Food Stamps Don’t Help National Wellbeing

No matter how much the government might give poor families, the official measure of poverty would remain unchanged

Letter to The WSJ. 

"Crystal FitzSimons’s letter “Fewer People on Food Stamps Isn’t Good News” (June 23) claims that SNAP lifts 3.6 million out of poverty. That is impossible because the Census Bureau refuses to count $1.6 trillion in government subsidies, including SNAP, as income. No matter how much the government might give poor families, the official measure of poverty would remain unchanged.

Ms. FitzSimons’s claim uses an experimental poverty measure that counts SNAP as income while omitting $1 trillion in other welfare, arbitrarily subtracts some spending, and capriciously raises the income defining poverty thresholds.

The $100 billion spent on SNAP in 2024 added nothing to national well-being. It merely redistributed it. If left with the original earners, it would either be consumed with the same effects, or it would be saved and invested, creating additional well-being, which it wouldn’t with SNAP.

While decrying the minimal adjustments to SNAP to prevent abuse, Ms. FitzSimons ignores the 60% of food stamp recipients who aren’t poor, even by the overstated Census metric.

John Early

Adjunct scholar, Cato Institute"