On SNAP and nutrition
Give the poor cash, not stamps
Today’s Washington Post has an op-ed by Leana Wen arguing that one way to mitigate, at least to some degree, American rates of obesity is to further limit how people can use their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP (or “food stamps”):
One way to address the growing problem is to reform the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Though the program has “nutrition” prominently in its title, SNAP benefits can be used to purchase soda and ultra-processed foods, which are major drivers of the obesity epidemic. That needs to change.
A landmark Agriculture Department study using figures from 2011, the last year comprehensive data was available, found that the No. 2 product bought by households using SNAP was sugar-sweetened beverages, which includes sodas, energy drinks, flavored juice drinks and sweet teas. These beverages accounted for nearly 10 percent of purchases, and 20 cents out of every dollar was used to buy sugary drinks and junk foods such as candy, chips and cookies. …
From a purely public health standpoint, there should be no question that SNAP must be restructured to focus purchases on healthier foods. Unsurprisingly, industry groups are unanimously opposed to such reform. They cite logistical concerns about how one draws the line between which foods are healthy and which aren’t and how stores can practically enforce limitations. …
Why should low-income individuals face restrictions in what they can buy, while those with means do not?
This is perhaps the most compelling argument. Still, though, I find Ludwig’s counterargument to be convincing, which is that SNAP limitations don’t take away the right of low-income people to choose what they want. “They’ll still be free to purchase sugary beverages with their own money, just not with government dollars that are intended to promote health,” he said.
But why should aid to the poor be conditional on their following behaviors that no one else must follow? “We will provide some minimal subsidy to you, but here are the rules…” The policy is inefficient in the economist’s sense: an individual receiving assistance has much better knowledge of how their limited budget is best spent than the lawmakers who design restrictions on it. Personal hygiene products are not allowed under SNAP and … why? If someone really could use a new toothbrush and toothpaste, why restrict them? And the policy is insulting: the poor are not just poor, but are stupid and impulsive and not to be trusted. They are like children. I simply cannot abide by the raft of policies this country puts in place to make the lives of the poor just a little bit more miserable.
Transfer cash to the poor. Let each household decide how it is best spent. Allow a few unhealthy pleasures, as we do for the well-off.
But on this I cannot match George Orwell, writing about unemployed miners in The Road to Wigan Pier:
The basis of their diet, therefore, is white bread and
margarine, corned beef, sugared tea, and potatoes--an appalling diet.
Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like
oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter
to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it
would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do
such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on
brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less
money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A
millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an
unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of
the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say
when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to
eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is
always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. Let's have three pennorth
of chips! Run out and buy us a twopenny ice-cream! Put the kettle on and
we'll all have a nice cup of tea! That is how your mind works when you are
at the P.A.C. level. White bread-and-marg and sugared tea don't nourish you
to any extent, but they are nicer (at least most people think so) than
brown bread-and-dripping and cold water. Unemployment is an endless misery
that has got to be constantly palliated, and especially with tea, the
English-man's opium. A cup of tea or even an aspirin is much better as a
temporary stimulant than a crust of brown bread.
Nice quotation from Orwell. Here is another one, not quite so good, but that gets to the same general idea. It's from Michael Marmot's The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity. It deals with spending on cigarettes. Like the consumption of junk food, consumption follows a social gradient; more is consumed the lower one's social status.
Marmot writes: "over 55 percent of single mothers on welfare benefits smoke, smoking an average of about five packs a week. Hilary Graham has done careful observational studies of the lives of these women on low income. Almost every penny that these women spend is for someone else, for the household, the children, the boyfriend. The only personal expenditure they allow themselves is cigarettes. Without that indulgence, the whole of life would be about keeping it together for others. Simple exhortations not to smoke are unlikely to have much impact on these low-status women, and men. Improving their social conditions might." (p. 46).