6 insights on the history of SNAP

SNAP or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, has been in the news lately as federal cuts and the recent federal government shutdown strained local food banks and pantries. 

Michael Morain, editor of dsm magazine and host of the Iowa Stops Hunger podcast, recently interviewed Pamela Riney-Kehrberg, distinguished professor of history at Iowa State University, on the history of SNAP for the latest podcast episode. The following are six takeaways from the conversation. 

SNAP has its origins in the Great Depression.

“Back then, it was called food stamps, and what was happening was that the United States was in the midst of the worst depression that it’s ever experienced. … 25% of the working population was unemployed,” Riney-Kehrberg said. “Another 25% was underemployed, meaning you needed a full-time job but you had a part-time job, or you were an engineer who was sweeping floors. [In the] late 1930s, the problem is still hanging around. The unemployment levels aren’t quite as bad, but they never go below 15% in the course of those 10 years, and they’re trying to figure out, ‘OK, how are we going to feed people?’ But it’s not just how are we going to feed people, it’s also, how are we going to deal with agricultural surpluses?”

Food stamps were created to deal with agricultural surpluses. 

“Another problem the United States had was that it could produce far more food than everybody could eat. But you’re in the midst of a depression. People don’t have money in their pockets to buy food, and so people in the United States Department of Agriculture begin thinking about this problem and come up with the idea of food stamps. And it was complicated. It’s not the same as getting a little EBT card. … In that era, you got stamps, actual stamps and what you did was you purchased stamps that represented the amount of food you would normally eat, and then for every dollar’s worth of stamps you purchased, you got additional stamps that allowed you to buy food products. They were exchanged for food products that were in surplus. It was meant to feed hungry people, but also to reduce the amount of agricultural surplus … and the idea was it would raise your diet to basically the minimally required amount of nutrients and calories to get your family through the week.

It was difficult to get people enrolled in food stamps because you needed money up front.

“The problem is that a lot of the poorest of the poor didn’t have the money up front to buy the stamps, or they didn’t understand how the program was supposed to work, so it was pretty difficult to get people enrolled. At the height of the program, there’s about 4 million people involved, and it runs from 1939 to 1943, but the war more or less eliminates the need for all of this, because there is such wide employment, and so much more money in the economy, and so the program goes away to be resurrected later.”

Food stamps came back during the ’60s and the War on Poverty. 

“It comes back because of President Johnson … he is deeply committed to poverty-fighting programs, and in fact, one of the centerpieces of his administration is the War on Poverty. And what bothers him is the idea of extreme poverty coexisting with the really significant economic development and really successful economy of the 1950s and 1960s. He says, ‘We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to introduce programs that are going to get these people out of the dire poverty they’re in.’ And so he goes to the USDA, and Orville Freeman, at this point, is heading the USDA, and he says, ‘What can we do?’ And food stamps come back, and this time, it is basically the same program as they’d had previously. You pay a certain amount of money up front, representing what you can afford for groceries, and then they top you off. And the idea is that you will use the top-off money to buy products that are in surplus and to make it possible for you to have a nutritionally adequate diet, and they do not eliminate the stamps until they go to the EBT cards.”

It was a ‘long and bumpy process’ to get states to implement food stamps. 

“There are a number of Southern states that are in the middle of desegregation battles that really don’t want to encourage African American families to stay put. Those Southern states resist implementing any kind of food stamp programs because they think that that will anchor them in the South, and they want African American migration out of the South, so it’s a bit of an uneven program. Finally, the USDA is going to say, ‘Nope, you can’t do this. You have to implement this program.’ But it is a long and bumpy process.”

SNAP today has new restrictions.

“A lot of students don’t know that a very large percentage of the people who get this aid are elderly, are disabled, are single moms who aren’t getting their checks for child support, and I think a lot of them just don’t know how big the program is. We’ll be talking in a couple of weeks about what’s happening with rules surrounding food stamps. Right now they are state-by-state, disallowing certain items that have been allowed before. In Iowa, you won’t be allowed to buy any taxed groceries. You will not be allowed to buy candy. You will not be allowed to buy pop. On the one hand, nutritionally, that certainly makes sense, but on the other hand does [a] small child whose family is on SNAP deserve to have a treat for their birthday? And that’s a question that I would like my students to think about.”