Craig Gundersen, the Soybean Industry Endowed Professor of Agricultural Strategy at the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, is an agricultural economist who studies the causes and consequences of food insecurity and the impact of food assistance programs on public health. He spoke with News Bureau business and law editor Phil Ciciora about the latest government data on food insecurity in the U.S.
In 2007, before the Great Recession, 11.1 percent of the U.S. population was deemed food insecure. In 2014, despite an improving economy, that number was 14.0 percent, according to the USDA. What can the latest report tell us about why food insecurity in the U.S. has remained high?
Essentially, the food insecurity rate in 2014 is the same as it was in 2008, when we were in the depths of the Great Recession. Even though the economy has improved since the recession ended in 2009, food insecurity rates haven’t decreased in a substantive way.
This is somewhat surprising and troubling, given that the unemployment rate is fairly low. But the poverty rate has remained high, and those considered very low food-secure have remained high – 5.6 percent, unchanged from last year. So that could be one reason: Poverty hasn’t declined. Whatever the reason, low-income Americans haven’t benefitted as much from the end of the recession as other groups have, and that ought to be of great concern.
The chairman of the House committee that oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is looking to cut $70 billion from the program, citing the stagnant food insecurity rates. Is that a prudent move?
There are plenty of government programs that don’t work so well. SNAP is not one of them. SNAP is an amazing program. Its central goal is to alleviate food insecurity, and study after study has shown that SNAP leads to a reduction in food insecurity.
If it weren’t for SNAP, food insecurity rates would be much, much higher. The last thing we should be doing is cutting SNAP benefits. I understand the fiscal situation isn’t conducive to asking for an increase, but I would say, given how successful the program has been in reducing food insecurity, we should actually increase SNAP benefits, which would make more people food secure. So to say that we should be cutting this program is the opposite of what we should be doing. We should be figuring out ways to strengthen and enhance the program.
According to my latest research, one reason why we should be concerned with food insecurity is because there is a link between higher rates of food insecurity and higher health care costs. My colleagues at the University of Toronto, led by Valerie Tarasuk, and I used data from Canada to study health care costs and food insecurity rates. We found that as food insecurity got worse, there were higher rates of medical expenditures. The results of the study are likely applicable to the U.S. Therefore, by reducing food insecurity in the U.S., we’re also reducing health care costs in the U.S.
What are the threats to SNAP?
There are three main threats to SNAP. The first is by those who would like to block grant the program. Currently, SNAP is an entitlement program. If the economy gets worse, the program expands. If the economy gets better, the program contracts. Under block grants, states are given a fixed amount of money to distribute. But during bad economic times, that dollar amount would likely not increase.
The second threat to SNAP is an increased reliance on work requirements. There are some welfare programs that have “cliff effects” – if you make one dollar more, you lose all your benefits. SNAP is not like that. For each additional dollar recipients earn, they lose roughly 24 cents in benefits. If someone thinks that SNAP is reducing people’s will to work, we could reduce that implicit tax rate so that for each additional dollar someone earns, we could reduce their benefits by, say, 15 cents, thereby incentivizing them to keep earning money.
But SNAP was never meant as a program to encourage work. It’s designed to alleviate food insecurity, and it does a great job of that.
The third threat to SNAP is imposing restrictions on what people can purchase. For example, some think that SNAP recipients shouldn’t be allowed to buy sugar-sweetened beverages. But the end result of this prohibition would be discouraging people from entering the program because of the stigma and increased transactions costs associated with the restrictions. The critics may be well intentioned, but it would make SNAP a less successful anti-hunger program.
A seemingly popular policy idea is to drug test the food stamp recipients. Another is making childless SNAP recipients divulge their assets. Are those effective tactics?
That’s not wise, either. You don’t want to single out SNAP recipients. There are a whole host of people who receive government benefits whom we don’t ask to submit to a drug test. It also doesn’t give people the benefit of the doubt. People who are on SNAP may have children or other people in their care. So in addition to creating more bureaucracy, it would hurt others, too.
The official rule for assets is somewhat complex, and most states have waived that requirement. And the reason why is that it was just another bureaucratic hurdle, and you don’t want to discourage low-income people from saving. We don’t want to make SNAP a program in which you have to draw down your assets to be eligible. My preference is that there would be no asset test for the program.
There are plenty of other ways to get at drug addiction and unemployment. SNAP is not a good vehicle to address either of those issues.
