On Saturday, Supplemental Diet Help Program (SNAP) advantages — also referred to as meals stamps — will run out for greater than 40 million Individuals. These tens of millions of Individuals are collateral injury from what’s to this point the second-longest government shutdown in US historical past.
However even because the looming deadline has underscored the very actual affect of the impasse in Washington, DC, it has additionally led to the newest flare-up of America’s decades-long struggle over welfare advantages. On social media, creators are gaining views by posting rage bait posing as folks receiving meals help residing a lifetime of luxurious on the federal government’s dime. These movies have racked up tens of millions of views and tons of offended responses.
Krissy Clark is a journalist who has coated the social security web on The Uncertain Hour podcast. Clark says that these movies are part of an extended historical past of Individuals stereotyping SNAP recipients as lazy and entitled.
Clark spoke with Today, Explained host Noel King to speak about how the “welfare queen” stereotype has lengthy been a presence in American politics and continues to be shaping coverage at this time. Under is an excerpt of their dialog, edited for size and readability. There’s rather more within the full podcast, so take heed to At the moment, Defined wherever you get podcasts, together with Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
We do not know who these individuals are or if they really do obtain meals stamps or not. I used to be taking a look at one in all these movies, and it’s particularly a parody account that claims that it’s any individual who likes to do satire and skits. So I feel one factor is: Are they really authentically meals stamp recipients themselves?
“Two-thirds of contributors are kids or adults over age 60 or folks with disabilities.”
After which the reactions that you simply see within the feedback, folks [are] calling these folks entitled, parasites, looters, folks residing off meals stamps, intergenerational dependency. The very first thing that involves thoughts is: That is simply not an correct illustration of most people who find themselves receiving meals help. It’s a very previous set of tropes and stereotypes, however in the event you really take a look at the numbers, that’s not an correct depiction of most meals stamp recipients.
For one factor, two-thirds of contributors are kids or adults over age 60 or folks with disabilities. Then once you take these of us out and also you take a look at most SNAP contributors who theoretically can work, a majority of these individuals are working in any given month, and a overwhelming majority of them have labored both within the final 12 months or the following 12 months, or will probably be working within the subsequent 12 months.
The common profit for the typical meals stamp recipient is about $6 a day. So this entire concept that the everyday SNAP recipient is simply sucking off the federal government teat and doesn’t wanna work and is lazy, that’s not mirrored within the information.
What about the response — “entitled,” “parasites,” “looters,” “intergenerational dependency”? Does that shock you?
Sadly, it doesn’t, as a result of it’s a story as previous as our nation and even older. There may be this deep anxiousness that folk within the US have collectively, and that has been amplified in some ways by politicians — this deep anxiousness about once we assist folks collectively, are we serving to the fitting folks? There’s this elementary divide I feel plenty of Individuals have, that runs by way of American historical past, of who’re the deserving poor, the those that deserve our assist, and who’re the not-deserving poor.
How do our assumptions and even our suspicions get changed into coverage?
All of us have most likely heard of Reagan’s tropes round “welfare queens.” That was tied into efforts that he made to place deep cuts into meals stamp eligibility and meals stamp funds within the Nineteen Eighties.
And then you definitely leap to 1996, when Congress handed probably the most sweeping welfare reforms in historical past. The New Republic, the journal, had a canopy photograph, in August of 1996 with the massive splashy headline, “Day of Reckoning, Sign the Bill Now,” encouraging [President Bill] Clinton to signal the welfare reform acts that have been going to actually intestine welfare as we knew it. And on the duvet of the journal is an image of a Black girl with a cigarette in her hand holding slightly child who’s ingesting from a bottle.
I bear in mind the Nineties. I used to be a child, however I do know that the “welfare queen” trope was sort of within the water. It does make me take into consideration what’s happening within the current day, the place a single tweet that claims to be a video of a lady saying, “I’ve 9 youngsters and I’m by no means gonna get a job as a result of I get meals stamps” can immediately attain tens of millions of individuals.
Once you see these movies on social media, is there one thing totally different now due to simply how viral they will go?
The sensation that I get is just not, “Oh, we’re on this new world.” It’s, “Right here we go once more.” This is similar playbook, the identical fears. Perhaps they’re amplified, they get to folks sooner. However yeah, I used to be a child within the ’90s additionally, and it was within the water. It was simply sort of what, there have been these sure stereotypes and sure suspicions that we didn’t want social media for. They have been already there. And I feel that that message and people suspicions are gonna journey a technique or one other.
There may be one large distinction in 2025 from the previous, and we’ve talked about it on the present: Security web applications are usually seen as Democratic terrain. Democrats vote for them; Democrats want them.
However then the state of affairs modified after the 2024 election, as a result of plenty of poor and dealing -lass folks voted for Donald Trump. So not too long ago you noticed Josh Hawley, the Republican senator from Missouri, write an op-ed in the New York Times saying we have to fund SNAP.
Do you see Republicans altering their tune on welfare, as a result of more and more the individuals who want advantages are voting Republican?
I might push again slightly bit on it. I very a lot was kind of studying it by way of the lens of, [Hawley is] attempting to concentrate on the “deserving poor” right here.
I additionally assume that in the event you really take a look at his voting document, this summer season, he voted for the sweeping modifications to meals stamp eligibility and different kinds of public help eligibility that have been within the so-called One Big, Beautiful Bill. These in some methods are going to have rather more long-term and far-reaching results by way of limiting who has entry to meals stamps and to other forms of presidency help.
Saturday is when the advantages run out. You’ve been reporting on this, Krissy, for a really very long time. When folks lose their advantages and once they lose them in such nice numbers, the place do they flip for assist? The place do they go to seek out meals?
There’s a community of meals banks and meals pantries. The nonprofit sector is clearly attempting to fill within the breach, however I feel anyone you discuss to in that world says there is no such thing as a method that we may change the sort of assist that meals stamps provides, and that we, collectively as a nation, by way of our authorities, provide.
Just a few years in the past I used to be in Dayton, Ohio, and I used to be at a Walmart proper at midnight, as a result of I knew that when the clock strikes 12:01, you’ve your month-to-month advantages. The quantity of people that, proper when the clock struck 12:01, have been going into Walmart late at night time to begin shopping for meals confirmed you the fast want. This isn’t one thing you possibly can wait till the following day [for] even.
I bumped into this girl who was along with her 8-year-old son. Her meals stamps had already run out from final month. As a lot as she tried to finances issues — she additionally had a job; she labored for I feel a Greenback Common — she simply couldn’t make ends meet with out this assist. So take into consideration that come November 1st.
