In the midst of the government shutdown, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits were at risk of being paused. This brought up a decades-old debate about SNAP as a whole. Many Democrats rushed to the defense of SNAP recipients, asserting that SNAP is necessary for many working families and that cutting off these benefits would lead to a hungry holiday season in many households. Many Republicans retorted back with some version of Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” stereotype—the idea that people using welfare programs are abusing the system or are unemployed due to laziness.
For workers, SNAP is a Band-Aid for a much bigger problem: workers’ rights and the minimum wage.
While I generally agree with the Democratic take on the issue, neither side of mainstream politics addresses the real issue with SNAP. Many point to the work requirements for SNAP recipients of working age and the fact that 39% of SNAP (according to Pew Research Center data) recipients are employed to remove blame from the recipients, framing hunger as an unfortunate but inevitable part of society. But this could be prevented if employers paid their employees enough to cover their basic needs. Nourished employees who are more or less satisfied with their compensation are an essential cost of having a business. This means that for these 39% of recipients, SNAP is less of a supplement for them and more of a subsidy for their employers. No other business expense is treated this way. Corporations can’t wield bloated profit margins each year, then go to the government and demand money so they can rent facilities, buy equipment, or cover transportation. The inability to pay workers is a sign of a failing business. For workers, SNAP is a Band-Aid for a much bigger problem: workers’ rights and the minimum wage.
Many working people resent social support networks due to free-riding from recipients, but the biggest benefactors are the corporations that are able to capitalize on their gains by socializing their costs. Another common criticism of welfare is the claim that people choose not to work because they make more money by collecting benefits. In certain circumstances this is true—federal minimum wage is significantly below the poverty line. But is this really a flaw of the welfare system? According to Pew Research Center, individuals must be earning 130% below the federal poverty line to qualify for SNAP benefits. This means we allow people to live in poverty as long as they aren’t dramatically below the poverty line. The average benefits total $188.45 per month per person. No one is living a luxurious life operating below the poverty line with under $200 per month to keep themselves alive. If being employed offered even lower compensation than this, would you work? If someone is living in poverty, every cent counts. They cannot afford to take a pay cut. It’s nonsensical to brand this common-sense survival technique as laziness.
Blaming benefit recipients is a way of deflecting poor policy onto people who have absolutely nothing to do creating the system.
Changing the poverty rate without raising the minimum wage is no one’s fault but policymakers’. Blaming benefit recipients is a way of deflecting poor policy onto people who have absolutely nothing to do creating the system. This deflection has unfortunately been effective. Ronald Reagan began spreading his concept of “welfare queens” in the 1970s. This stereotype cast welfare recipients as women who chose to have many children to increase their benefits, then lived lavish lives off the money. It also leaned heavily on pre-existing racism towards African Americans. Reagan’s “welfare queen” concept worked so well that it has played a pivotal role in political platforms since. Bill Clinton’s presidential platform promised to abolish the current welfare system and completely restructure it because of these imagined free-riders. Politicians on both sides of the aisle feel the need to denounce people abusing the system, despite no evidence that this is a prominent issue. This rhetoric from the 70s has shaped the way people think about welfare today. The collective memory of free-riders “stealing” from the middle class changes politics. It shows how powerful memory and narrative are in politics: even in spite of facts, telling a contrasting story—and repeating it across eras, regimes, and movements—creates an almost inevitable opposition. We see the quiet resentment rupture once the time is right, as Trump challenged an order to give out SNAP benefits all the way to the Supreme Court. It takes work to change the narrative, but this may be the moment. Both parties seem to be drifting toward a more class-conscious platform, as evidenced by Zohran Mamdani’s win running on affordability and Nick Fuentes leading a rift against mainstream Republicans largely due to working-class issues. Both parties have run on resolving inflation and affordability since COVID, and they would be hard-pressed to vote against pro-labor bills if they were able to reach either Congressional floor for voting.
Rachel Matel ’29 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at matel@wustl.edu.