Steven LaChance Blog

I keep seeing posts floating around about how people who collect SNAP benefits are lazy or do not want to work. Let’s deal with the facts.

Right now about 42 million Americans receive assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That is roughly one in eight people in this country. Of those households, nearly 60 percent of families with children have at least one working adult. These are people who stock store shelves, cook your meals, clean your offices, and care for your loved ones. They work. They simply do not earn enough to survive without help.

When you look closer the picture becomes even clearer. About 39 percent of everyone on SNAP, more than 16 million people, are children. Another 19 percent are seniors, many living on fixed incomes that barely cover rent and medication, let alone food. Nearly 11 percent of participants have disabilities that limit their ability to work full time. So when we talk about SNAP, we are talking about the young, the old, the disabled, and the working poor.

If we truly want to have a real conversation about how to help families move off assistance, then we need to talk about wages, housing, and healthcare. We live in a country where millions of full time workers still qualify for food stamps. In fact, even teachers and healthcare workers, people we trust with our children and our lives, rely on SNAP to make ends meet because their paychecks fall short of basic survival costs.

As for fraud, it is far lower than most people think. The United States Department of Agriculture reports that intentional SNAP fraud, such as selling benefits for cash, occurs in about one to two percent of cases. The vast majority of overpayments come from paperwork errors or administrative mistakes, not from people cheating the system.

It is easy to repeat a stereotype. It is harder to face the reality that millions of Americans work every day and still cannot afford groceries. The system is what is broken, not the people trying to live inside it.

So before anyone says “lazy,” try “hungry.” Before “undeserving,” try “human.” You might have food on your table today, but life has a way of changing when you least expect it. If that day ever comes for you, I would want you and everyone you love to be able to eat.