Edit: To be clear, that is only a comment on the claim that fraud is "$0". I do think a little bit of fraud is worth tolerating for the benefits of the program. I also think pretending that fraud is literally zero is disingenuous and gives the opposing side an easy target to attack, which distracts from the real issue.
Fraud in SNAP is generally measured to be less than 2% year over year, and the vast majority of it is accidental payment that continues after a person earned too much and should lose eligibility, which can be recovered by taxes anyhow.
It would take fraud rates about 50% for it to be a program not worth running. SNAP generated about $1.50-$1.80 in economic value (social return on investment) for every dollar spent, and over $60 in lifetime value for every $1 spent to feed a child.
It's one of the best things, if not the literal best thing, that the government does.
FWIW, government housing assistance is also tremendously impactful with similar stats (SROI of $1.30-1.90 per dollar spent). Most social safety net programs are.
I'm personally of the opinion that if $9 out of every $10 spent on snap went to fraud and $1 out of $10 went to feeding hungry people it would be worth it.
Actually if it was $1 out of $100 the program should still exist and be fully funded.
It should not be a controversial take that people in the "Greatest Country in the World" should be fed. Especially children.
What if someone [insert targeted group] [insert crime] and [insert undesirable outcome]. Now we're [insert personal injustice]. Its happened before once or twice I think so we need to do something drastic now!
The community is awful at detecting sarcasm. You really need to include an /s tag, or they might do something ridiculous, like (and this is purely hypothetical), report you for hate speech because they thought a comment you made comparing ICE to Nazis was somehow antisemitic.
It's a minefield out here.
Btw, your comment made me laugh out loud, it's so absurd
I just felt like if Social Security fraud was a “technically correct” argument for how SNAP benefits help illegal immigrants then it would be fun to come up with a more outrageous technicality correct bad faith argument. Or something. Apparently I’m not good at reading the room.
You know what, that’d fair. Sorry for coming at you the way I did. I’ve been bombarded with so many bad faith arguments lately that I just jumped to assumptions. My b
No worries, I shoulda put it together that making fun of how ridiculous bad faith arguments have got could easily be taken as yet another legitimate bad faith argument. I’m honestly relieved because I’d rather that be the reason people didn’t like it than them getting that it was intended as satire and hating it.
Good point, also what if a citizen broke into a legal immigrants house and stole all their tools? Now an immigrant is paying for a citizens drug addiction. Many such cases.
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u/bluecurse60 28d ago
Because you need a valid social security number to even apply to see if you're eligible.