As a House committee debated President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill last year, Republican backers repeatedly emphasized that its changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, wouldn’t affect vulnerable people.
But nearly a year after the measure was signed into law, the number of children receiving food assistance has plummeted by at least 776,000, according to a ProPublica analysis. At least 12 states break down program participation by age, and of the 1,670,011 people who are no longer receiving benefits in those states, 776,134, or 46%, were children.
I’ve tried to get snap benefits a few times in my adult life, every time I’ve been treated like trash and given so much difficulty that I just stopped trying.
I lived in a progressive area recently and community food banks kept me fed, they were kind and barely asked me a few basic questions and explained that the information helped them continue to get funding through the state.
Federal assistance is a joke if you’re in need. Only help comes from strong communities these days. I’m more afraid registering for snap will just put me on some sort of undesirables list and I’ll disappear after some new demonizing tweet.
Yeah, it’s designed to kick a lot of people off of it before they even sign up. It would be so nice if people just got a card in the mail as soon as their it’s records indicated they met the threshold.
Everything could be so much better if we just made it better.