Oh, SNAP!
There are about 50 million people in America that are hungry. There is a program called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) which provides help to the hungry people in America. The requirements to receive assistance from SNAP are pretty severe and I believe that they should change them in order to serve the needs of the increasing population of hungry Americans. If SNAP is going to cater the needs of more people then they will need more funding. In the documentary A Place at the Table it shows three different lives of people who live in food desert, are food insecure and how difficult it is for them to get proper nutrition.
An individual is allowed assistance from SNAP if their gross monthly income is $1,245 or less. A family of four is allowed assistance if their gross monthly income is $2,552. If people have a choice of working and losing their assistance they might choose to stay unemployed. There is enough food for everyone to eat three meals a day and to tell people they can’t because they make barely any more money than the required income is wrong. If SNAP receives more funding then they will have the ability to lower the income requirements and a lot more people will get the food they need and get the jobs that they want.
In A Place at the Table there is a woman named Barbie who is a single mother of two living in Philadelphia. She has a hard time providing for her two children and herself while living in a food desert. Even with funding and help from programs like SNAP she still struggles day to day. She was denied assistance before because of the very small amount of income she made over the requirements. Then when she did get a job she was unable to keep her assistance and still struggled to feed her children the proper nutrition they need. This is a great example of why the funding for SNAP must be increased and they must make the income levels more flexible.
Funding for SNAP should be easily acquired. It shouldn’t be a matter of whose taxes we will raise and by how much. If we take a very small fraction of our defense budget and reallocate it to our food budget then there will be plenty of funding for SNAP and they will be able to feed more people. There has to be people to defend.
The fact that so many people are hungry shows us that it may not be their fault. They may not be lazy and dumb but instead there are no jobs and they have different opportunities opposed to someone born in a middle or upper class society. If programs like SNAP didn’t exist what would people do for food? More and more people are becoming hungry and losing jobs everyday so if SNAP doesn’t receive a large increase of funding they will not be able to keep up with the rising demands.
A Place at the Table demonstrates this problem these programs are facing with the rising population of unemployed and hungry people. Even with the help from assistance programs like SNAP people are still having trouble getting enough food. The food that they do get is no good either. It often leaves them hungry. They don’t get a sufficient amount of food and the lack of nutrients in the food that they do get makes it difficult for them. The young girl in A Place at the Table named Rosi who lives in a small town in Colorado has a tough time focusing in school due to her lack of food and nutrients. This makes her grades suffer and also her social life.
There are nearly 16 million children who live in food insecure households as of 2012. That is almost 22% of children in America who are living in poverty. Children not receiving the proper amount of nutrition face issues with developing physically and mentally. Nearly 14 million children are served by Feeding America which is a program a lot like SNAP. These programs are crucial to the survival of many American children and their parents. It’s obvious that these programs are not properly funded to make sure our children properly fed.
Funding needs to not only be increased to SNAP and programs like it that feed the hungry. It needs to be directed in ways that will stimulate healthy foods being more widely available and affordable. Subsidizing farms that produce natural, organic, and a variety of different healthy foods instead of corn, wheat, and dairy. Right now the main industries are not near being the healthiest.
Right now nearly 50 million people are supported by SNAP. This number will surely increase due to the lack of jobs and the decreasing availability of jobs. If this program does not receive a new budget which allows them to properly feed the 50 million they already have, then they will have a difficult time feeding all the new mouths they are getting on a daily basis. All of the children that might not grow up as they would’ve with a proper diet and all of the angry parents will not be as beneficial to society and they will not go away, but continue to grow.
SNAP doesn’t just need more money and all of the hunger problems in America will go away. That is not the solution to end hunger in America but it is a step towards a less hungry America and if enough steps are made then the issue of hunger can be solved. These many small steps begin with each and every one of us. We sit here and type our essays on our laptops or school computer about hunger in America like we know how to solve it but we don’t donate money or volunteer our time to work towards a better community. With all of our technology and resources we are more than qualified to make sure little Suzy goes to school with a stomach full of nutritious food.
There are about 50 million people in America that are hungry. There is a program called SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) which provides help to the hungry people in America. The requirements to receive assistance from SNAP are pretty severe and I believe that they should change them in order to serve the needs of the increasing population of hungry Americans. If SNAP is going to cater the needs of more people then they will need more funding. In the documentary A Place at the Table it shows three different lives of people who live in food desert, are food insecure and how difficult it is for them to get proper nutrition.
An individual is allowed assistance from SNAP if their gross monthly income is $1,245 or less. A family of four is allowed assistance if their gross monthly income is $2,552. If people have a choice of working and losing their assistance they might choose to stay unemployed. There is enough food for everyone to eat three meals a day and to tell people they can’t because they make barely any more money than the required income is wrong. If SNAP receives more funding then they will have the ability to lower the income requirements and a lot more people will get the food they need and get the jobs that they want.
In A Place at the Table there is a woman named Barbie who is a single mother of two living in Philadelphia. She has a hard time providing for her two children and herself while living in a food desert. Even with funding and help from programs like SNAP she still struggles day to day. She was denied assistance before because of the very small amount of income she made over the requirements. Then when she did get a job she was unable to keep her assistance and still struggled to feed her children the proper nutrition they need. This is a great example of why the funding for SNAP must be increased and they must make the income levels more flexible.
Funding for SNAP should be easily acquired. It shouldn’t be a matter of whose taxes we will raise and by how much. If we take a very small fraction of our defense budget and reallocate it to our food budget then there will be plenty of funding for SNAP and they will be able to feed more people. There has to be people to defend.
The fact that so many people are hungry shows us that it may not be their fault. They may not be lazy and dumb but instead there are no jobs and they have different opportunities opposed to someone born in a middle or upper class society. If programs like SNAP didn’t exist what would people do for food? More and more people are becoming hungry and losing jobs everyday so if SNAP doesn’t receive a large increase of funding they will not be able to keep up with the rising demands.
A Place at the Table demonstrates this problem these programs are facing with the rising population of unemployed and hungry people. Even with the help from assistance programs like SNAP people are still having trouble getting enough food. The food that they do get is no good either. It often leaves them hungry. They don’t get a sufficient amount of food and the lack of nutrients in the food that they do get makes it difficult for them. The young girl in A Place at the Table named Rosi who lives in a small town in Colorado has a tough time focusing in school due to her lack of food and nutrients. This makes her grades suffer and also her social life.
There are nearly 16 million children who live in food insecure households as of 2012. That is almost 22% of children in America who are living in poverty. Children not receiving the proper amount of nutrition face issues with developing physically and mentally. Nearly 14 million children are served by Feeding America which is a program a lot like SNAP. These programs are crucial to the survival of many American children and their parents. It’s obvious that these programs are not properly funded to make sure our children properly fed.
Funding needs to not only be increased to SNAP and programs like it that feed the hungry. It needs to be directed in ways that will stimulate healthy foods being more widely available and affordable. Subsidizing farms that produce natural, organic, and a variety of different healthy foods instead of corn, wheat, and dairy. Right now the main industries are not near being the healthiest.
Right now nearly 50 million people are supported by SNAP. This number will surely increase due to the lack of jobs and the decreasing availability of jobs. If this program does not receive a new budget which allows them to properly feed the 50 million they already have, then they will have a difficult time feeding all the new mouths they are getting on a daily basis. All of the children that might not grow up as they would’ve with a proper diet and all of the angry parents will not be as beneficial to society and they will not go away, but continue to grow.
SNAP doesn’t just need more money and all of the hunger problems in America will go away. That is not the solution to end hunger in America but it is a step towards a less hungry America and if enough steps are made then the issue of hunger can be solved. These many small steps begin with each and every one of us. We sit here and type our essays on our laptops or school computer about hunger in America like we know how to solve it but we don’t donate money or volunteer our time to work towards a better community. With all of our technology and resources we are more than qualified to make sure little Suzy goes to school with a stomach full of nutritious food.