You Gotta Fight For You Right... To Eat?
We live in a very weird world right now. More and more politicians are choosing to engage in "Twitter Democracy". Following the lead of our Commander-in-Chief, they are attempting to reach out to the more tech savvy of their constituents and carry out civil discourse in 140 characters. Maybe this is the evolution of our national conversation, maybe this will become the new norm, but it can lead to problematic situations. One such situation happened November 29th, involving Representative Thomas Massie from the Kentucky 4th District. While attempting to make a seemingly satirical comment about the proposed Healthcare For All programs, Representative Massie posed a troubling hypothetical question:
Needless to say, this set both sides of Twitter's political spectrum alight with people both coming to his defense and to tar and feather him. Now to be a little transparent, I happen to reside in the district that Massie represents. I have never voted for him, and in fact in the most recent Midterm election I voted for his opposition. I say this not to beat my chest, or signify that I plan to attack the man himself due to fundamental differences in our beliefs. Honestly, I doubt that Representative Massie meant to come across as glibly as his comment did, but the root of his comment is tied to a disconcerting and pervasive belief in America today -
It's the poor's fault that they are poor.
The promise of capitalism and the American Dream is that if you work hard enough, you can make a better life for yourself. In 1931, freelance writer James Truslow Adams described it as such:
But there has been also the American dream, that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for every man, with opportunity for each according to his ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position... The American dream, that has lured tens of millions of all nations to our shores in the past century has not been a dream of merely material plenty, though that has doubtlessly counted heavily. It has been much more than that. It has been a dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers which had slowly been erected in the older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human being of any and every class.
That sounds like a pretty great dream, and certainly something worth believing in. But, as often happens with a free market economy, the striation of the classes has become more and more drastic. Capitalism is innately a classist system; there are those who rise to the top, those who do the work to get them there, and those who get left behind. However, due to that ever increasing striation the "American dream" has created a negative side effect, what social psychologists call correspondence bias. Plainly put, we have a tendency to recognize our own misfortune as a matter of circumstance while asserting that others’ misfortune is a manifestation of their poor character. This isn't something that we actively do; it is not a conscious thought, but more something that we have been subconsciously conditioned to believe and unfortunately it permeates every level of society.
I am not saying that there are not cases in which people are living in self-induced poverty, but to blanketly believe that poverty is due to a lack ability or achievement is a faulty generalization. As of 2016, roughly 40 million Americans were considered to be living in poverty (poverty defined as a single person making less than $16k annually, or a family of four less than $25K annually). Roughly 15 million children living in the US are living under the poverty line, and of that 15 million, 2.5 million are homeless. Roughly 21 million of those living below the poverty line are "deeply impoverished", making less than 50% of the poverty threshold, and 95 million Americans make less than twice the poverty threshold, placing them in the category of "near poverty". That means that almost one third of Americans are considered to be living "near poverty" or lower. Literally 130 million Americans are a major illness, a messy divorce, or a corporate downsizing away from living on the street.
So let's get back to Massie's comment. The interesting thing is that food stamps, or as they are now known, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP for short), have been one of the most successful federal assistance programs to date. While the traditional perception is that the majority of federal assistance recipients are just sitting around waiting for handouts, the numbers for SNAP tell a different tale.
While the work rate for SNAP households is only 30% all together, consider the fact that that overall number includes the elderly and disabled. Of SNAP households with children to support and at least 1 non-elderly, non-disabled adult, the work rate is around 60%. Roughly two thirds of all SNAP recipients are either elderly, disabled or children (who alone account for 44% of the program). Of all federal assistance programs, SNAP also boasts one of the lower abuse rates at 6.3%, half of which is due to clerical error and not intentional misuse.
Furthermore, Representative Massie doesn't fall in line with the actual national stated stance on the Right to Food. Despite voting no in the March 2017 United Nations Council on Human Right’s vote over a Global Right to Food, the US Mission to Geneva stated:
"The United States supports the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living, including food, as recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Domestically, the United States pursues policies that promote access to food, and it is our objective to achieve a world where everyone has adequate access to food, but we do not treat the right to food as an enforceable obligation."
As per usual, the US as a country holds itself to the loftiest of ambitions, as long as no one is forcing us to do it...
So is #FoodStampsForAll the answer? No. Despite the hyperbole of Massie's assertion, he isn't wrong. The path to ending hunger in the US is far more complex than can be summed up in 140 characters. But within his statement lies the troubling truth. Though he represents a state that ranks 47th in overall poverty rate (18.5%) and 46th in food insecurity (17.3%), he believes he has more important things to do in Washington than to insure that 1 out of every 6 of his constituents have something to eat.
I don't have the room here to properly go through a solid plan to combat starvation in the US but below is a link to a 2015 report from the Food Research & Action Center that lays out a good starting framework.
http://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/plan-to-end-hunger-in-america.pdf
