here are your rations peasants
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/02/12/585130274/trump-administration-wants-to-decide-what-food-snap-recipients-will-get?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20180213

The Trump administration is proposing a major shake-up in one of the country's most important "safety net" programs, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Under the proposal, most SNAP recipients would lose much of their ability to choose the food they buy with their SNAP benefits.

The proposal is included in the Trump administration budget request for fiscal year 2019. It would require approval from Congress.

Under the proposal, which was announced Monday, low-income Americans who receive at least $90 a month — just over 80 percent of all SNAP recipients — would get about half of their benefits in the form of a "USDA Foods package." The package was described in the budget as consisting of "shelf-stable milk, ready to eat cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned fruit and vegetables." The boxes would not include fresh fruits or vegetables.

Currently, SNAP beneficiaries get money loaded onto an EBT card they can use to buy what they want as long as it falls under the guidelines. The administration says the move is a "cost-effective approach" with "no loss in food benefits to participants."

The USDA believes that state governments will be able to deliver this food at much less cost than SNAP recipients currently pay for food at retail stores — thus reducing the overall cost of the SNAP program by $129 billion over the next 10 years.

This and other changes in the SNAP program, according to the Trump administration, will reduce the SNAP budget by $213 billion over those years — cutting the program by almost 30 percent.

Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, a hunger advocacy group that also helps clients access food-assistance services, said the administration's plan left him baffled. "They have managed to propose nearly the impossible, taking over $200 billion worth of food from low-income Americans while increasing bureaucracy and reducing choices," Berg says.

He says SNAP is efficient because it is a "free market model" that lets recipients shop at stores for their benefits. The Trump administration's proposal, he said, "is a far more intrusive, Big Government answer. They think a bureaucrat in D.C. is better at picking out what your family needs than you are?"

Douglas Greenaway, president of the National WIC Association, echoed that sentiment. "Removing choice from SNAP flies in the face of encouraging personal responsibility," he said. He says "the budget seems to assume that participating in SNAP is a character flaw."

It isn't clear how billions of dollars' worth of food each year would be distributed to millions of SNAP recipients who live all over the country, including dense urban areas and sparsely populated rural regions. The budget says states will have "substantial flexibility in designing the food box delivery system through existing infrastructure, partnerships or commercial/retail delivery services."

Critics of the proposal said distributing that much food presents a logistical nightmare. "Among the problems, it's going to be costly and take money out of the program from the administrative side. It's going to stigmatize people when they have to go to certain places to pick up benefits," says Jim Weill, president of the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center.

Stacy Dean, vice president for food assistance policy at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, called the proposal "radical and risky." The idea that the government could save money by distributing food itself, she said, is "ill-informed at best."

It isn't clear whether the boxes will come with directions on how to cook the foods inside. "It could be something that don't even know how to make," notes Miguelina Diaz, whose team at Hunger Free America works directly with families to help them access food aid. "We deal with different people of different backgrounds. Limiting them by providing them a staple box would limit the choices of food they can prepare for their families."

According to Dean, from CBPP, the Trump administration wants to trim an additional $80 billion from the SNAP program by cutting off about 4 million people who currently receive food assistance. Most of them live in states that have decided to loosen the program's eligibility requirements slightly. Under the administration's proposal, states would no longer be able to do so.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in early December that he wanted states to have more flexibility in doling out SNAP, announcing the agency wanted to hear about programs from states that don't increase the cost of the program and will combat what he said is fraud and waste. At the National Grocers Association conference over the weekend, Perdue said the budget has "common-sense reforms that call for greater consistency across nutritional programs."

Nutrition programs, including SNAP, made up about 80 percent of the USDA's budget in the most recent farm bill, making it the largest portion of agency spending. About 44 million people participated in SNAP each month in 2016, at an annual cost of $70.9 billion. Nearly two-thirds were under 18, over 60 or disabled, according to the USDA.

Congress largely ignored Trump's proposed budget for SNAP last year, when he wanted to cut the funding by a quarter. This time, it's a farm bill year, meaning many budgetary decisions will be made among the House and Senate agriculture committees.

Several critics we spoke with expressed skepticism that the proposed SNAP changes would pass in Congress. Even so, Weill says, "Whenever you see proposals like this that attack ... it harms the program even if it doesn't pass, in the long term reducing support for the program and stigmatizing people who use it."

Tax cuts for the rich isn’t enough? They really hate anyone who isn’t in the room with them

prolly hurt his folks more than us

My wife's grandmother was an eligibility worker in both NY and SC before she retired, she says a good number of the recipients were def the type that would vote for Trump.

But what they didn’t mention is most people don’t stay on SNAP for long periods of time so the changes may not be problematic

I can’t help but feel there is some other government aid that they are really taking an axe to while folks get in a tizzy over this story

>But what they didn’t mention is most people don’t stay on
>SNAP for long periods of times

Based on what?

In my 8 years of experiences processing these cases, the vast majority are long term cases. I do come across some temporary cases and I discontinue a few a week because they called and requested a stop to their benefits, but about half of those are asking because they've moved out of state and need proof of discontinuance here to establish benefits there.

I'm all for public assistance and spend plenty of time dispelling myths on the other side, but I just don't see where this is true at all.

on assistance. I'll see if I can find that info again.

I know I definitely read it as part of an article dispelling the "welfare queen" myth

At annual and semi-annual determinations, cases are often discontinued for failure to complete the process. Most of those cases end up reapplying or getting restored.

I realize this is somewhat anecdotal based on my personal experience, but I'm betting I have a good sample size in serving the largest county in terms of landmass and 12th largest in terms of population.

Working intake, there were very few first time applicants and most were reapplying within about six months of a discontinuance.

It's relatively rare that a case is discontinued based off of the customer request. It's almost always a compliance issue, such as failing to provide a request for verification, or, to a lesser extent, due to an income increase over the limits.

"In fact, when you deduct the family car and other depreciating assets from their worth of the total 14.5 million African American homes, half of all black American households accounting for over 7 million families of three, have a total net worth of less than $1,700. While the net worth of the median white family remains near $100,000 using the same method of accounting. Yet African Americans dream on. Even the white poor have more money than most black families. Princeton University sociologist Dalton Conley has found that even white families living near the poverty line have a net worth exceeding $10,000."
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonio-moore/black-wealth-is-nonexiste_b_12347196.html



>prolly hurt his folks more than us


Definitely not.

and I'm not debating the information really, but I do wonder if (for the sake of argument) the reality was less dire would white media outlets report it?

and does this on his own and on his radio show. He shares the data and doesn't tap dance around the truth for white people. You can find alotta his stuff on Youtube or call his show if this is a serious concern. His documentary "Freeway: Crack In The System" is good as well.

Unless they found a way to only or mostly affect non whites but then again he’s the type
of dude to hear many recipients are poor white moms and be like “no broke bitc#es”

He's killing off coal miners too.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coal-mine-deaths-surge-putting-feds-and-miners-at-odds/

They don't mind getting screwed too.

ACA but somehow they thought it was the right thing to do because... America!

and wouldn’t surprise me if it were among their root causes

cause that sounds catchy

White welfare recipients and Farmers.

If you have different data from what's listed below, please share.


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/antonio-moore/black-wealth-is-nonexiste_b_12347196.html
"In fact, when you deduct the family car and other depreciating assets from their worth of the total 14.5 million African American homes, half of all black American households accounting for over 7 million families of three, have a total net worth of less than $1,700. While the net worth of the median white family remains near $100,000 using the same method of accounting. Yet African Americans dream on. Even the white poor have more money than most black families. Princeton University sociologist Dalton Conley has found that even white families living near the poverty line have a net worth exceeding $10,000."

So the data may have changed but I can’t imagine that drastically

2016 Fiscal Year
https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/ops/Characteristics2016.pdf

You have to analyze the data. This means understanding percentages, and this is why I mentioned in reply 17 that we are a smaller part of the population than white people (their population is 5 times as much as ours, but their snap benefits aren't even 2 times as much as ours by numbers). But let's look at the percentages:

Total households: 76,717,423

White households: 51,798,774 (67.5% of total households)

SNAP: 9,175 (that's 1.7% of white households)

Black households: 8,593,287 (11.2% of total households)

SNAP: 5,854 (that's 6.8% of black households)


****Therefore, Black households will be affected 4 times as much as white households by this change.****

*I used the data from 2013, because I couldn't locate data for Households, by Family Size, Race and Ethnicity for 2016. The most significant change in 2016 is that there were roughly 1,000 less white people on SNAP and roughly 500 less Black people on it. Both demographics still make up roughly the same percentage of the overall population.

edit: here are the links to the data I used...

households by race:
http://www.pewhispanic.org/ph_2015-03_statistical-portrait-of-hispanics-in-the-united-states-2013_current-40/

SNAP by race (page 76 in the report, 94 in the PDF):
https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/ops/Characteristics2013.pdf

Not percentages of households and I'd wager than an overwhelming number of those white households voted for this clown too.

I just outlined that about as clear as it could possibly be outlined tho.

I don't know if the whole "he gon hurt his base" stuff is feel-good talk, or if ppl are thinking they'll cause racists and the Trump administration to reconsider their position or what, but Black households will be 4x more likely to be affected by this than white ones. That's just an objective fact, and it's definitely not an accident. We have to face reality at some point.

But sure, many of those white ppl could have voted for trump.

White people that also voted for Trump.

>Unless they found a way to only or mostly affect non whites
>but then again he’s the type
>of dude to hear many recipients are poor white moms and be
>like “no broke bitc#es”

and cuttin' WHAT you can buy.

SNAP allows you to buy seeds so you can grow your own shxt.

food waste would be insane.

Again, I know nothing about the subject but I do wonder if there is a way to help lower income people eat healthier.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

would be bold enough to approve this. Cuts of some kind are necessary due to those tax cuts, so programs of some sort will suffer eventually. Still pretty wild to think government cheese could be reality in the foreseeable future.

They'll say it goes too far. Instead of cutting their funding by $213 billion, they'll choose to cut it by $190 billion.

Then they'll turn around and talk about how hard they fought for their constituents to receive their benefits.

who stands to make a shit ton of money selling these boxes to the government to distribute to people.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

After failing to gut food stamps in the Farm Bill, Trump has announced he plans to sidestep Congress & unilaterally slash the program by fiat—just days before Christmas.

(THREAD.)

https://twitter.com/rebeccavallas/status/1075748746292576256