{"id":50752,"date":"2012-09-03T11:20:18","date_gmt":"2012-09-03T16:20:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=50752"},"modified":"2013-02-11T03:42:26","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T08:42:26","slug":"food-stamps-public-policy-and-the-working-poor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/09\/03\/food-stamps-public-policy-and-the-working-poor\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Stamps, Public Policy, and the Working Poor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people assume that the various benefits we collectively describe as “welfare” go to people who aren’t working. \u00a0The truth is, however, that some people with full-time jobs still find themselves below the poverty line. \u00a0The U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.\u00a0 A full-time employee who doesn\u2019t miss a single day of work for a year earns $290 a week; that\u2019s 15,080 a year.\u00a0 According to how the government measures poverty<\/a>, that\u2019s enough to support a single adult.\u00a0 For a single adult with a child, however, it\u2019s officially below the poverty line. It\u2019s $4,000 below the poverty line for a family of three.\u00a0 When a person has a full-time job, but still lives in poverty, they are what sociologists call the “working poor.”<\/p>\n

Some welfare benefits, then, go to people who do work. \u00a0The\u00a0\u00a0Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program<\/a>, better known as food stamps, is an example. \u00a0Working parents have always comprised a large percentage of people\u00a0receiving\u00a0food stamps. \u00a0Today the number of working families who rely on food stamps is higher than it’s been in over 20 years (source<\/a>). \u00a0These numbers reflect the impact of the recession generally, but also the\u00a0extra-burden placed on already struggling families<\/a>. \u00a0The first chart shows the rise of poor families, the second shows the increase in the working poor using food stamps.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This kind of data inspires me to ask if this is what a functional economy looks like. \u00a0We have policies — e.g., the federal minimum wage and somewhat laissez faire free market policies — that create a situation in which working full time doesn’t allow a single parent to support even one child. \u00a0When we hear criticisms of people who receive benefits, then, we should be careful to remember that their economic crisis is not a straightforwardly personal characteristic, one that can be explained by a poor work ethic or disorderly personality. There are structural\u00a0<\/em>reasons that people end up in need. \u00a0We have three choices: let them suffer and perhaps die, help them, or change our society.<\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most people assume that the various benefits we collectively describe as “welfare” go to people who aren’t working. \u00a0The truth is, however, that some people with full-time jobs still find themselves below the poverty line. \u00a0The U.S. federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour.\u00a0 A full-time employee who doesn\u2019t miss a single day of work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,3920,304],"class_list":["post-50752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-nation-united-states","tag-the-state"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50752"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50755,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50752\/revisions\/50755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}