SNAP and the Government Shutdown
All governments, as protectors of their people, have an obligation to spend federal money on their civilians. The United States keeps these obligations fairly small, covering only some healthcare, some post-retirement income, and some food assistance.
Our nation’s premiere food assistance program is called SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — which gives its recipients funds through an Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT. Colloquially, these are called food stamps, and they’re a critical part of how many, many Americans are able to live their day-to-day lives.
But we’re now facing a huge problem.
The federal government has run out of money. That means that for November’s expectant SNAP benefit recipients, there may be nothing coming their way. And this is a huge, serious problem for our country and its people.
For starters, more than 42 million Americans depend on SNAP to buy groceries. EBT is lifesaving for its recipients, a majority of whom do actually work. 1 in 5 children need these benefits to eat in a day. It’s clear that the loss of federal funds affects our most vulnerable populations the most, and it’s time that those who can step in, do step in.
It’s important to note that many may still receive SNAP benefits when they are supposed to. But since the EBT date occurs for recipients at any time between November 1st and 21st, some who are supposed to receive it closer to the 21st might have theirs delayed even longer.
So SNAP isn’t gone forever — but it may be delayed, and for an unknown amount of time.
Those delays are life-uprooting and nutrition-threatening.
SNAP and the Government Shutdown
All governments, as protectors of their people, have an obligation to spend federal money on their civilians. The United States keeps these obligations fairly small, covering only some healthcare, some post-retirement income, and some food assistance.
Our nation’s premiere food assistance program is called SNAP — the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — which gives its recipients funds through an Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT. Colloquially, these are called food stamps, and they’re a critical part of how many, many Americans are able to live their day-to-day lives.
But we’re now facing a huge problem.
The federal government has run out of money. That means that for November’s expectant SNAP benefit recipients, there may be nothing coming their way. And this is a huge, serious problem for our country and its people.
For starters, more than 42 million Americans depend on SNAP to buy groceries. EBT is lifesaving for its recipients, a majority of whom do actually work. 1 in 5 children need these benefits to eat in a day. It’s clear that the loss of federal funds affects our most vulnerable populations the most, and it’s time that those who can step in, do step in.
It’s important to note that many may still receive SNAP benefits when they are supposed to. But since the EBT date occurs for recipients at any time between November 1st and 21st, some who are supposed to receive it closer to the 21st might have theirs delayed even longer.
So SNAP isn’t gone forever — but it may be delayed, and for an unknown amount of time.
Those delays are life-uprooting and nutrition-threatening.
Food Systems
Part of the reason that the potential loss of SNAP benefits is such a big deal is because when used, food stamps do end up in money received by the grocery store. And because so many people use EBT to buy their groceries, the loss of those funds leaves grocers with unmanageable excesses. Moreover, as food-insecure people move to rely on food pantries for groceries, those nutrition banks are left with shortages of food to give out, and therefore limitations on what they can give out and to whom that could be impossible for some to deal with.
In other words, the problem isn’t that there is a lack of food. The problem is that it isn’t getting distributed right. In fact, around 30% of food that’s bought by households — and that doesn’t even count what never gets bought, like the excesses at the grocery store — never gets eaten.
That’s called surplus food, and it’s something that food retailers like grocery stores, food servers like restaurants, and households all inevitably have. The majority of this goes into landfills. And as shown in the image below, only 8% of this surplus food in total ends up in food banks. The rest of these excesses? Sometimes they have productive uses — but the majority of it just ends up in the landfill.
One of the major reasons that this happens is because grocery stores, delis, and other food retailers have trouble knowing what to do with their food surpluses. Of course, they’d ideally send it all to food banks, but that requires time and money on the part of these private businesses, who know that doing so won’t contribute to their profits.
So when retailers face higher excesses as a result of SNAP benefit delays, and food banks face worse shortages, there is no profit incentive for the food-retailing businesses to spend their own money balancing out their food surpluses with the pantries’ shortages.
Where We Can Help
There’s a simple solution to get those excesses to food banks where it can help the people that need it most, especially after SNAP delays threaten the lives of food-insecure families.
That solution: Third-party volunteers.
Volunteers don’t operate off of profit incentives the way that private retailers do. So volunteers can and should reach out to food retailers and offer to deliver their surpluses to institutions that can help get that food out to the hungry.
This sounds impractical for individuals to do, though. Who does one call? How could you just walk in and offer to do that? When?
That’s why it’s best to work through an organization like Eat Happy Now. Eat Happy Now uses an app with a digital platform, which enables all of these questions to be answered by the donors (food retailers: grocery stories, delis, bakeries, cafes, etc.) and recipients (food banks, pantries, homeless shelters, etc.).
That’s how Eat Happy has already saved over 800,000 pounds of surplus food from just going to landfills, making sure that it meets a productive end in the mouths of food-insecure people by delivering only edible and nutritious surplus to those food banks.
By downloading the app on the App Store and/or visiting our website, https://eathappynow.org/, we can join hands to help stitch the wounds in our system of food distribution.
Conclusion
Of course, just volunteering can’t fix everything. A government shutdown helps nobody, and it’s in the interest of both parties to do their best to get funding back up. Because even where they disagree, the Democrats and Republicans still ultimately serve the people, and our number one concern is simply, where do we get our next meal?
Nonetheless, it’s important not to undervalue third party volunteer organizations. The private sector is incredible and capable in terms of producing more than enough in almost every imaginable area, and government funding is critical to cover certain needs, like food aid for the poor, or healthcare for the elderly. But there still has to be focus on the Third Sector — that of volunteer-based nonprofits.
At a nonprofit like Eat Happy Now, or really any nonprofit focused on getting people the things they need — be it food, hygiene products, housing, healthcare, mental help, and so on — we do our best to save food and help human beings. We hope you join us to do the same.