The SNAP Program and Current Debate
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, provides nutritional support for over 41.5 million low-income Americans. The program, which costs taxpayers approximately $95 billion annually, delivers benefits through Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards that recipients use like debit cards to purchase food at authorized retailers. The average monthly benefit is around $180 per person.
Social media has been buzzing with debates about new Republican-led bills aiming to restrict what people can buy with SNAP benefits. This push has gained momentum after Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, vowed to remove soda from the list of items that can be purchased using SNAP benefits as part of his “Make Americans Healthy” initiative.
Agriculture Chief Tom Vilsack has proposed a “Make America Healthy Again” commission to consider such a ban, while GOP Senators Katie Britt (AL) and Mike Lee (Utah) have introduced the federal Healthy SNAP Act, which would exclude certain snacks and drinks from being purchased with SNAP benefits.
At the state level, Kansas, Idaho, Tennessee, Arizona, Utah, and at least 11 other states have put forth bills asking the federal government to allow SNAP restrictions on candy and sugary drinks, citing nutritional concerns.
But many conservatives commenting online are profoundly disconnected from the communities that rely on food stamps. If you’re reading this from your suburban home, you might not understand how SNAP benefits actually work on the ground.
Two Major Threats: Trafficking and Skimming
The Trafficking Reality
In many urban neighborhoods, selling food stamps for cash isn’t just something that happens occasionally—it’s a normalized practice that everyone in the community knows about. There’s a standard going rate that circulates through word of mouth, typically 50 cents on the dollar. This illegal but commonplace activity is just part of everyday life in many disadvantaged areas.
Trafficking happens in multiple ways. Store-based trafficking works like this: A SNAP recipient goes to a local convenience store, which swipes their EBT card (charging the full amount) and gives the customer cash at a discounted rate—keeping the difference as profit.
According to data from the Government Accountability Office, small stores have much higher trafficking rates than larger stores.
But person-to-person trafficking is also widespread. SNAP recipients will offer to buy groceries for other shoppers at the store using their EBT card in exchange for cash.
For example, a recipient might offer to purchase $100 worth of groceries for someone if they’ll pay them $50-60 in cash. The buyer gets discounted groceries, while the seller gets cash they can use for non-food expenses. This direct exchange happens right in store aisles and parking lots, and is particularly common at the beginning of the month when benefits are first loaded onto cards.
The Growing Skimming Epidemic
While trafficking has been a long-standing issue, a newer and even more costly threat has emerged: card skimming. This occurs when criminals install hidden devices on payment terminals that capture data from cards’ magnetic stripes.
In California alone, taxpayers paid $87 million for EBT theft between July 2021 and March 2023. The state is expecting to pay $178 million for the current fiscal year. That’s a staggering amount of money being stolen each month.
Nationwide, the numbers are alarming. In just the first quarter of 2024, New York reported 34,306 instances of EBT theft, Maryland reported 9,466 cases, and Texas reported 7,764 thefts. In total, nearly 177,000 fraud reports were filed across 46 states during this period.
Why Banning Sodas Won’t Work
The bills sparking all this online debate aim to ban purchases of soft drinks and desserts. But they miss the mark entirely, especially when you consider that a 2021 USDA survey found the most common barrier to healthy eating, reported by 61% of SNAP participants, was the affordability of foods that are part of a healthy diet and their limited availability in low-income areas.
Anyone who’s spent time in tough neighborhoods knows these rules won’t work.
Local stores that regularly accept SNAP payments will find workarounds. They might charge you for water when you’re buying soda. Or people will just buy a different sugary drink that isn’t banned. In communities where fraud is already normalized, petty restrictions just create new opportunities for rule-bending.
The American Beverage Association has countered these proposals, stating that limiting choices won’t make America healthy or save taxpayers money. They point out that they produce zero-sugar drink options and include calorie information on labels.
More importantly, focusing on soda restrictions does nothing to address the billions of dollars being stolen through trafficking and skimming. It’s like worrying about a leaky faucet while your basement is flooding.
The Technology Gap
Unlike most credit and debit cards that now have secure chip technology, SNAP benefits are still distributed on magnetic stripe EBT cards that offer virtually no protection against skimming.
As one law enforcement official put it, EBT cards are “the last cards without chip technology” in most states. While credit card companies switched to chip cards years ago and saw a significant drop in fraud, government assistance programs have lagged behind.
According to VISA, stores that started accepting chip cards back in 2015 saw a 76% drop in fraud over the next three years. This simple technology upgrade could save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
A Better Approach
Instead of focusing on petty rules about what people can buy, conservatives should push for:
- Modern security measures: California is finally taking action, with plans to implement chip and tap technology for EBT cards in summer 2024, a $50 million effort that would make it the first state to update these outdated security measures.
- Better fraud prevention systems: The USDA needs modern detection tools to identify suspicious transaction patterns, enable real-time fraud alerts, and create dedicated task forces focused on dismantling organized skimming operations rather than just prosecuting individual cases after the money is gone.
- Support for bipartisan legislation that would require chip-enabled EBT cards nationwide within two years.\
The Real Win
Here’s what conservatives should understand: If people are actually spending their benefits on food items of any kind—even junk foods—that’s a win. The kids are fed. The system worked.
When these benefits actually buy food instead of being stolen through trafficking or skimming, that’s the real victory.
The total SNAP program costs about $95 billion this year. Wouldn’t you rather see that money help feed hungry Americans than be stolen by criminals or be spent on rules that will be ignored or worked around?
As conservatives, we should care about effective solutions based on reality, not feel-good legislation that sounds nice at dinner parties but does nothing on the street.
This article was written with the assistance of AI. Please verify information and consult additional sources as needed.
