A central principle of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) is the right to food for all persons. For example, in Pacem in Terris (11) St. John XXIII states that “Every man has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means which are suitable for the proper development of life; these are primarily food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care, and finally the necessary social services.” Given the right to food, the next step is to establish the paths and policies used by the Church, private organizations, families, communities, and the government to ensure this right. These paths and policies will differ across countries and, within countries, across various demographic and economic categories. In this article, I consider one example of a government’s approach that, over most dimensions, does a successful job at ensuring a right to food consistent with CST in the United States – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP –formerly known as the Food Stamp Program). This consideration is structured over five components of a right to food – reaching those in need, creating effective mechanisms, full funding, adequate benefits, and maintaining the dignity of recipients.
Reach Those in Need
CST indicates that recipients of assistance should be those in need and that the rest of society should incur sacrifices to help those in need. This is expressed in Octogesima Adveniens (23) where St. Paul VI states: “In teaching us charity, the Gospel instructs us in the preferential respect due to the poor and the special situation they have in society; the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others.” This should be contrasted with an idea that, say, assistance should be provided to everyone in a society, irrespective of need.
The structure of SNAP is consistent with reaching those in need insofar as households are eligible if they satisfy three criteria. First, there is the gross income test whereby household income must be less than 130 per cent of the poverty line ($25,100 for a family of four in 2018). Some states have set more lenient thresholds of up to 200 per cent of the poverty line. The gross-income test is waived for households with seniors or persons with disabilities but they must meet the other two components of the eligibility criteria. This waiver echoes St. Paul VI’s statement that “The Church directs her attention to….the handicapped… the old…” (Octogesima Adveniens, 15). Second, the household’s net income – gross income less allowable deductions including dependent care and medical costs – cannot exceed the poverty line. Third, a household’s total assets cannot exceed $2,250; $3,250 for a household with a senior or disabled member. This test is now waived in most states.
The structure of benefit levels further reflects directing of SNAP based on need. A household with a net income of zero receives the maximum SNAP benefit. In 2018, this amounted to $640 per month for a family of four. For each additional dollar in net income, benefits are reduced by 30 cents or, if the income is in the form of earnings, by 24 cents. This distinguishes SNAP from other assistance programs where benefits lump-sum independent of income. Along with making sure benefits are inversely related to need, the structure of benefits avoids having an especially strong “cliff effect” wherein if someone exceeds the eligibility threshold, a substantial amount of benefits are lost. This can create a negative work incentive for those with incomes right below the threshold which implicitly impedes the right of individuals to work (Pacem in Terris, 13; Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 30).
Another feature of SNAP consistent with CST is that benefit levels are proportional to family size. Thus, bringing new life into the world is recognized as a positive outcome by SNAP.
Create Effective Mechanisms
For an assistance program to be successful, individuals need the freedom to use the benefits. In the U.S., well-stocked retail food outlets are located virtually everywhere (albeit, in some areas more than others) and, consequently, if one has the resources, one can purchase sufficient quantities of food. SNAP uses this well-developed retail structure as a way of getting food to recipients. Namely, SNAP recipients receive an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card which can be used at all large-scale grocery stores in the country and many smaller-scale stores selling food.
This method of distributing benefits affirms the dignity of recipients insofar as they are able to purchase food alongside their neighbors. This is in contrast to a program where, say, individuals have to redeem benefits by going to a designated place exclusive for beneficiaries. This helps to fulfil the aspiration to participate noted in Octogesima Adveniens (22) and Pacem in Terris (20).
Fully Fund
Food security requires having enough food at all times throughout the year and during both good and bad economic times. An assistance program should therefore provide benefits that are available for the full year and in every year, irrespective of the health of the economy. One way to ensure this is to have a program be an entitlement program, i.e., a program which expands or contracts automatically and not at the discretion of the government or another entity running a program.
SNAP is an entitlement program. What this implies is seen in Figure 1 which displays the number of people enrolled and total expenditures on SNAP from 1980 to 2017. From 2000 to 2013, there were annual increases in both of these measures and this was achieved without any need for the government to authorize these expenditures. Conversely, since 2013 there has been a decline annually, primarily reflecting improvements in economic conditions.
Provide Enough to Those in Need
Research has demonstrated that SNAP participants are between 5 and 20 percent less likely to be food insecure than eligible non-participants after controlling for adverse selection into the program. Nevertheless, over 50% of SNAP participants are still food insecure. Thus, an argument can be made that an increase in SNAP benefits is needed to more effectively meet the demands for a right to food.
In addition to inadequate benefit levels, one may also question whether the current threshold of 130% of the poverty line is sufficiently lenient. This questioning arises because over 20% of households with incomes between 130% and 185% of the poverty line are food insecure. Thus, to meet the demands of CST to reach those who are most vulnerable, a higher gross income threshold may be required.
Increasing benefit levels and expanding eligibility would necessarily increase the burdens on taxpayers as does, as noted previously, SNAP’s status as an entitlement program. Of course, an expansion of government is not always productive and, in many instances, does grave harm to the most vulnerable in our society. But, when a program is successful at ensuring the right to food, an argument can perhaps be made that this burden on taxpayers is appropriate in the absence of proven other methods to provide food to vulnerable persons. Again in the words of St. Paul VI, “In teaching us charity, the Gospel instructs us in the preferential respect due to the poor and the special situation they have in society; the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others.” (Octogesima Adveniens, 23)
Ensure Dignity of Recipients
A right is given to someone without the imposition of arduous conditions. Consider the process of voting in the U.S. After registration and going to a polling booth (or voting via absentee ballot), there are not further requirements imposed. For example, one does not have to demonstrate specific knowledge about candidates, justify why a vote was made, pass some form of IQ test, etc. The right to food as manifested in SNAP is constructed in a similar manner insofar as, after meeting the eligibility requirements and recertifying as needed, individuals do not have to meet further requirements.
Some have called for more restrictions on SNAP recipients and, in particular, restrictions on what they can purchase with benefits. Put differently, SNAP recipients would be told what foods to purchase or not purchase in ways that non-recipients would not be told including non-recipients who benefit from other government benefits (e.g., Social Security recipients, government workers). This is contrary to CST insofar as it positions SNAP recipients as the “other” rather than as part of the broader community. This importance of solidarity with the vulnerable and what it demands of us is described by St. John Paul II : “Solidarity helps us to see the ‘other’ – whether a person, people, or nation – not just as some kind of instrument, with a work capacity and physical strength to be exploited at low cost and then discarded when no longer useful, but as our neighbor, a helper (cf Gn 2:18-20), to be a sharer, on a par with ourselves, in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God.” Solicitudo Rei Socialis (39).
Craig Gundersen
Professor of Agricultural & Consumer Economics
University of Illinois
Further Readings
Coleman-Jensen, A., M. Rabbitt, C. Gregory, and A. Singh. 2018. Household Food Security in the United States in 2016. Washington DC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Report No. 256.
Gundersen, C. and J. Ziliak, J. 2018. Food Insecurity Research in the United States: Where We Have Been and Where We Need to Go. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy 40(1): 119-135.
Gundersen, C., B. Kreider, and J. Pepper. 2018. Reconstructing SNAP to More Effectively Alleviate Food Insecurity in the U.S. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 4(2).
