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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Geography FEEDING HUNGRY PEOPLE: AN INVESTIGATION OF US FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS A Dissertation in Geography by Ann Myatt James 2014 Ann Myatt James Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2014 ii The dissertation of Ann Myatt James was reviewed and approved* by the following: Lakshman S. Yapa Professor of Geography Dissertation Advisor Chair of Committee William E. Easterling Professor of Geography Dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Melissa W. Wright Professor of Geography and Women’s Studies Leif Jensen Distinguished Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography Amy Glasmeier Professor of Urban Planning Massachusetts Institute of Technology Special Member Cynthia Brewer Professor of Geography Head of the Department of Geography *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii Abstract Many US households struggle to make sure all members have enough food for an active, healthy life. The USDA describes such households that do not have enough as “food insecure,” meaning that they were “at times, unable to acquire adequate food for one or more household members because they had insufficient money and other resources for food” (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2013: 4-8). In 2012, USDA researchers estimated food insecure households accounted for nearly 20 percent of all US households. They found that these households included about 33.1 million adults and 15.9 million children (Coleman-Jensen et al., 2013). To help food insecure households get food, the US federal government intervenes in the country’s economy. These interventions are designed to alter the effects of poverty necessarily experienced by some of the people living in an economy that privileges exchange value, profits, and money income over the availability of basic use values, which includes household necessities. These interventions consist of federally-funded programs that supply households falling below a specified income threshold with agricultural commodities, hot meals, and/or cash values in the form of an electronic benefit, essentially a debit card for food aid. I employ the exchange value concepts of supply and demand to examine the federal government’s largest and most costly intervention in food security, the Food Stamp Program (FSP) or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). In 2011, the program aided an average of 44.7 million people each month, accounting for about 75 percent of the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) total expenditures for domestic food assistance programs (approximately $75 billion dollars). There are serious financial, political, and social limitations to the federal government’s FSP and problems in general with the exchange value approach to people’s food security. My critique should not be construed as an argument for the discontinuance of food stamps (or SNAP), iv as this food aid is a vital resource for poor people. Instead, my critique is intended to highlight the need for alternatives to FSP in the long run. In their current form the federal government’s assistance programs are large, expensive to operate, and financially unsustainable. Financial support for these programs varies depending on who is in power in Congress; individuals’ food security should not be held hostage to the vagaries of Congressional politics. Finally, program participants are caught up in a politics of race and class where frequent claims regarding welfare dependency, entitlement mentality, and poor work ethic disrespect them and rob them of their dignity. I propose an alternate and complementary use value approach to food security. Specifically, I argue that household problems of food security may be resolved through the production of basic foods in proximity to poor people, which I refer to as a post-structural intervention. I use a well-developed theory of bio-intensive farming to show that land, labor, and capital do not limit the ability of the poor to produce nutritious, affordably priced food in the city. I support this argument with a series of maps related to urban farming in Philadelphia. v TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... vii List of Tables ........................................................................................................................... xiv Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. xvii Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2 US Food Assistance Programs: A Brief History ..................................................... 15 2.1 The Concept of Supply............................................................................................... 16 2.2 Amplified Effects of Unemployment ......................................................................... 17 2.3 The Supply of Food Assistance .................................................................................. 22 2.3.1 Period I (1938-1943): The Beginning of the Food Stamp Program and an Economic Recession ......................................................................................... 28 2.3.2 Period II (1943-1961): Decline of the FSP and the Beginning of a Long Post-War Economic Expansion ........................................................................ 35 2.3.3 Period III (1961-1981): An Expansion of the FSP and the Discovery of “The Other America” ....................................................................................... 42 2.3.4 Period IV (1981-1994): A Persistent Expansion of the FSP and the Rise of Neo-conservatism ............................................................................................. 53 2.3.5 Period V (1994-2000): A “Contract with America” and a Reduction of the FSP ................................................................................................................... 64 2.3.6 Period VI (2000-2011): Millennial Recessions and an Expansion of SNAP .. 69 2.4 Summary .................................................................................................................... 78 Chapter 3 The Consumers of US Food Assistance .................................................................. 80 3.1 Food Assistance: The Principal Programs ................................................................. 82 3.2 Unsustainability of SNAP .......................................................................................... 85 3.2.1 Issue I: Financial Conditions ........................................................................... 86 3.2.2 Issue II: Congressional Politics ....................................................................... 89 3.2.3 Issue III: Public Attitudes and Discourse ........................................................ 94 3.3 Consumers of SNAP .................................................................................................. 99 3.3.1 A Household and its Members—definitions ................................................... 100 3.3.2 Social Characteristics of Participating Households ......................................... 101 3.3.2.1 SNAP Households by Race .......................................................................... 102 3.3.2.2 SNAP Households by Type .......................................................................... 112 3.3.2.3 SNAP Households by the Presence of Children ........................................... 116 3.3.3 Economic Characteristics of Participating Households................................... 119 3.3.3.1 SNAP Families by Workforce Participation ................................................ 120 3.3.3.2 SNAP Households by Poverty ..................................................................... 124 3.3.4 Geographic Characteristics of Participating Households ................................ 130 3.3.4.1 Distribution of SNAP Households by Locale .............................................. 130 3.3.4.2 Distribution of SNAP Households by Region .............................................. 135 3.4 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 139 vi Chapter 4 A Geographical Distribution of Consumer Households .......................................... 141 4.1 SNAP Eligibility, Participation, and Food Insecurity ................................................ 143 4.2 SNAP Eligibility and Participation of Individuals ..................................................... 145 4.3 Statistical Analyses of Household SNAP Participation ............................................. 168 4.3.1 A Historical-Statistical Analysis of Household Participation ................................. 172 4.3.2 A Regional-Statistical Analysis of Household Participation .................................. 180 4.3.3 A Space-Time Analysis of Household Participation ............................................... 187 4.4 Poverty and Household SNAP Participation .............................................................. 194 4.4 Food and a Social Theory of Poverty ......................................................................... 205 Chapter 5 Post-Structural Interventions in Food Security ....................................................... 208 5.1 Food insecurity