Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

thehill.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 105 posts

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#11

Post by jeremyjh »

lokar wrote: post #6

Ugh, this again? I bet it's the same thing with all the "voter fraud" they find. They get two lists of people (list of votes/program enrollees and one of "dead" people, etc) that were not designed/cleaned for this, and do a very loose match and then declare just based on that it must be fraud. Are there some that are fraud, probably, a bit of that is just the cost of dealing with the public. Private companies get it…

Certainly there is some fraud; any system that gives out money will have fraud. But the reason they are doing this is simply to make people suffer.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#12

Post by weird-eye-issue »

CodingJeebus wrote: post #8

For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…

It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#14

Post by jeffbee »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #12
CodingJeebus wrote: post #8

For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…

It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION

[flagged]

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#15

Post by Shank »

I have a friend with life circumstances that are complicated and she survives on SNAP. Every move like this is detrimental and jeopardizes the ability for her to stay alive. I do not understand or fathom why this program is run in such a cruel, uncaring way. I’m sure there is fraud, but there are many people with permanent disabilities and other things going on who don’t have the capacity to “just reapply” without significant effort. There is no need to do this when they can simply audit the usage.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#16

Post by qgin »

Anyone who has ever worked on any sort of sales funnel knows: every time you ask someone to take an additional action, you lose people. Ask everybody to reapply, you'll end up with fewer people. You can say that's evidence of previous fraud, but it's largely just going to be people who didn't make it through the additional friction.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#17

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #12
CodingJeebus wrote: post #8

For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…

It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION

It's always a wonder to me when people downplay keeping others fed and healthy.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#18

Post by CodingJeebus »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #12
CodingJeebus wrote: post #8

For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…

It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION

You added the "just", not me. But to your point, there are much, much larger and controversial line items in the budget to argue about than feeding the poor. Preventing starvation is important to a functioning society, as widespread hunger has ended many a government throughout history.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#19

Post by Jtsummers »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #12
CodingJeebus wrote: post #8

For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…

It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION

Less than one percent of 1.5% of $7 trillion, around $1 billion. Which is a significant sum, no doubt, but that's also less than $3/person in the US. Given the much larger wasted sums by DOD and other parts of the government, it's an amount I can live with. I'd rather see the real waste and abuse get addressed first, but it won't be. Address this, but address it in a way that doesn't cause undue harm to the 40.8 million people that aren't abusing the system.

Re: USDA head says 'everyone' on SNAP will now have to reapply

#20

Post by exe34 »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #12
CodingJeebus wrote: post #8

For perspective, SNAP constitutes somewhere around 1.5% of the total Federal budget[0], and provides supplemental income for over 41M Americans[1]. So they're making everyone reapply because their disbursement headcount is off by less than 1% (180k vs 41M). It's hard not look at stuff like this and not see gross oppression. 0: https://usafacts.org/answers/how-much-does-the-federal-gover... 1: https://www.cbpp.org/res…

It is always a wonder to me when people downplay something that is "just" 1.5% of nearly $7 TRILLION

It's an investment. Every dollar spent returns $62 to the economy[0].

[0] https://www.cbpp.org/blog/snap-food-assistance-is-a-sound-in...

There are much bigger wastes of money. Tax cuts for billionaires for example. Even SNAP itself is effectively welfare for billionaires - it means they don't have to pay a fair wage.

Post reply on HN