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

thehill.com

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

#31

Post by SigmundA »

weird-eye-issue wrote: post #26
Jtsummers wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mill…

Agreed with everything you said, but people would say the exact same thing about some of the more wasteful programs that were shutdown. "It is only $50 million" etc got really old... It is not like you can expect to just find massive line items that can be easily removed

Yeah I mean they could pay for the new ballroom or two and have some money left over by not feeding those scammy undeserving people.

Or even better we could give some more money to Argentina.

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

#32

Post by alwillis »

Jtsummers wrote: post #19
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mill…

SNAP recipients (about 42 million people) receive between $6-$10 per day in food assistance. $42 to $70 per week for groceries doesn't go very far in today's economy.

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

#33

Post by CodingJeebus »

aeternum wrote: post #30
CodingJeebus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

The problem here is that healthier food tends to cost more, so you'd essentially be forcing people to buy less food unless you also simultaneously raised the disbursement. And then a certain wing of the media starts screaming about how the poor are eating organic salads on the backs of taxpayers.

Sounds reasonable in theory but has little basis in our current political reality.

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

#34

Post by defrost »

Difwif wrote: post #28
qgin wrote: post #16

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.

[removed]

> If someone doesn't reapply for food stamps then they weren't that critical for their survival.

For a good number it might be that they don't successfully reapply due to living on a knife edge that lacks the slack to jump through yet another hoop.

The experience here in Australia is that raising welfare barriers hurts those that need welfare the most, the actual fraudsters have the resources to beat the system.

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

#35

Post by MangoToupe »

aeternum wrote: post #30
CodingJeebus wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

Jesus christ, what is wrong with the people in this country? Why are you do obsessed with policing what other people eat?

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

#36

Post by Jtsummers »

alwillis wrote: post #32
Jtsummers wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mill…

SNAP recipients (about 42 million people) receive between $6-$10 per day in food assistance. $42 to $70 per week for groceries doesn't go very far in today's economy.

I'm not sure what you're responding to in my comment, but I think it's the $3/person bit. That's taking the approximately $1 billion and dividing it over all 340+ million people in the US. I'm saying that we have to have an average of $3/person in tax revenue to cover this apparent fraud (I don't trust this administration at all so I won't say anything other than "apparent").

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

#37

Post by SigmundA »

spullara wrote: post #29
Jtsummers wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mill…

social programs are 60% of the budget, defense is down to 13%.

Who would have thought health care and retirement is more expensive than wars, it seems like that should be telling us something about priorities.

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

#38

Post by UncleMeat »

MangoToupe wrote: post #35
aeternum wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Jesus christ, what is wrong with the people in this country? Why are you do obsessed with policing what other people eat?

There are a huge number “poor people deserve to be miserable” people in this country, and even here on HN. It is horrifying.

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

#39

Post by drob518 »

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…

A quibble… The 180k is just for the states that responded, if I understand correctly. They suspect that the rate of fraud could be much higher in other states. How much high? I have no idea. I don’t think anyone does. I think they want to reboot the program to try to remove the corruption.

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

#40

Post by chneu »

Difwif wrote: post #28
qgin wrote: post #16

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.

[removed]

My roommate was born disabled.

He relies on SNAP and SSI disability.

These extra steps can cause him weeks of stress, physical and mental. These extra steps cost him money he does not have. The stress can set him back physically for weeks.

Reapplying, waiting on hold for half a day, going down to offices, etc are not easy for some folks. People fall through the cracks and die.

This is called forced attrition. It's pretty common in the business world when companies don't want to fire people. Make it too difficult to bother, so folks stop bothering. Unfortunately this is a literal lifeline for millions of people, so it's more like make it too difficult to bother, so folks start dying.

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