Common Myths About SNAP and Poverty In America.

Common Myths About SNAP:

Myth 1: “Most SNAP recipients don’t work.”

Fact: Nearly two-thirds of SNAP recipients who can work do work, often in low-wage jobs that don’t pay enough to cover basic food needs. SNAP supplements income; it doesn’t replace it.

Approximately 70% of wage-earning adults in SNAP households work full-time hours, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. However, other analyses show that work is common among those who receive SNAP, with over 80% of households with a non-disabled working-age adult having earnings in a given year, even if the hours are not always full-time. Many recipients are in low-wage jobs, and work is often unstable, meaning many full-time workers still require assistance.

Source: https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-provides-critical-benefits-to-workers-and-their-families?

More than 11 million SNAP recipients are children. Many others are active military, veterans, disabled, and/or elderly.

Myth 2: “SNAP is full of fraud and abuse.”

Fact: While the SNAP program does have payment errors (about 11–12 % of benefits in 2023 were issued incorrectly), the vast majority of these errors are unintentional, driven by state agency or household mistakes rather than deliberate fraud. Clear recipient fraud (such as trafficking benefits) is relatively rare, on the order of less than 1% or so of benefits in certain categories. Therefore, the claim that ‘SNAP is full of fraud and abuse’ is not supported by the data.

Source: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-107461?

Myth 3: “People just live off SNAP instead of getting a job.”

Fact: The average benefit is about $6 per person per day, barely enough for groceries, let alone a livelihood. SNAP keeps families from starvation; it doesn’t enable dependency.

Source: https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-closer-look-at-who-benefits-from-snap-state-by-state-fact-sheets

Myth 4: “Churches or charities could handle hunger if SNAP ended.”

Fact: While food banks and churches do tremendous work, the scale of the federal SNAP program is far greater: in FY 2024, SNAP served about 41.7 million people and cost about $100 billion.

Feeding America reports that the charitable food-bank network provides roughly one meal for every nine provided by SNAP, meaning it would require many years of full effort from that network alone to match SNAP’s annual reach. And while churches and faith-based organizations give and serve widely, recent data show religious organizations received well over $140 billion in U.S. charitable giving in 2024, but that is still distributed across many causes, and cannot simply be redirected to match SNAP’s scale.

Source: https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap/key-statistics-and-research#:~:text=The%20Supplemental%20Nutrition%20Assistance%20Program,chart%20data%20in%20Excel%20format.

Source: https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/giving-usa-2024-a-giving-nation-in-transition-signals-growth-change-and-opportunity/#:~:text=Where%20the%20Money%20Is%20Going,engagement%20and%20systems%2Dlevel%20change.

Myth 5: “SNAP spending is out of control.”

Fact: SNAP makes up a relatively small portion of federal spending, around 1.8-2% of total federal expenditures in recent years. The program is designed as a counter-cyclical safety net: it grows when economic conditions worsen (more need) and shrinks when conditions improve (less need). In that sense, it functions as a stabilizer that helps families stay afloat during downturns.

Source: https://www.pgpf.org/article/what-is-snap/

Common Myths About Poverty in America.

Myth 6: “People are poor because they’re lazy or made bad choices.”

Fact: The leading causes of poverty are structural: low wages, unstable employment, high housing costs, medical or caregiving burdens, and inadequate supports. Many working adults still fall into poverty or near‑poverty despite employment. For example, a full‑time minimum‑wage worker in many markets simply cannot afford a modest one‑bedroom rental without working the equivalent of more than a standard 40‑hour week.

Source: https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/poverty

Myth 7: “America doesn’t really have poor people.”

Fact: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2022, over 37 million Americans lived below the federal poverty line, and about 1 in 6 children live in poverty. But that measure underestimates real hardship: the Federal Reserve Board found in 2022 that 37% of American adults say they wouldn’t be able to cover an unexpected $400 expense.

Source: https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2023-economic-well-being-of-us-households-in-2022-executive-summary.htm#:~:text=the%20SurveyAcknowledgements-,Executive%20Summary,about%20their%20future%20financial%20security.

Myth 8: “Government assistance keeps people trapped in poverty.”

Fact: Decades of research show the opposite. Programs like SNAP, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Tax Credit significantly reduce poverty and improve long-term outcomes for children. SNAP participation in childhood is linked to better health, higher educational attainment, and higher earnings in adulthood. These programs lift people out of poverty; they don’t trap them in it.

Source: https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/eitc-and-child-tax-credit-promote-work-reduce-poverty-and-support-childrens

Myth 9: “Most welfare recipients are people of color in cities.”

Fact: Poverty exists across all races and regions. In raw numbers, the majority of SNAP recipients are white Americans, and the program serves large numbers of rural and suburban families. Hunger and economic insecurity are national realities, not confined to any one group or geography.

Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/19/what-the-data-says-about-food-stamps-in-the-u-s/#:~:text=What%20do%20we%20know%20about,highest%20percentage%20of%20any%20region.

Myth 10: “America is too rich for anyone to go hungry, it’s their fault if they do.”

Fact: The U.S. is a very wealthy nation, yet wealth is highly concentrated: the top 1 % hold around one-third of all household wealth, while the bottom half hold only a few percent. Poverty and hunger persist not because Americans lack resources in the aggregate, but because policy choices, such as low wage floors, insufficient safety net programs, regional disparities, and tax/benefit decisions, which have left many working people and families economically insecure.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States

Myth 11: “Most SNAP recipients are undocumented immigrants.”

Fact: Nearly 9 out of 10 SNAP participants are U.S.-born citizens. Undocumented immigrants are generally ineligible for federal SNAP, the foreign-born share of participants is about 10%, and much of that are naturalized or otherwise lawfully present.

Source: Migration Policy Institute’s brief on immigrant SNAP participation: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/sites/default/files/publications/mpi_snap-brief-2023-final.pdf?