My kids and I received SNAP from their births in 2003 and 2006 until 2021 when I finally found work that paid me enough that I didn’t need it. Just prior to transitioning off SNAP, I wrote the piece that appears below as one of many responses to the deep myths and stigmas attached to anyone who receives SNAP, Medicaid, or any other social safety nets. The thing that most frustrates me when I see these myths perpetuated is the deep lack of understanding about how and why it is that we need these programs and why they help all of us. The same people telling SNAP recipients to “get a job!” are often the people who don’t know or don’t care about how deeply corporations are subsidized and that those CEOs are the only ones reaping the benefits while their lowest paid workers are SNAP recipients. As states and food banks try to fill the giant hole left by the federal government’s unwillingness this month to ensure that people who are qualified for SNAP can continue to access food for their families, it’s important to reflect on the values, assumptions, and messages we receive about people who have the least resources. The U.S. remains an extraordinarily wealthy country—what does it say about us as a nation when we fail to care for hungry children, elders, and others?
When I gathered with a few other Missoula, Montana, residents to discuss community concerns last year, the conversation unexpectedly touched on the topic of SNAP. “My wife used to work at the health food store,” a community liaison with the police department said. “She used to tell me about all the people who used food stamps there.” His tone was dismissive. Clearly, he did not consider that I—or anyone else in the room—might be a SNAP recipient. He continued, “There’s a problem with the system when we’re supporting people to buy expensive food.”
How SNAP recipients choose to use this safety net has been a source of contention for decades. In the 1980s, food stamps could not be used to purchase imported foods—a list that included many common household food items such as bananas, coffee, and tea. Although it is now possible to buy bananas and coffee, SNAP does not allow recipients to buy many other essential non-food household items, such as medicine, diapers, or menstrual products.
SNAP cannot be used to purchase hot food, either, and many states are trying to place further restrictions on what food stamps can be used for. In 2019, Texas legislators proposed a bill to prevent people from using EBT cards to purchase energy drinks, soda and candy. On the flip side, in 2016, New York legislators proposed a bill that would prevent SNAP recipients from buying “luxury” food items like seafood and steak. Although these types of bills have not passed (due largely to pressure from industries that don’t want to lose SNAP dollars), the stigma around what low-income people should or shouldn’t buy is pervasive and often presents a double-bind.
This double-bind has followed me my whole life. I was born in 1981—the year Ronald Reagan took office. In the early 1980s, my parents relied on food stamps to feed our family. My mom recalls one particularly upsetting incident while she was grocery shopping in Taos, New Mexico, me and my sister in tow. She’d just handed her booklet of food stamps to the cashier. “Ronald Reagan was right about you people,” the cashier screamed at her.
President Reagan, in an effort to “crack down” on what he called welfare fraud, helped create the myth of the “welfare queen”—single mothers who drove expensive cars, wore expensive clothing, and purchased steaks with their food stamps. This view became pervasive and low-income mothers—especially Black mothers—were characterized as low-life moochers, living off tax dollars provided by hard-working Americans. In those days, my mom worked as an EMT and my dad bartended. No matter how hard they worked, their combined income was not enough to pay the bills.
As an adult, I am once again reliant on food stamps. I am a single mom to two kids living below the poverty line. I have not been able to secure full-time employment so I juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. Although my family also receives Medicaid, it does not cover all our healthcare costs. Prioritizing nutrition so we can stay healthy and avoid out-of-pocket health expenses is imperative. I purchase fresh fruit and vegetables at the health food store regularly—the same store the police officer and many others think I should not be able to visit.
At the farmers market in the summer of 2019, I was delighted to spot a stand selling roasted green chile. Montana is not known for chile and I often missed my New Mexico roots. The man at the booth urged me to try a sample. Although the chile didn’t quite taste the same, I decided to buy some. I reached into my pocket and felt for the wooden SNAP tokens I use at the farmers market. The chile farmer scowled when he saw the wooden tokens, each marked with $2 in blue ink. I winced and withdrew my hand a little.
“What am I going to do with those?” he said. The woman beside him told him it was the same as real money. He wasn’t listening. She handed me the bag of chile and took my tokens. As I walked away, I heard him ranting: “I can’t do anything with these!”
With his angry words trailing me I could hear the echoes of all the messages I’ve read and heard before: “Get a job,” “I don’t want to have to pay taxes to support you,” “People on welfare scam the system,” “If poor people weren’t so lazy they could get where I am,” “I worked hard for what I have and so should they.”
Monitoring what SNAP recipients eat only reinforces the myth that people who use safety nets are lazy and undeserving. I deserve to eat nutritious food and to use the safety net that SNAP provides in the way that makes sense for my family. Because we eat a lot of beans, I am able to budget for pricier health food store items. At the end of the day, food stamps allow me to make my kids stir fry, big salads, cherry pie, and so much more. I am doing my best to untangle the toxic messages I’ve internalized about my worth and what me and my kids deserve. We deserve to thrive.