Your Opinion: SNAP benefits should be reduced

Dear Editor:

The wailing and moaning have started over the SNAP benefit reductions in President Trump's proposed budget. A 40 percent reduction from the 2016 program cost, instead of the proposed 30 percent reduction, seems logical to me. Unemployment is currently equal to, or less than, it was during pre-recession 2007. Why should we not expect the number of recipients, and the average cost per recipients, to drop back to inflation/population adjusted 2007 levels, approximately a 40 percent reduction from 2016 spending. Taxpayers should reasonably expect that all poverty program spending would be back to near 2007 levels. The major reason this might not occur is because the "vote buyers" in Congress are afraid to stop handing out the free stuff.

The following information is adjusted for inflation.

Before the start of the last recession, in 2007, there was an average of 26,316,000 participants (8.74 percent of the population). The program cost $38.8 billion ($1,473/participant).

The number of users peaked in 2013, at 47,636,000 (15.07 percent of the population). That year the program cost $83.8 billion ($1,759/participant).

In 2016 the average number of participants had dropped to 44,219,000 (13.69 percent of the population) and the program cost had dropped to $71.0 billion ($1,605/participant).

In February of 2017 there were still 42,263,000 participants. Why?

 

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