On Sept. 8 we held an hour-long live event to launch our new report on the need to bolster the social safety net, titled, "Fighting Poverty with SNAP: Reassessing the Tool Kit for a Unified Movement for Economic Justice." Download the report here.
Transcript
Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's event. My name is Miriam Magaña Lopez, and I'm going to be moderating today's event.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
I work at the Othering & Belonging Institute, and I'm pleased to announce the release of a new policy report on the need to transform the food stamps program, SNAP, into a fully-fledged anti-poverty program. The project and report was produced by two of my colleagues, Elsadig Elsheikh and Hossein Ayazi, who I'll introduce in just a moment.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Before we begin, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge and thank the co-sponsors of this event. They include Nourish California, the Berkeley Food Institute, the California Immigrant Policy Center, the Goldman School of Public Policy, One Fair Wage, Urban Tilth, and the Alameda Community Food Bank.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
We have four wonderful speakers today, and I think that you're all in for a real treat. I know that I'm personally excited to be part of this conversation because growing up in a low-income household, I've personally benefited from SNAP, and know how important it is as a safety net for families who need support.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
And of course, we know that SNAP has kept millions of Americans out of poverty. We will first have two speakers, Hossein Ayazi and Elsadig Elsheikh, and then we'll introduce the two other speakers. So the first speaker is Hossein Ayazi, who is a project policy analyst with the Global Justice Program at the Othering & Belonging Institute. He is also a visiting professor in the American Studies Program at Williams College. A few areas of his research in teaching include natural resource governance, U.S. racial capitalism, and global migration.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Our next speaker is Elsadig Elsheikh who is the Global Justice Program Director at the Othering & Belonging Institute. His research focuses on the themes and sociopolitical dynamics related to neoliberalism, nation-state and citizenship, and structural mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
We have two other speakers who will speak next, but I'll take a moment to introduce them as well. After these two speakers, we'll have Hilary Hoynes, who's a professor of economics and public policy at UC Berkeley. She holds the Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities at UC Berkeley, where she also co-directs the Berkeley Opportunity Lab. Her research focuses on poverty, inequality, and food nutrition ... food and nutrition programs, rather, and the impacts of government tax and transfer programs on low-income families.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Our last speaker will be Betzabel Estudillo who is a senior advocate at Nourish California. She oversees the organization's Food For All campaign to increase food access among immigrant Californians. Betzabel also works to ensure student access to school meals and increased immigrant participation in the special supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children, commonly known as WIC.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Each of our speakers will have about seven minutes to speak, and then we'll dedicate the second half of the hour to questions. As you listen to speakers, feel free to add any questions in the Comments box. At the end, we'll do our best to answer as many questions as possible.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
With that being said, Hossein and Elsadig will get us started by first presenting their anti-poverty framework.Hossein Ayazi:
Hello, everyone. First, I'd like to say thank you to all my colleagues and my panelists here, my co-panelists here. I'm grateful to have this report released framed in part by our conversation here today.Hossein Ayazi:
First, I'll say a few words about what's already clear to many of us. First, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, is the largest federal program aimed at combating hunger and food insecurity among low-income Americans. As an entitlement program, which means that anyone who qualifies under the program can receive benefits, SNAP has been incredibly effective at both improving health outcomes and lifting people out of poverty.Hossein Ayazi:
For example, in 2016, SNAP kept about 7.3 million people out of poverty, including 3.3 million children. And SNAP is the second largest anti-poverty program for children in the United States. I'll quickly just gesture toward the work of my co-panelist here, Professor Hilary Hoynes, which has been indispensable with regard to accounting for some of the health outcomes of SNAP.Hossein Ayazi:
At the same time, SNAP is also plagued with multiple issues that we interrogate throughout the report as we propose and highlight some forward-looking responses. In the few minutes that I have, I'll go into one of those sets of issues very briefly.Hossein Ayazi:
But first, since I've been tasked with getting us started here today, I want to highlight how within and beyond this report, the focus on SNAP belabors two things in particular. First, the focus on SNAP makes clear that interrogating local and national food systems, governance, and investment is an incisive and effective approach to understanding the institutions, discourses, and practices of modern U.S. racial capitalism and colonialism and the labor capital and land-based struggles through which they've developed.Hossein Ayazi:
This is essentially a pillar of the work of the Global Justice Program at the Othering & Belonging Institute, so that's one of the places from which we'll be speaking today.Hossein Ayazi:
Second, the focus on SNAP also, I think, speaks to what I see many of us as a kind of projects that we see ourselves as a part of, especially in light of this past year-plus of social, economic, and political turmoil.Hossein Ayazi:
Specifically, the focus on SNAP offers a clear reminder of how the projects of dismantling the carceral states, contesting the super-exploitation of black and brown workers, and so on are also just as much about imagining and building a new sustainable infrastructure of community care and self-determination.Hossein Ayazi:
In other words, programs such as SNAP can then be touchstones for abolitionist work, for reparations and economic justice work, for environmental justice work, and so on. Because programs and support such as SNAP are among those that are under attack as part of what Ruth Wilson Gilmore has termed the organized abandonment of vulnerable communities.Hossein Ayazi:
Organized abandonment that has resulted in, among other things, mass incarceration, but also austerity, outsourcing, unemployment, and environmental degradation. And thus, this focus on SNAP highlights how such struggles are always class struggles, not just nutrition struggles, but intertwined with them.Hossein Ayazi:
That said, I'll highlight one route that such attacks follow and one such way that we can envision new forms of community care and resourcing. The focus is that of work requirements. So I'll just say a little bit about that.Hossein Ayazi:
So what is a work requirement for such programs? According to the Congressional Research Service, the purpose of work restrictions or requirements for such programs is to "offset work disincentives and social assistance programs, promote a culture of work over dependency, and prioritize government resources."Hossein Ayazi:
Yet, the notion that work requirements prevented dependency on government assistance programs hinges on anti-poor and racist stereotypes. Stereotypes that readily blame poor and racialized communities for their social and economic conditions say because of the culture of poverty they have adopted and won't relinquish.Hossein Ayazi:
Unsurprisingly, there are some major issues with this that compromise the well-being of SNAP recipients, potential recipients, and the effectiveness and existence of SNAP itself. First, such restrictions actually ignore reality. In short, the problem with work requirements is that a stable living wage is difficult to attain. And that the low-paying and part-time jobs that such work requirements force people into are usually unstable, to begin with.Hossein Ayazi:
Second, such stereotypes and erroneous beliefs lend themselves to attacks on SNAP itself. Be it block granting and other supposed efforts to improve efficiency and productivity in such programs. For example, proponents generally assert that shifting from federal management to block grants administered at the state or local level reduces federal responsibility for priority setting and oversight. But the facts say otherwise.Hossein Ayazi:
Since 2000, overall funding for the 13 major housing, health, and social services block grant programs in the federal budget have fallen by 37%, after adjusting for inflation and population growth. We can trace these histories by holding together at once Reagan-era, anti-black epithets like the welfare queen, alongside the decades-long push for "welfare reform."Hossein Ayazi:
The 1996 Farm Bill, for example, which took shape under Clinton, represents the culmination of neoliberal-oriented public assistance reform that ramped up in the early 1980s and marked the ongoing reallocation of tax dollars from public support programs to institutions and industries that profit off of immiseration.Hossein Ayazi:
For example, and perhaps outside the purview of this conversation, but illustrative of my point here, the first public infrastructural accomplishments in post-Katrina New Orleans was to convert the city's Greyhound Station into a jail. How can we see decisions like these as emblematic of the issues that we're grappling with today?Hossein Ayazi:
Collectively, therefore, we have a sense of how such attacks on pillars of the social safety net, in fact, reinforce exposure to prison, poverty, and premature death for non-wealthy people who must work to live, and that such exposure to prison, poverty, and premature death is highly racialized.Hossein Ayazi:
Now again, the task isn't just defending against such attacks, but imagining and building a new sustainable infrastructure of community care and self-determination. Thank you.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
I think you're muted.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Hello, everybody. Thank you, Miriam, and thank you, Marc, for the tremendous work behind the scenes and for my co-panelists. But particularly, I want to give a shout-out to Professor Hilary, which her work was very inspiring for us throughout the process. Also, appreciation for the co-sponsor of the event.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Let me start by saying that social safety net programs because we're going to use the jargon or the terms, mean different things to different people. There is no one unified definition of what's mean social safety net programs.Elsadig Elsheikh:
But when we speak here of social safety net, we mean programs that attend to the well-being of children, your mothers, people with disabilities, injured workers, unemployment, and retirement.Elsadig Elsheikh:
And then let me offer just four general points as context and framework for our work. First, I will start by saying our vision for a more just and equitable future stem from the notion ... from the nation obligation to ensure the well-being of its people, and that any community is no longer stigmatized or dehumanized because of poverty-related social ills.Elsadig Elsheikh:
And policymakers take seriously this obligation, even beyond the moment of crisis like the one we are experiencing right now for the last couple of years. So this vision demands, at the very least, a safety net for all people living within the country in order to bridge racial and economic divides. Also, this vision demands developing a comprehensive national safety net involve reassessing and strengthening existing social support programs and not limited to those that explicitly aim to tackle symptoms of poverty.Elsadig Elsheikh:
We know that safety net programs boost economic mobility, making poor children more likely to graduate from high school, attend college, and enter the middle class. We also know that poverty cost the U.S. economy more than $500 billion every year, which is a result of low productivity, poor health, and high levels of crimes and incarcerations.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So, given the relationship between economic hardship and putting food on the table, the SNAP is a part of the social safety net programs that target to reduce poverty but also offer an important opportunity to develop even wider safety net national programs.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Of course, to make this vision a reality, it will require us to shift our thinking on public discourse from resource scarcity to rearrange our national priorities. And that include serious unpopular or debate on federal budget and national priorities.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Second, the United States is the only country among its peers that it does not have a comprehensive national safety net programs that aim to reduce poverty. In most of industrialized developed countries, social protection program or safety nets are common programs created to prevent poverty, reduce social and economic inequality, and provide access to healthcare and education. In all these nations, there is a vast range in the table an amount of social protection offered.Elsadig Elsheikh:
The United States, the world's largest economy, provide far fewer social protection than other developed nations, yet allocate more than 50% of its federal discretionary spending for the military. And yet, in our country, we still have policy makers who argue that anti-poverty program reduce labor force participation by discouraging work or dooming program participants to a life of poverty.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So, the question becomes how public demands to prevent poverty reduce social and economic inequality, and provide access to healthcare, education must be articulated in order to push for policy transformation.Elsadig Elsheikh:
In most places, such demand achieved through building a unified wide front and movement that made constant demand for transformation at the local and national levels and not by focusing on these mere reform but to demand to place the issues related to poverty and structural and racial equity at the heart of the main political party's agendas.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Third, I would say that there are many strategies and lessons to strengthen SNAP. We can inform the development of an even more effective social safety nets such as making the case for guaranteed employment and universal basic income. Of course, ultimately, universal basic income would provide an unconditional and guaranteed income that would meet basic human needs while providing a floor for economic security. Not only would such program effectively eliminate absolute poverty, but it would also amend the historic effects of structural racism including decades of housing policies, discrimination, discriminatory hiring, unemployment practice, segregation, selective immigration laws, and other circumstances that have left countless community unable to secure living wages, home, or a car ownership and other social assets.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Fourth and finally, in the context of SNAP and food security in United States, economic justice for us writing this report require fundamental shift of the ways in which we think and do business. For example, rearrange our national priorities and federal spending including rethinking notion of national security must be centered to human security instead of militarization, which include treating housing, health, education, and food as the fundamental human rights issues guaranteed for all those who live and work in the United States.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Also, the necessity of targeted policy to uplift the burden of economic inequality of communities of color and the poor, and in particular, frontline workers including food system workers.Elsadig Elsheikh:
And finally, I would say that as innovation is warranted to overcome the challenges we are facing, particularly, the climate crisis. However, we need to make sure that racial and economic equity are essential part of any innovation concerning the technology sector and the climate resilience strategies.Elsadig Elsheikh:
I will stop here and would love to hear the rest of the panelists. Thank you.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Thank you so much for that introduction, and we will next have Hilary and Betzabel hop up and introduce their work as well.Hilary Hoynes:
Thank you so much. It's such a delight to be here and I want to thank the Othering & Belonging Institute, in particularly, Hossein and Elsadig, for doing this incredibly important work on the nation's SNAP program. And I know that in our conversation, we may move beyond talking about SNAP, but I thought in my introductory comments I would come back to sort of thinking about the core of the report, which is about the SNAP program.Hilary Hoynes:
So, I would like to make three comments and then maybe seed some ideas for future conversation in our panel discussion. The first is to just reiterate the importance and central nature of the SNAP program as part of our anti-poverty landscape in the United States.Hilary Hoynes:
So for children, as was already stated, SNAP is the second largest anti-poverty program in America for children. So, the tax credits lift the most children out of poverty, and after that comes the SNAP program or what we know in California as CalFresh.Hilary Hoynes:
If you look at deep poverty, which is whether a family has income below 50% of the poverty line, here is where the SNAP program really pulls its weight and it's the largest anti-poverty program for deep poverty for children in America. We also know that SNAP was also very important for the population at large, but it's particularly so when we look at anti-poverty for children.Hilary Hoynes:
And so the question is, you know, why. What is it about SNAP that makes it so important for reducing poverty in America? And I think there are three things about it.Hilary Hoynes:
One is that it is, as I like to say, the closest thing to a universal safety net as we have in America. There, if you're poor with some important exceptions, that I think we'll talk about, you're eligible for SNAP. And that is not true of most other aspects of our safety net. You know, the tax credit are targeted at families with children, the disability programs condition on disability status. SNAP is the universal safety net in America.Hilary Hoynes:
Number two and importantly, benefits are adjusted year on year for changes in prices. It's imperfect. Maybe we'll talk about with the thrifty food plan any updates, but a lot of elements of our safety net don't change automatically with prices. Maybe, think about minimum wages and how minimum wages aren't just adjusted with changes in the costs or wages in the economy.Hilary Hoynes:
The third thing is that food stamps is very flexible. Everybody needs to purchase food, and with food stamps, we can go to basically any place where food is sold and we can buy basically any food in the store. So, it's very flexible. It's universal and the benefits of jobs. And I think that's the reason why it's so central in anti-poverty policy in America. So, that's the first point.Hilary Hoynes:
The second point is we have got an enormous amount of research that shows that SNAP is extremely effective at reducing food insecurity and also in improving health for children and families. And perhaps most importantly, there's growing evidence that children having access to SNAP, particularly in early childhood, leads to changes in their life trajectory. So, with some work that I've done, we find that if children have access to food stamps, particularly before they're around age four or five, they are more likely to graduate high school, attend college, have higher earnings, be homeowners, live in a higher, more thriving neighborhood, have higher rates of life expectancy. If they're African-American, men are less likely to be incarcerated. And so, a very wide range of beneficial outcomes and so much so that I'd like to give the tagline of the social safety net is an investment. So as a society, if we spend more today, it's going to partially, and in some cases, fully pay us back in the future through the profound impact on the life experience, particularly when we think about children.Hilary Hoynes:
So that's the second point is we're not just reducing food insecurity today, we're having this incredible impact on a wide range of outcomes in the short and in the long-term.Hilary Hoynes:
And the third point that is particularly relevant to today and COVID economic crisis is the importance of SNAP as an automatic stabilizers. So, what does that mean? Many aspects of our safety net are capped, block granted or capped entitlements. SNAP is not. SNAP is what we call an open-ended entitlement, which means that when incomes fall, like in the recession, when people lose jobs and demand for food stamps goes up, for SNAP, we are going to meet that demand in an open-ended way. And we know that that has profound impacts on both ensuring households against the challenges of income shortfalls, but it also has a quite profound macroeconomic impact in terms of how it affects aggregate demand and helps sort of bring us out of a recession.Hilary Hoynes:
So, it's a very important automatic stabilizer and we know that during the COVID economic crisis, on top of the automatic stabilizer, Congress and the Biden administration have implemented some targeted expansions to the SNAP program that increased SNAP benefits to those who are receiving SNAP. And we know that those kinds of policies are very effective, very targeted on the low-income population, and very effective at combating challenges that occur during recessions.Hilary Hoynes:
And I just want to point out that today, the USDA released its annual report on food insecurity in America. So we got our first report on food insecurity for 2020. And quite remarkably and a testament to the importance of the policies that were implemented during the COVID crisis, we saw that the national number of food insecurity between 2019 and 2020 stayed relatively flat. Although, it went up for groups such as families with children, for black families, and for a couple of other important subgroups. So, it's not a 100% rosy scenario, but I think what it tells us is that we know the policies that can work.Hilary Hoynes:
And so, let me just say before passing it on to Betzabel that despite all these good things about SNAP, which I just articulated, there are very concrete ways that we can do more. And so, perhaps during the panel group discussion, we can talk about the importance of updating benefits, encouraging more universality or complete universality, as well as ways that we can increase take up by reducing administrative barriers.Hilary Hoynes:
So, thanks very much and I look forward to the conversation.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Hilary for sharing your work. And our last speaker is going to be Betzabel, who again, works for Nourish California, and she'll be talking about how these policies impact the communities that she works with, which is mainly immigrants in California.Betzabel Estudillo:
Okay, thank you so much, Miriam, and thanks to the Othering & Belonging Institute team for inviting me to join this very important conversation. I'm actually really, really passionate about access to nutrition programs and SNAP, CalFresh as is known in California. As Miriam was mentioning, I work for Nourish California, which is a state-wide nonprofit organization working on anti-hunger issues. My specific work is working on immigrant access to nutrition programs. So, as Hilary was mentioning, you know, there's still a lot of work that can be done to improve our SNAP program, and that's actually one of the issues that I work on.Betzabel Estudillo:
So, to begin, I just want to say how important it is to recognize how COVID-19, the pandemic, and the resulting economic crisis, but also the fires and your help, had an impact on immigrant communities. They've been among the hardest hit. And you know, you definitely have seen that in our state. Our immigrant communities are working essential jobs, they contribute around $3.2 in tax revenue for our state, and undocumented immigrants and other lawfully present immigrants are excluded from CalFresh or our state-funded program called the California Food Assistance Program.Betzabel Estudillo:
You know, the reason that some of these immigrants are excluded from CalFresh and CFAP is due to federal law that excludes a number of immigrants. But in our state, you know, we've taken steps to ensure that individuals, immigrant individuals are included and have some form of assistance.Betzabel Estudillo:
I will say that immigrant in California has also experienced food insecurity at high rates, they're overrepresented in low-wage work and they have higher rates, like I mentioned, than the U.S.-born counterparts. But they also have lower rates of participation in SNAP. In fact, eligible immigrants participate about 70% of the rate of people born in the U.S. And the reason for that is, as I was mentioning there, the CalFresh is the only program with immigrant base eligibility restrictions which really limits our reach of our program. One example of that is that it impacts eligible children in noncitizen households. There are eligible children who are U.S. citizens or who have lawful status that makes them eligible for CalFresh, but because their parents are not eligible for assistance due to their immigration status, their children are less likely to participate. And this has a huge impact on our children.Betzabel Estudillo:
And this is why we, in 2021, earlier this year, we launched our Food for All campaign. Essentially, our campaign looks to modernize the California Food Assistance Program, which again, it is a state-funded nutrition program in California that works under the umbrella of CalFresh. And we're looking to essentially expand this program to include all immigrants, regardless of immigration status, so that they can access this program. And hopefully, this will also help increase participation of eligible children as well.Betzabel Estudillo:
This year, we introduced SB-464 which is offered by Senator Hurtado, and we also moved a budget proposal. We are very excited that we made a lot of ... We've had a lot of success with the campaign. In fact, we have a budget investment to create the infrastructure to be able to expand our CFAP program to other immigrants. So you know, we're creating the automation and the process for making that possible. And in 2022, we will be continuing to advocate and move the actual expansion so that those immigrants that are currently not eligible for CalFresh or CFAP are able to access the program.Betzabel Estudillo:
We're very excited. We work with a very diverse coalition of partners. Our co-sponsors are the California Policy Center and we have a very robust coalition of, probably, 50 more organizations representing anti-hunger, anti-poverty, immigrant rights, and health care organizations. And we are very excited to be able to expand our CFAP program in 2022 so that more immigrants can have access to nutrition benefits.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Wonderful. Thank you all so much for giving that lovely introduction. We learned of all the positive things that SNAP has done such as helping keep families out of poverty and improving the long-term incomes. And of course, some of the limitations such as the employment rule that you have to be employed to access this and then, of course, undocumented people are unable to access this program.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
So, I think it's a wonderful introduction and I appreciate your sharing your perspectives. We're now going to be moving on to some questions, and I have a few that I have outlined. And then, as possible, we're also going to be answering questions from the audience, so keep adding those questions there.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
You've all mentioned how great of a program SNAP is while noting some of the limitations. The report specifically spoke about how the possibility of SNAP to becoming an even better program, to become a full-fledged anti-poverty program that focuses on addressing the root of hunger rather than just giving people food. What changes need to happen for SNAP to be considered a full-fledged anti-poverty program and what are the barriers to getting there? And any of you feel free to speak to this.Betzabel Estudillo:
Well, I'm happy to jump on since I mentioned the specific issue, policy issue that actually can be resolved which is, you know, unfortunately, there's a number of immigrants including undocumented immigrants, DACA recipients, temporary protective status immigrants, and other lawfully present immigrants who are currently excluded from SNAP and CalFresh.Betzabel Estudillo:
And you know, they were adjusting it, excluded during what we know, work for reform. In our state, we've made policy changes to be able to include other immigrants such as immigrants who have legal permanent residence or what we call five-year bar. And they are able to access the California Food Assistance Program, but we think we can do more. And we think we can make this program, again, under the umbrella of CalFresh, more inclusive to making sure that other immigrants have access to nutrition benefits.Betzabel Estudillo:
You know, our CalFresh program is one of the most powerful anti-hunger programs in our state, and I know that's the case nationwide as well, as Hilary was mentioning. This not only gives families the ability to purchase food, but it also includes health outcomes, educational outcomes, and particularly, for our immigrant families who have been hit the hardest during this pandemic, this access to benefit programs goes a long way.Betzabel Estudillo:
One of those examples I will give when ... I know we're talking about SNAP, but this is related. So we had a pandemic EBT, which was a program that was provided to young children who are eligible for free or reduced-price school meals were given a card ... were given a benefit. Because of their school closures, they weren't able to access school meals, so they were given a card that looked like an EBT card, and the families were able to purchase food whenever they wanted to and however they wanted to. The real benefit of this card is that because the card was given to families, the families we're able to have the flexibility to purchase food, not just for the children but for the family as a whole. And we had a lot of positive response from American families who really enjoyed that benefit. They felt very comfortable purchasing and felt very included. And so we feel that the more inclusive we make our nutrition program, specifically CalFresh, the better outcomes not just for families but for children as well. So that's what we're trying to do with our Food for All campaign, is really to remove those exclusions that don't really make sense.Betzabel Estudillo:
Our immigrant communities are contributing to economy. They literally are the folks that were on the front lines, that have been on the front lines helping us stay safe and healthy and fed. And so, I think that we have to be able to remove this immigrant exclusion from CalFresh.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Thank you so much for speaking specifically to immigrant communities. And I wonder, Elsadig, if you can also speak to this question and outlining some of the recommendations in your report to transform SNAP into a fully-fledged anti-poverty program.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Sure. Thank you, Miriam. I think one of the things that we keep thinking about it ... First, let me situate this for those who might know or don't. It's not always situated within the farm bill.Elsadig Elsheikh:
In our work, in the farm bill and in this report, we found that there is number of structural barriers to addressing racial, ethnic, gender, and economic inequities. And I will speak a little bit about the farm bill itself and how that impacts also the SNAP and the future of SNAP and the attack that Hossein mentioned in the beginning.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So, first is the farm bill itself is increasingly arranged to function as a pillar of societal structural barriers that generate by new-liberal policy in United States since the '80s.Elsadig Elsheikh:
For example, the long-term shift from subsidization of production and consumption to the subsidy for agribusiness has structurally positioned low-income communities and communities of color at the losing end of this equation.Elsadig Elsheikh:
So, this population, low-income communities and communities of color, has also been given fewer options for resources. Even the ways in which the farm bill have been designed to be more insulated from democratic influence, particularly by the way of countless layoffs of congressional committees.Elsadig Elsheikh:
The other thing is under the current farm bill, supporting public nutrition assistance programs and fighting poverty and racial and ethnic inequality became very antithetical to each other. Despite the evidence that suggests otherwise, specifically while such programs, public assistance programs, do provide support to some of the most marginalized communities, they ultimately maintain structural inequity, particularly in terms of wealth.Elsadig Elsheikh:
For example, by channeling profits to corporations such as Walmart, for example, and other large retailers and banks which benefit greatly from distribution benefits such as that of SNAP. Many of those corporations are then able to follow those profits back to their own corporate headquarters, which is take us to the fundamental aspect of when we think about SNAP as a booster for local economies.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Finally, just to give a quick example in the relationship ... Or I can stop here. I will talk about the relationship between corporation and access to food later on. Thank you.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Thank you so much.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Next question is for you, Hossein. I know while you were working on your report, one of your policy recommendations was to update the thrifty food plan, which is used to determine the amount of SNAP benefits that people get. Like, how much money they're getting per month. Before last month, they hadn't been updated in over 45 years. And just like I mentioned last month, the federal government announced that it's finally going to be updated to reflect inflation and changes of diet. Can you tell us a little bit about this change and if it satisfies in part where you're calling for in your report?Hossein Ayazi:
That's a great question and it speaks to the Betzabel's point about determiners of SNAP benefits that don't quite make sense. So, I think first, it's important to know what's not within the scope of the thrifty food plan.Hossein Ayazi:
So, policies governing the administration of SNAP such as SNAP eligibility requirements, allowable purchases for how the SNAP benefit considers income and deductions in the calculation. These are not within the scope of the thrifty food plan. Rather, the thrifty food plan is an outline for the cheapest nutritious diet possible for a family to live on. So, the USDA defines the TFP, the thrifty food plan, as the core national standard for a nutritious diet at a minimal cost. And like you mentioned, the issues that the TFP was first introduced in 1975 and its value was only recently updated for 2021 to adjust for inflation, cost of food, and changes in diet.Hossein Ayazi:
So, since SNAP benefits are calculated based on the TFP, they had long fallen short of what many families need to buy and prepare healthy meals. And additionally, all previous updates to the thrifty food plan were held to a cost-neutral solution to confirm whether the previous cost adjusted for food price inflation, allowed for the purchase of a nutritious diet.Hossein Ayazi:
Therefore, while the cost of the previous thrifty food plans accounted for inflation of food prices over time, the real value of the food plan remained constant. And so, as you mentioned, Miriam, that changed.Hossein Ayazi:
In the 2018 bipartisan farm bill and after much public pressure, Congress mandated that the USDA needs to reevaluate and reform the thrifty food plan. And on August 16th, 2021, the USDA fulfilled that directive and released a reevaluation of the thrifty food plan.Hossein Ayazi:
So in short, to answer your question, yes, the change satisfies in part what you're calling for. So, as a result come October 2021, the maximum benefit levels and SNAP will be based on the market-based costs of the 2021 thrifty food plan. And the result is pretty massive right ... The result will be an increase of 21% in the maximum SNAP benefits over the pre-pandemic amount.Hossein Ayazi:
And when we think about this in the context of the pandemic and the benefits afforded to people as a result of like the federal and state responses that because 21% increase will go into effect at the same time as the temporary 15% boost and benefits provided under the American Rescue Plan Act, which expires at the end of September, at the end of this month, that the actual increase that program participants will be smaller right after this kind of part expires. But yeah, I hope that clarifies the thrifty food plan piece. And yeah, it really was fortuitous timing for just the U.S. population as a whole this happened.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Yeah, I'm going to happen, but I can't believe it took 45 years for a change to be made.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Hilary, I have next question's for you. There was a period when we saw a regression in social net programs driven by the notion of the undeserving poor during the Reagan era, which carried over to the Clinton years and culminated in the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. Do you think that the political climate and public perceptions have changed since then in a way that would open the door for a more humane and ethical approach to taking care of those most in need such as the examples that we've illustrated or maybe more?Hilary Hoynes:
Jeez, I hope so.Hilary Hoynes:
You know, it's very important to say that over the history of supporting the poor in the United States, there has always been a othering of those that are receiving benefits. And it has been massively related to and connected to racism in America.Hilary Hoynes:
So, the perceptions about who will receive these benefits, who is deserving is 100% tied up with race in America. So, I don't think I have anything very profound to say about that, but here's something that I think might be ... It's a little bit ... It may be optimistic, but here's how I see the situation as possibly changing.Hilary Hoynes:
One quite notable thing of the response that took place to the COVID public health and economic crisis that is somewhat different than what we've done in prior recessions is that the nature of some of the interventions were more universal and less targeted.Hilary Hoynes:
Now, SNAP might not be the best example of that because SNAP is a targeted program. You know, if your income is above the poverty line, you're not eligible, and the American rescue plan didn't change that. But there was a lot of conversation around the fact that the stimulus payments, the checks, the relief checks, were not only targeted at A. either those who lost jobs, or B. those who had quite low-income. And possibly, even more important than that and certainly more important than that, for one, poverty in America, two, the well-being of children, and three, possibly laying the groundwork for a universal basic income is the fact that the American rescue plan included for one year, an expansion of the child tax credit, which in and of itself, in one policy, is predicted to reduce child poverty by 40%, which would be more than anything that America has ever done with one policy in the history of our nation and our policies.Hilary Hoynes:
And so, right now, where that sits is we have this child tax credit, which essentially gives a universal basic income life benefit that you get if you don't work and you get if you work, which we've never done in the United States in a permanent program. That's the first thing.Hilary Hoynes:
And the second thing is the size of that tax credit doesn't change. You get $300 a month if your child was over six, or $360 if your child is under six. And until your income is well into the $100,000 range, that benefit is unchanged. And so, what does that mean? It means that were doing anti-poverty policy whilst building a program that is more universal. And I think the real question is number one, will this make its way into the reconciliation bill for more permanent funding. And if so, does that help to break this pattern of having targeted benefits, the othering that goes along with that, and the disinvestment in them because of that undeserving-ness that they're tagged with? And so, think about that in contrast to social security, which from the beginning, was built as a program for everybody, high income, low-income. And what the kind of societal perception is of social security and how different that is than programs for the low-income.Hilary Hoynes:
So, I'm feeling a little bit, maybe, optimistic isn't the right word, but more optimistic than I felt two years ago. I do think that this is something profoundly different, that if we get in place with both the just transformative for those families, but also would be the beginning of something that could allow us to rethink what our social safety net should be.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Thank you for sharing that optimism, and I hope that you're right, and that we do move in that direction. And I think having reports, such as this one, that was published just today is important in changing the narrative and changing the way that we rethink about safety net programs.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
We have a question from the audience which is around increasing stores that accept SNAP. And so, I wonder ...Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Oh, okay. Here's the question. We have 99.9 rate of SNAP sign up by those who are eligible. However, SNAP provides less desired in farmer markets even more. Can you speak to any particular successes in expanding providers? And I wonder, maybe, Betzabel, you can speak to this because I know that there are multiple types of stores that provide food, specifically thinking about immigrant communities that maybe don't accept SNAP or just also thinking about farmer's markets.Betzabel Estudillo:
Yeah, happy to. I think that piece around farmer's market has been really great opportunity for CalFresh recipients, and specifically for immigrant communities. At least, in California, there has been a lot more sites, whether it's farmer's markets, whether those are schools or churches or places of worship, and that have made it more accessible to purchase fresh produce and other things that can be used with their EBT card. It's just been such a huge success. And we see a lot positive comments from participants. You know, especially now during COVID where I know that a lot of families were really, really nervous, even myself, I was going into stores. Farmer markets have been a really good alternative to purchasing produce especially for CalFresh participants. So that's one thing.Betzabel Estudillo:
The other thing I wanted to note which came about in the pandemic was the ability to purchase food through online vendors. So, being able to purchase delivery of food through, like, Amazon or Walmart, I know that, you know, there's chance with that as well, but you know, initially, that was really, really helpful for a lot of CalFresh participants who, you know, were nervous about going into actual stores or didn't have the ability to actually drive or go to a supermarket to be able to purchase things online and have that delivered home. So that was actually a really good success in our state. And I know that we've received lots of positive comments from participants.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Thank you for that. We don't have any other questions for you guys as of now, but for the next question, can we ... We're going to close up by talking about other types of social net programs. The report specifically mention universal basic income. And I wonder ... I can open this up to all of the speakers. This type of social net program often comes with resistance because of the assumptions that it'll make people not want to work. However, we know that it can be used to fight poverty, eespecially as automation is diminishing the opportunity for jobs, so there's not enough jobs for everyone. Can you comment on the importance of pushing for this type of support? And how would this need to implemented to help people get out of poverty? Maybe, Hossein, you can go first?Hossein Ayazi:
Sure. So, I spoke a little bit to the issue with work requirements at the start. In short, you know, such restrictions just don't reflect the reality of poverty and health disparities. And actually, serve to reinforce them by forcing people to attain part-time and short-term employment to continue receiving minimal support.Hossein Ayazi:
Regarding universal basic income, another such large program, you know, there are so much that the Professor Hoynes can speak to. But I'll actually say that Professor Hoynes published an excellent with Jesse Rothstein in The Annual Review of Economics in 2019 accounting for UBI in the U.S. and advanced countries. And there's a specific point that I'd like to highlight.Hossein Ayazi:
They state that in the report that "in the automated worlds, the primary economic problem will be figuring out income, redistribution schemes that enable the vast group of displaced workers to maintain their quality of life and subsistence, and also perhaps, engage in education, training, and other activities to promote the entry into the workforce." But they argue, "poor labor market outcomes, eespecially for workers in the bottom half of the distribution are not futuristic phenomenon." In other words, wages and earnings of low-skilled workers have stagnated over several decades. So in other words, the challenges brought by automation aren't new for the most precarious. In fact, the history of automation is rife with intentional efforts to displace the potentially intransigent workforce who always poses the risk of striking or other ways of compromising various production processes. So from California farmlands to Amazon warehouse workers, especially those whose exploitation has been most extreme, workers have always been a liability in this regard. So I think that these are questions that aren't new or just to be addressed now, but have long been at the heart of such societal transformations.Hossein Ayazi:
And I have kind of an open-ended question for us regarding UBI, but perhaps I'll let other folks respond to your question if there is would like to.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Yeah, Hilary, I actually am wondering if you'd like to comment. I know you've written on it and specifically thinking about, you know, how should this type of program be structured to ensure that funds are, you know, impacting those who needed the most rather than maybe not solving that issue and it's not being targeted to people who may need the most support.Hilary Hoynes:
Yes, I would reiterate the point that Hossein made about, you know, all the discussions about automation. A lot of people landed the place like there is not going to be any jobs. But all of the evidence that we have suggest that it's less about the number of jobs but very much more about the quality of those jobs and how that ... So, we've had, like, waves of automation that have taken place over our, you know, modern and industrialized economy. And at each wave, we tend to see the pattern where some jobs go away, other jobs take their place. But most recently, particularly, in this era of corporate power exceeding so much worker power, the result is that the jobs that are replacing those jobs tend to be of lower-wage levels. And so, that's what we really need to focus thinking about policy changes.Hilary Hoynes:
And I think that really central is, just to circle back to this work requirement issue, for decades, both before welfare reform and then a decade since, our whole, sort of, origination about the social safety net is we can't give money to people when they're not working because all that's going to do is just incentivize work. And work is the key to economic well-being.Hilary Hoynes:
But the thing is the more we learn about those, the more we learn them, what that does is by imposing work requirements is, you know, makes people were soft without really changing the work very much. And so, on the SNAP program, there's been some studies that've looked at these work requirements that are placed on able-bodied adults without children, and basically, you see that when those work requirements get in place, the participation in SNAP goes down. So those are biting policy changes. The well-being is worse, but their work really doesn't change at all. Because the more we learn, the more we think that poverty is impeding work, it's not that work is creating poverty, it's that poverty is impeding the ability to work.Hilary Hoynes:
And whether that's because you don't have adequate housing and transportation and food insecurity and bandwidth property and all the rest, it's missing the direction of causation. So I think that moves us towards thinking about how to sustain having a basic income in order to address these issues. And I think the challenge is in a commitment to the need to raise the revenues to pay for that. Because, you know, the back of the envelope calculation will tell you that it's a big number that we end up with to truly have a universal basic income.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Thank you so much. And the last question is can you share with our viewers examples of a similar types of social net programs, maybe not to the same extent, in the U.S. that have helped address poverty?Hossein Ayazi:
So, I can jump in here again, too.Hossein Ayazi:
You know, there are multiple examples from around the world. From across Scandinavia, Canada, even within the United States and Alaska and elsewhere. But there are other, perhaps, more open-ended questions that in our last couple of minutes I just want to pose.Hossein Ayazi:
You know, what might a project of U.S. socialism look like if it weren't simply to redistribute U.S. wealth only to those with U.S. citizenship?Hossein Ayazi:
We can say that the U.S. is the wealthiest country on the planet and that it doesn't provide its citizens with the abundance of resources that we have. But what if we were to take seriously how U.S. wealth has historically been built through slavery and settler colonialism, and through the pillaging and exploitation of the periphery large of the global south?Hossein Ayazi:
In other words, the wealth to be redistributed is not solely the wealth of U.S. workers. So, a quote that came to mind recently is this Huey Newton's words articulating the Black Panther Party's Projects. He says, "We contend that it is time to open the gates of this country and share the technological knowledge and wealth with the peoples of the worlds." Again, on account of what redistribution might look like, not limited to the U.S. nation-state.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
And Elsadig, if you want to have any closing comments, and then we'll close our session.Elsadig Elsheikh:
Thank you, Miriam. I think one thing I just would like to underscore is the whole idea and the debate about where our national priorities. I mean, we can always think and try to reform certain policies, especially in the well-being of our most marginalized and left behind. So I think there is really moral question and practical question we should ask ourselves, our social movements, civil societies, scholars, academicians, and people who work in nonprofit sector. Can we really rethink about the national priorities? I mean, we've been ... In a report we put an info graph just to try to underscore this point. It can be a nation like United States. It's been more than 50% and it is military endeavor. And for example, 3% to 6% for social program like health and education. We just need to rethink that. And I think the way forward is to force our political elite to further debate this vigorously. And we have to demand that. Otherwise, issues of hunger and food insecurity and the like would remain stubborn in United States. Thank you.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
Thank you all so much for sharing your insight. And I hope that listeners begin to rethink the way that we look at social safety programs.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
And then like Elsadig mentioned, what is the priority, what kind of society do we want to live in, and how do we need to rethink and reallocate resources to really help those in need. As it was mentioned, many of the reasons that people end up in these situations are due to structural barriers that prevent them from accessing good paying jobs, living in a safe area, accessing good food. And with that being said, we've only had one hour to talk about this, and I know we can keep talking about this forever, but we will be closing.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
If you'd like to learn more about this research and this work, you can read the report in full. The link will be added up here. And we hope that this work will inform your work in the way that you begin to rethink about the potential of the safety net programs and think about how it's been successful now but the possibility of the future.Miriam Magaña Lopez:
I thank you so much for joining us. And have a great rest of your Wednesday.
