On Saturday, Supplemental Vitamin Help Program (SNAP) advantages — also called meals stamps — will run out for greater than 40 million Individuals. These hundreds of thousands of Individuals are collateral injury from what’s so far the second-longest authorities shutdown in US historical past.
However even because the looming deadline has underscored the very actual affect of the impasse in Washington, DC, it has additionally led to the most recent flare-up of America’s decades-long struggle over welfare advantages. On social media, creators are gaining views by posting rage bait posing as folks receiving meals help residing a lifetime of luxurious on the federal government’s dime. These movies have racked up hundreds of thousands of views and tons of offended responses.
Krissy Clark is a journalist who has coated the social security web on The Unsure Hour podcast. Clark says that these movies are part of a protracted historical past of Individuals stereotyping SNAP recipients as lazy and entitled.
Clark spoke with Right this moment, Defined host Noel King to speak about how the “welfare queen” stereotype has lengthy been a presence in American politics and remains to be shaping coverage right this moment. Under is an excerpt of their dialog, edited for size and readability. There’s way more within the full podcast, so hearken to Right this moment, Defined wherever you get podcasts, together with Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
We do not know who these persons are or if they really do obtain meals stamps or not. I used to be one in every of these movies, and it’s particularly a parody account that claims that it’s any individual who likes to do satire and skits. So I feel one factor is: Are they really authentically meals stamp recipients themselves?
“Two-thirds of members are youngsters or adults over age 60 or folks with disabilities.”
After which the reactions that you simply see within the feedback, folks [are] calling these folks entitled, parasites, looters, folks residing off meals stamps, intergenerational dependency. The very first thing that involves thoughts is: That is simply not an correct illustration of most people who find themselves receiving meals help. It’s a very outdated set of tropes and stereotypes, however should you truly take a look at the numbers, that isn’t an correct depiction of most meals stamp recipients.
For one factor, two-thirds of members are youngsters or adults over age 60 or folks with disabilities. Then whenever you take these people out and also you take a look at most SNAP members who theoretically can work, a majority of these persons are working in any given month, and a overwhelming majority of them have labored both within the final 12 months or the following 12 months, or shall be working within the subsequent 12 months.
The typical profit for the typical meals stamp recipient is about $6 a day. So this complete concept that the everyday SNAP recipient is simply sucking off the federal government teat and doesn’t wanna work and is lazy, that isn’t mirrored within the knowledge.
What about the response — “entitled,” “parasites,” “looters,” “intergenerational dependency”? Does that shock you?
Sadly, it doesn’t, as a result of it’s a story as outdated as our nation and even older. There may be this deep nervousness that folk within the US have collectively, and that has been amplified in some ways by politicians — this deep nervousness about once we assist folks collectively, are we serving to the correct folks? There’s this elementary divide I feel a variety of Individuals have, that runs by way of American historical past, of who’re the deserving poor, the folks that deserve our assist, and who’re the not-deserving poor.
How do our assumptions and even our suspicions get was coverage?
All of us have in all probability heard of Reagan’s tropes round “welfare queens.” That was tied into efforts that he made to place deep cuts into meals stamp eligibility and meals stamp funds within the Nineteen Eighties.
And you then soar to 1996, when Congress handed probably the most sweeping welfare reforms in historical past. The New Republic, the journal, had a canopy photograph, in August of 1996 with the massive splashy headline, “Day of Reckoning, Signal the Invoice Now,” encouraging [President Bill] Clinton to signal the welfare reform acts that have been going to actually intestine welfare as we knew it. And on the quilt of the journal is an image of a Black girl with a cigarette in her hand holding a bit of child who’s consuming from a bottle.
I keep in mind the Nineteen Nineties. I used to be a child, however I do know that the “welfare queen” trope was type of within the water. It does make me take into consideration what’s happening within the current day, the place a single tweet that claims to be a video of a lady saying, “I’ve 9 youngsters and I’m by no means gonna get a job as a result of I get meals stamps” can instantly attain hundreds of thousands of individuals.
If you see these movies on social media, is there one thing completely different now due to simply how viral they will go?
The sensation that I get isn’t, “Oh, we’re on this new world.” It’s, “Right here we go once more.” This is similar playbook, the identical fears. Possibly they’re amplified, they get to folks sooner. However yeah, I used to be a child within the ’90s additionally, and it was within the water. It was simply type of what, there have been these sure stereotypes and sure suspicions that we didn’t want social media for. They have been already there. And I feel that that message and people suspicions are gonna journey a method or one other.
There may be one massive distinction in 2025 from the previous, and we’ve talked about it on the present: Security web packages are usually seen as Democratic terrain. Democrats vote for them; Democrats want them.
However then the scenario modified after the 2024 election, as a result of a variety of poor and dealing -lass folks voted for Donald Trump. So lately you noticed Josh Hawley, the Republican senator from Missouri, write an op-ed within the New York Instances saying we have to fund SNAP.
Do you see Republicans altering their tune on welfare, as a result of more and more the individuals who want advantages are voting Republican?
I’d push again a bit of bit on it. I very a lot was kind of studying it by way of the lens of, [Hawley is] attempting to give attention to the “deserving poor” right here.
I additionally suppose that should you truly take a look at his voting report, this summer season, he voted for the sweeping adjustments to meals stamp eligibility and different kinds of public help eligibility that have been within the so-called One Large, Lovely Invoice. These in some methods are going to have way more long-term and far-reaching results when it comes to limiting who has entry to meals stamps and to other forms of presidency help.
Saturday is when the advantages run out. You’ve been reporting on this, Krissy, for a really very long time. When folks lose their advantages and after they lose them in such nice numbers, the place do they flip for assist? The place do they go to search out meals?
There’s a community of meals banks and meals pantries. The nonprofit sector is clearly attempting to fill within the breach, however I feel anyone you discuss to in that world says there isn’t any method that we may exchange the type of help that meals stamps affords, and that we, collectively as a nation, by way of our authorities, provide.
A number of years in the past I used to be in Dayton, Ohio, and I used to be at a Walmart proper at midnight, as a result of I knew that when the clock strikes 12:01, you might have your month-to-month advantages. The quantity of people that, proper when the clock struck 12:01, have been going into Walmart late at night time to begin shopping for meals confirmed you the quick want. This isn’t one thing you’ll be able to wait till the following day [for] even.
I bumped into this girl who was together with her 8-year-old son. Her meals stamps had already run out from final month. As a lot as she tried to funds issues — she additionally had a job; she labored for I feel a Greenback Basic — she simply couldn’t make ends meet with out this assist. So take into consideration that come November 1st.
