{"id":48545,"date":"2025-07-08T11:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/48545\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T11:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:25:09","slug":"5-people-on-snap-share-what-the-food-program-gets-right-and-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/48545\/","title":{"rendered":"5 people on SNAP share what the food program gets right \u2014 and wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program<\/a> (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, helps one in eight<\/a> Americans put food on the table, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). SNAP is a lifeline for many individuals, families and people with disabilities.<\/p>\n

More than 62% of SNAP recipients are part of families with children. In 2022, 20% of children under 18<\/a> nationwide were in families receiving SNAP benefits. More than 38% of SNAP recipients are from working families. And more than 37% of families receiving SNAP include someone who is disabled or elderly<\/a>, according to the CBPP.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout SNAP, families miss meals. Kids show up to school hungry. Parents skip groceries to keep the lights on. We\u2019re not talking about convenience. We\u2019re talking about survival,\u201d Erica Williams, executive director of the nonprofit A Red Circle<\/a> and co-author of the peer-reviewed food policy brief Food Pricing and Consumer Choice<\/a>, tells Yahoo. SNAP is crucial because \u201cit\u2019s the most direct tool we have to reduce hunger,\u201d she says. Most of the families Williams works with tell her that they don\u2019t want to be on SNAP forever but need help while they \u201cget stable,\u201d she points out.<\/p>\n

SNAP can be used to buy a variety of foods<\/a>, including dairy products, meat, poultry, fish, fruits and vegetables and snack foods. However, the program has limitations. \u201cYou can\u2019t buy hot food or household goods like soap and diapers,\u201d Williams says. \u201cYou also can\u2019t buy prepared meals, which means parents working two jobs can\u2019t just grab something healthy on the go. It reinforces exhaustion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although SNAP helps many people get by when they don\u2019t earn enough to buy groceries, it often isn\u2019t enough. Rising food costs and eligibility restrictions make it challenging for many SNAP recipients to meet their needs. Yahoo talked to five people about what being on SNAP is really like.<\/p>\n

\"\"‘We\u2019re both trying. But we\u2019re still hungry.’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Danielle, a single mother in Missouri, works full-time in administrative support. She started receiving SNAP benefits when her son Marcus, now 20, was a baby, and his father stopped paying child support.<\/p>\n

Today, Danielle works 40 hours a week and still receives SNAP benefits. Marcus, who is neurodivergent, lives at home while he takes classes at a community college and works about 15 hours a week. Yet, despite having two working adults in the house, Danielle and Marcus don\u2019t earn enough to feed themselves adequately.<\/p>\n

Danielle\u2019s SNAP benefits help, but they are still struggling. Marcus stopped receiving benefits when he turned 18 because he was in school full-time and wasn\u2019t working enough hours to qualify for SNAP. Now, Danielle has to feed herself and her son with SNAP benefits meant for one adult. \u201cI understand the rules,\u201d Danielle tells Yahoo. However, she emphasizes that she\u2019s unwilling to let her son go hungry or drop out of school and have a chance at a more financially stable life. \u201cThat means I skip meals so he doesn\u2019t have to,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Danielle usually buys foods like dry pasta, rice and canned vegetables to stretch her grocery budget. Eggs are a rare luxury, and she relies on a nonprofit food bank for fresh produce. Most of Danielle and Marcus\u2019s diet is \u201cHeavy. Salty,\u201d Marcus says. \u201cYou feel full, then you crash. I get foggy. Slow. Food\u2019s supposed to be medicine,\u201d Marcus tells Yahoo. However, his limited diet often makes him feel worse. \u201cWe\u2019re both trying. But we\u2019re still hungry,\u201d Danielle says.<\/p>\n

Danielle wants people to know that \u201cthis isn\u2019t about laziness. It\u2019s not about people gaming the system. It\u2019s about working families, caregiving parents, students trying to get out and still falling short.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘SNAP is not charity. It\u2019s a stabilizing force.’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like Danielle, Jessica is also a single mother living in Missouri. She\u2019s been on and off SNAP since 2012. She typically buys items like flour, cereal, cheese and salmon with her SNAP benefits. Occasionally, she buys fresh fruit and vegetables and treats like ice cream or chicken nuggets for her son. However, due to the higher cost of fruit and vegetables, Jessica often finds that her benefits aren\u2019t enough to support a healthy diet. To fill the gap, Jessica relies on nonprofits like A Red Circle. \u201cThe biggest challenge of being on SNAP is finding affordable quality food,\u201d Jessica tells Yahoo.<\/p>\n

Even though Jessica would like to feed her son a healthy diet, she laments that her SNAP benefits are often just enough to cover \u201cpantry fillers.\u201d Another challenge to staying healthy on SNAP is that “you can\u2019t buy vitamins, medicine or supplements,\u201d she says. That makes it harder to stay healthy in the long run, she explains.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, SNAP is a lifeline for Jessica. \u201cWithout SNAP, feeding my family would be incredibly hard. With the cost of living so high and wages so low, it would be a serious struggle,\u201d she explains. \u201cSNAP is not charity. It\u2019s a stabilizing force,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"\"‘I literally wouldn’t be surviving without SNAP’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Megan, who lives alone and has chronic Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses, worked as a public servant in New York for 24 years. For her entire career, she helped others in need, including people struggling with mental illness and families whose loved ones were placed in child or adult protective services.<\/p>\n

Although Megan wanted to continue working, her health worsened, and she had to leave her job. Once Megan\u2019s savings ran out, she relied on local food pantries for food. When that wasn\u2019t enough, she applied for SNAP.<\/p>\n

Megan still visits food pantries. However, she uses her SNAP benefits to \u201cround out meals from the ingredients the food pantry provides,\u201d she says. Since Megan usually gets canned and boxed goods from the food pantry, she usually uses her SNAP benefits to buy meat and produce. However, she notes that because of the high price of fresh fruit, produce \u201cfeels like a luxury.\u201d Moreover, although Megan tries to cook everything from scratch to save money, she keeps one or two pre-prepared meals on hand to eat when her illness flares and she\u2019s too fatigued to cook.<\/p>\n

\u201cI literally wouldn’t be surviving without SNAP,\u201d Megan tells Yahoo. \u201cHaving SNAP has given me some peace of mind regarding access to food.\u201d However, Megan is concerned because SNAP benefits don\u2019t automatically increase when grocery prices<\/a> go up. Due to rising grocery prices, \u201cthe SNAP benefits don’t stretch as far in covering what’s needed for a month,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Megan is doing what she can to help with her recovery, but doesn\u2019t know when or if she will be able to return to work. \u201cEvery fiber of me just wants to have my prior level of functioning back,\u201d she says. \u201cI loved the work that I did. I loved my clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

She adds: \u201cI’m hopeful that I will medically improve enough to be able to return to work and discontinue SNAP, but it will realistically be a few years, at best.\u201d Until then, \u201cSNAP is a lifeline for me,\u201d Megan says.<\/p>\n

‘I would have had a hard time paying for my essentials.’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ryan Wilson, a disabled videographer from Colorado, was on SNAP for seven years. Like many people with disabilities<\/a>, he had a hard time finding a job that paid him a living wage. \u201cThe job market was and is tough,\u201d Wilson tells Yahoo.<\/p>\n

When he wasn\u2019t earning enough to cover his basic expenses, SNAP helped him get by. He told Yahoo that without SNAP, \u201cI would have had a hard time paying for my essentials\u201d like food and medical care.<\/p>\n

However, Wilson emphasizes that SNAP helped him survive but not thrive. When he was on SNAP, he couldn\u2019t use his benefits to buy necessities other than food. Additionally, he could only use his benefits at select locations like big box stores, even though smaller grocery stores were often closer. \u201cThat is an inconvenience, especially for someone with a disability that impacts their mobility,\u201d Wilson says.<\/p>\n

Now Wilson runs a video production company called Team Trust Productions<\/a>. His income has increased, and he no longer needs SNAP to ensure he can access enough food. Wilson is grateful he received SNAP when he needed it, but he never expected to receive SNAP benefits forever. \u201cIt’s a temporary option. It does not have to be a permanent solution to financial uncertainty,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

‘I would definitely not be eating three meals a day’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although Laura, a single woman from Pennsylvania, worked full-time, her income wasn\u2019t enough to support herself. For three years, Laura received SNAP benefits to help her get by. Eventually, she started earning a higher salary and no longer needed SNAP to buy food. However, in early 2025, Laura lost her job. Once her unemployment benefits ran out, she started receiving SNAP benefits again.<\/p>\n

Without SNAP, \u201cI would definitely not be eating three meals a day,\u201d Laura tells Yahoo. She usually uses her SNAP benefits to buy frozen fruits and vegetables, chicken thighs and seasonal fruit and vegetables, which she finds more affordable than out-of-season produce. When she can afford it, Laura buys cheese and coffee. She also goes to her local food pantry to supplement her groceries. However, she emphasizes that food pantries are \u201cmeant to be just that \u2014 supplemental, not a source of regular groceries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura is grateful for the SNAP benefits she receives, but thinks some aspects of the program need to be changed. \u201cI wish we could buy paper products,\u201d she says. \u201cToilet paper is just as necessary as apples, and I wish I could just get everything at once.\u201d She also wishes that restrictions on what SNAP recipients can buy, such as candy and hot foods, would be removed. Plus, Laura finds it difficult to figure out which foods she can buy with her benefits and which are excluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one should be told what food they’re allowed to buy. Food is a human right,\u201d Laura says. \u201cBy making laws that just blindly eliminate whole sections of foods, that just makes it harder on people with specific diets. Or, it makes it impossible to give a little kid a birthday party,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, Laura wishes she could rely on SNAP being around for those who need it. She\u2019s still looking for a full-time job that pays enough for her to support herself. Until then, however, “it\u2019s always in the back of my mind that my access to food could be taken away at any time. Depending on a program that’s outside of your control, just to feed yourself, is terrifying,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, helps one in eight Americans put food…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[990,6972,210,6974,67,132,68,9329],"class_list":{"0":"post-48545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-food","9":"tag-food-stamps","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-snap","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-yahoo"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114817369803774648","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}