Food Stamp Program

FOOD STAMP PROGRAM

FOOD STAMP PROGRAM. The food stamp program originated in federal efforts to combat overproduction during the Great Depression by raising the consumption of agricultural products. The Department of Agriculture conceived the program as a means to assist the nation's farmers while also feeding the hungry and out-of-work. The first food stamp program began in May 1939 in Rochester, New York, and eventually spread to 1,500 counties before ending in 1943 as the wartime economic boom dampened concern about hunger and overproduction.

Despite the efforts of a number of proponents, the federal government did not reestablish the food stamp program for nearly twenty years. President John F. Kennedy, after witnessing Appalachian poverty during the 1960 campaign, instructed the Department of Agriculture to create food stamp pilot programs. The first of these began in McDowell County, West Virginia, on 29 May 1961. Its success brought program expansion, and the Food Stamp Act, enacted 31 August 1964, established a permanent program.

Like its predecessor, the second food stamp program served farmers as its primary clientele while assisting the needy through increased purchasing power and food consumption. Participants purchased stamps at prices and at an allotment level determined by their income and received bonus coupons to exchange for food deemed surplus by the government. The program's emphasis on agricultural production, consumption, and consumer choice combined, as President Lyndon B. Johnson observed, America's "humanitarian instincts" with "the free enterprise system."

In the decade following the 1964 legislation, the food stamp program expanded rapidly and transformed from a program of relief and surplus disposal into a welfare program. The Department of Agriculture adapted food stamps to serve the urban poor, liberalized benefits and eligibility to meet nutritional needs, decreased the purchase price of coupons, and increased coupon allotments. The Food Stamp Reform Bill of 1970 codified these reforms and established national standards for nutrition and eligibility. Reforms in 1973 secured food stamps as an entitlement program, required of states and counties by the federal government and guaranteed to all who were eligible. In 1975, the program reached 17.1 million people and received a budget of $4.6 billion. This expansion resulted from the work of hunger advocacy groups, the Senate's Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs chaired by George McGovern, and the Nixon administration. It reflected a broad political and social consensus as to the program's necessity, effectiveness, and affordability.

Economic decline in the mid-1970s, however, triggered mounting criticism of the food stamp program. Charges of fraud and abuse, which had worried observers since the creation of the first program, emerged again. New concerns developed from the program's expansion and success. Opponents assailed food stamp benefits and eligibility requirements as too generous and as disincentives for the poor to find work. Conservatives charged that the program had expanded beyond taxpayers' ability to pay for it and represented an outsized federal government. Together, these political attacks brought increased congressional scrutiny and the first turn of public opinion against the program. The Food Stamp Act of 1977 reflected this new mood in stricter eligibility standards and stricter administrative guidelines.

In the 1980s, the Reagan administration and congressional opponents of the food stamp program stepped up efforts to trim the program and dramatically reduced program expenditure. In the course of the decade, the program faced new criticism that blamed food stamps and other welfare programs for enticing illegal and nonworking legal immigrants to the United States. Yet while subjected to budget cuts and redesigned benefits, the program's basic structure and purpose remained unchanged through the 1980s and participation continued to rise. The program reached its peak level of enrollment of 28 million individuals in March 1994.

The mounting hostility of Congress and the public toward food stamps coalesced in the bipartisan Welfare Reform Act of 1996. The legislation cut stamp allotments and eligibility and changed the formula for calculating benefits. While food stamps continued as an entitlement program, the law reduced the federal government's role in funding and administration. It placed a three-month cap on the participation of able-bodied, childless adults who remained unemployed, and it denied benefits to illegal immigrants and to many legal immigrants. The 1996 legislation successfully decreased both the program's cost and its participation levels, but seemed to have shifted much of the difference to private food charities.

The food stamp program remained a significant part of America's struggle against poverty and hunger. In fiscal year 2000, the program served 17.2 million individuals in 7.3 million households and received a budget of $21.1 billion. The Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service oversaw the program, and state public assistance agencies administered it through their local offices. The program continued to evolve. Electronic benefits systems were replacing the use of stamps, while electoral politics and concerns about access once again seemed to favor program expansion—the restoration of some legal immigrants' benefits, in particular.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berry, Jeffrey M. Feeding Hungry People: Rulemaking in the Food Stamp Program. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1984. Focuses on federal administration of food stamps yet provides a detailed history of the program's origins and early years.

MacDonald, Maurice. "Food Stamps: An Analytical History." Social Service Review 51 (Dec. 1977): 642–658.

Patterson, James T. America's Struggle against Poverty, 1900– 1994. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994.

Department of Agriculture. Food Stamp Program Web site. http://www.fns.usda.gov/fsp. Provides current information and statistics on the program.

James Tejani

See also Welfare System .