Late Saturday night the Huffington Post put up an article based on an analysis of the latest Trump administration proposed changes to food stamps (AKA the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – SNAP).
Deep in the article it called Missouri one of a few states to come out ahead – with more benefits for hungry people – under the changes…
Had all the proposed changes been implemented last year, 3.7 million fewer people and 2.1 million fewer households would have received food stamps in an average month while monthly benefits would decrease for millions of other households…Benefits would increase in some states, including Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia, according to the analysis.
The piece references a study by The Urban Institute, finding that Missouri would do well with the changes.
Before we get to that research, let’s remember:
- The lifeboat issue. The ship is sinking and you want your kid on a lifeboat. Good parenting. Alas, to get your kid in the lifeboat you can’t throw someone else’s kid into the ocean. In the same way, slashing benefits to residents in other states to give more to Missourians fails the ethics test.
- This latest series of proposed changes is another attempt to reduce aid to hungry people by billions of dollars a year. Having lost out in negotiations during the Farm Bill, Trump’s appointed bureaucrats want to cut food stamps by administrative fiat. If all the changes in three sets of proposed new rules get enacted it turns a large pizza into a small.
- Missouri stands to gain because this state has been very mean to poor people. Allowed ways to direct more aids to seniors and disabled neighbors; to unemployed adults; as well as letting participants put a bit in the bank have been forbidden by Missouri’s leaders. The state has long chosen to do as little as possible to feed folks, even with federal funds.
The Urban Institute estimates that some households would lose up to $127 a month in stamps while in Missouri some households (let’s call them families) could get almost $20 a month more.
Wow, an extra dime per meal in benefits for some Missourians!
Does that sound cynical?
Recall that the other week I sent out my summary of the October 2019 benefits report from the Missouri Department of Social Services. I noted – from state records – that this October Missouri shared stamps with 272,000 fewer residents than the state helped in October 2011. Even with the “better economy” I’ll bet lunch and happy hour money that Missouri ought to have another 100,000 to 150,000 people getting food stamps. Looking at the poverty rate (12.4%), median household income (lagging behind the national median), information on job creation and wages, plus known data on “underemployed adults” and the only conclusion I can reach is that a lot of deserving people are not getting the food stamps they are entitled to get. And need.
So, beware any effort to spin the Trumpettes food stamp changes as good for Missouri. It’s not more lemons in the lemonade, just an extra seed or two.
Glenn Koenen