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The Political Spin

Last week, Chuck Schumer invoked “hungry children,” calling Trump “a vindictive politician and a heartless man” for refusing to fund SNAP during the shutdown. This week, a federal judge agreed.
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I took it as classic Schumer—moral outrage as political theater. I started digging, certain the facts would reveal a runaway program defended with emotion rather than evidence—my greatest pet peeve.
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Indeed, the numbers told a familiar story. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, began in 1939 as a Depression-era experiment. It ended when full employment returned during World War II, as temporary measures are supposed to. Kennedy revived it in 1961. LBJ made it permanent in 1964, creating a structure in which Washington paid the benefits while states decided who got them. The design baked in a perverse incentive: states could expand eligibility indefinitely to score political points while federal taxpayers picked up the tab.
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Carter’s 1977 reforms eliminated the “purchase requirement,” removing a small barrier that had discouraged casual enrollment. Participation soared to 17 million. After the 2008 recession, Obama encouraged states to exploit broad-based categorical eligibility—waivers that ignored income and asset limits entirely. By 2013, enrollment had peaked at nearly 48 million. COVID then blew the doors open: work rules suspended, benefits raised 15 percent, and “temporary” expansions extended repeatedly.
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At its height, the program covered more than 50 million people. Today, even after pandemic measures expired, about 42 million Americans—1 in 8—still rely on it every month.
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Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”, passed earlier this year, was designed to impose restraint. It extended work requirements to age 64, required parents of older teens to work or train, and—most consequentially—made states share costs if their error rates exceed 6%. For the first time, states have a financial reason to verify eligibility. That seemed to confirm my premise: emergency had calcified into entitlement.
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​But when I started looking deeper, that storyline began to crack…
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The American Reality

The overwhelming picture wasn’t of freeloaders gaming the system. It was of working people who simply can’t keep up. According to the USDA, one in five American children now live in households receiving food aid. The typical beneficiary isn’t unemployed; they’re a cashier, delivery driver, or home-health aide whose wages vanished under rent, childcare, and grocery bills that have risen more than 20% since 2020.
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It’s fair to question whether households earning up to 200% of the federal poverty line should qualify for federal taxpayer-funded groceries. But that question becomes less clear once you understand how the poverty line is drawn. The formula dates to the 1960s, when food consumed one-third of a family’s budget. Today it’s closer to one-sixth. The measure now undercounts real need by roughly a factor of two. A family that seems stable on paper can be one rent hike away from hunger.
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Which makes another question fair game: why were $230 billion in food benefits over the next decade cut to fund over $4 trillion in tax cuts?
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That realization reshaped the story. Yes, states once had no incentive to police eligibility. Yes, loopholes occasionally let the asset-wealthy slip through, and yes, ever-expanding Obamacare premium subsidies still deserve scrutiny. But the real question isn’t whether SNAP grew too generous. It’s why one in five children in the richest nation on earth depend on it to eat.
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That’s the story that needs to be written.
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So forgive the shortened essay this week. Late last night, I scrapped the piece I’d started. Another story emerged—one that will take time to tell, and great care to get right.

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