. Making use of these school meals would allow a SNAP beneficiary to redirect some spending to other meals…
Look… I am not judging here… and I am not arguing that the SNAP benefits should be cut. I am providing this mini-rant as a reality check on whether it is reasonable to expect a poor family to feed themselves on $4.50 a day. (Did I mention that is not even the expectation?)
I fully realize that my elementary school kids don’t eat as much as teenagers, and that baby formula can put a serious dent in a grocery budget… But those teenagers would get breakfast and lunch paid for 180 days in the year (through school) and many other days they could get a dinner through school.
I also realize that regionally, food costs may be higher than at my local grocery store. I acknowledge it is possible someone’s benefits are less than the $4.50 a day that’s being used in all these news articles…
The two points I wanted to make are:
1. Despite the anguish in a lot of media, $4.50 per recipient per day can be more than enough for a family.
2. The program is intended to help with the grocery budget. Not replace it.
In the mean time, if you feel passionate about these things, and have the opportunity to, please consider donating to some of these programs that further help to supplement meals (I do):