USDA's proposed SNAP rule would cut 6.3 million people. Who writes the test for who deserves to eat, and what you can do by Dec 10.
On Nov 10 the USDA proposed a rule that would end the shortcut that lets households qualify for SNAP automatically through a state program. USDA's own estimate: about 3.2 million households, 6.3 million people, would lose eligibility once the rule is fully in effect in 2029, and federal spending would fall about $44 billion over five years. About 1.78 million children would lose automatic eligibility for free school meals, though News4JAX reports about 97% would still qualify if their families fill out an application. USDA says the shortcut has drifted from what Congress intended, and it points to a Minnesota millionaire who received benefits.
It's only a proposal, and the public can comment through Dec 10. But look at the shape of it: one rare case becomes the reason for a test, and millions of people have to pass it. Before a kid eats, someone wrote the test.
Poverty, by America
Matthew Desmond
Poverty isn't an accident. Someone is making money from it.
Desmond argues that poverty persists in the richest country on earth because so many of us profit from it. That is the right lens for a rule about who "deserves" help.
✦ Read – Reflect → Resist
Hand to Mouth
Linda Tirado
Why do poor people make bad choices? She was one. Here's why.
A first-person account of the daily arithmetic of being poor in America, grown out of a viral 2013 essay. It's what the test feels like from inside.
✦ Read – Reflect → Resist
A Modest Proposal
Jonathan Swift
Eat the babies. Swift's ten-page masterclass in satire.
Swift's 1729 satire has a calm, reasonable speaker propose that the poor sell their children as food. It's about how the comfortable talk about the poor, and it's very short. It is also grim, so be ready.
✦ Read – Reflect → Resist
Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis (and the Next)
Dean Spade
Not charity. Solidarity. Here's the difference and how to do it.
A practical how-to for neighbors feeding and supporting each other without waiting for permission or a rule.
✦ Read – Reflect → ResistNobody asks the hungry kid whether the test is fair. Ask who wrote it.
Raise the Future
For the adults raising the future:
Kids know a rule is unfair long before they know who wrote it. These books give them a boy and his nana on a bus ride to a soup kitchen, a kid whose family is running out of money, and a girl who goes from owning the ranch to picking the crop. Older readers get an argument that a movement for equality isn't finished if it skips food and housing. You raise kids who ask who gets to decide who eats.
Is it fair if some kids don’t get lunch?
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