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food insecurity
Why Federal Food Aid Became Politically Polarizing—and What to Do About It
By focusing on the facts and the program’s broad benefits, Americans can move past partisan divides and recognize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for the bipartisan, practical tool it truly is.
Feb 02, 2026
On January 31, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson requested that Congress pass federal legislation to make the Food Stamp Program permanent. Up to that point, the program had operated as a pilot in select counties and states, serving about 380,000 participants. The Food Stamp Program expanded dramatically in the ensuing decades, driven largely by a recognition of domestic hunger. It has also undergone many changes—notably 2008 legislation that changed the name to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in part to fight the politicized stigma of receiving food assistance.
Today, the program is without a doubt one of the most effective food assistance programs in reducing food insecurity and poverty across the United States. The US Census Bureau reports that supplemental nutrition assistance lifted nearly 3.6 million people out of poverty in 2024, the most recent year for which full data are available.
What’s more, every dollar in SNAP benefits generates about $1.50 in economic activity, as recipients spend their benefits at grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and small businesses. This ripple effect strengthens communities, keeping businesses open and workers employed.
Looking solely at the data, it would seem the anti-hunger program would be viewed by the vast majority of US voters as a practical solution that helps families put food on the table while also supporting local economies. After all, the vast majority of SNAP recipients are children, seniors, and people with disabilities, not the able-bodied adults who are often misrepresented as the main beneficiaries in political debates. And many rural communities, which tend to vote conservatively, rely heavily on this nutrition assistance, with some of the highest SNAP participation rates found in states that lean Republican.
The politicization of social welfare programs generated long-lasting shifts in voting behavior.
Yet in spite of its broad social and economic benefits, food assistance has been a politically contested issue ever since it was enacted more than five decades ago, often shaped by ideological and racialized narratives. This polarization persists today, exemplified by the massive cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the 2025 Republican budget reconciliation bill (commonly referred to as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) that was passed by the 119th US Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump in July 2025.
In new research, I, together with co-authors Troup Howard at the University of Utah and William Mullins at the University of California, San Diego, examine the process through which policy-based polarization emerges and persists over time. Using the historical expansion of the federal Food Stamp Program between 1961 and 1975 as a case study, we provide empirical evidence that the politicization of social welfare programs generated long-lasting shifts in voting behavior. Understanding this history and its persistence is essential to making sense of current debates over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Rollout of the New Federal Food Stamp Program Amid the Civil Rights Movement
The historical rollout of the Food Stamp Program provides a case study in how social and economic policies become polarized and how those divisions persist across generations. Political views on food assistance are emblematic of the deeply partisan divide over social insurance programs and racial attitudes, which consistently emerge as key fault lines in US politics, reflecting deep-seated ideological and historical divisions.
Even though political polarization is often framed as a natural consequence of personal preferences and ideological sorting, such an interpretation overlooks the strategic role of political parties in shaping public perception for electoral advantage. We find that these behaviors persisted well beyond the first two decades—through 2020, as detailed in our research, and arguably even more so today.
The Food Stamp Program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, has played a critical role in the network of US social programs for more than half a century. After state- and federal-level experimentation, the program was rolled out nationwide between 1964 and 1975 to combat food insecurity and improve nutrition among low-income Americans. The program currently supports 42 million people, including nearly 1 in 5 American children. Research consistently demonstrates its effectiveness in reducing poverty, stabilizing household food consumption, and improving long-term health and economic outcomes.
The initial rollout of the Food Stamp Program coincided with a period of intense legal and political transformation, marked by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the broader dismantling of Jim Crow laws that legally discriminated against Black Americans across the South. In this context, the introduction of a federal food assistance program was not merely a policy shift but also became a political flash point.
Our analysis provides, to the best of our knowledge, the first causal estimates on the racial politicization of social programs. Using individual-level voting data, we find three key results:
- The introduction of the Food Stamp Program heightened racial polarization in voting behavior.
- This effect was strongest among individuals who were adults at the time of the rollout of the Food Stamp Program.
- The resulting political divide persists in voter registration patterns and electoral outcomes today, more than a half a century later.
How the Food Stamp Program Generated Decades-Long Political Polarization
When a government program is first implemented, voters are often uncertain about its long-term effects. This initial ambiguity provides political parties with an opportunity to shape public perception through strategic political moves, particularly in the early stages of a policy’s rollout. Politicians can change the narrative framing surrounding discussions about the program. Or they can steer political resources away from the program and bring into focus other politically polarizing issues. Or they can set agendas that cater to specific groups of voters in an effort to offset any political advantages the opposing party might be accruing from public discussion about the policy.
These are classic partisan political strategies, and we show in our research that political parties, recognizing the potential to consolidate their voter base, have incentives to selectively target different demographic groups with distinct messaging. Even when a policy itself does not explicitly favor one group over another, partisan political moves can amplify political divisions and solidify long-term realignments in voter preferences.
To implement our analysis, we used a comprehensive dataset covering the universe of US voters as of 2020. We then compared the voting behavior between individuals who were adults when the Food Stamp Program was introduced in their county and those who were younger at the time. This methodology, which incorporates a rich set of fixed effects and demographic controls, including age, race, and gender, ensures that our findings are not driven by geographic variation, cohort effects, or broader shifts in political attitudes between 1960 and 2020.
SNAP is often misunderstood or misrepresented, but at its core, it is a practical program that helps families meet basic nutritional needs.
The results reveal the lasting impact of the Food Stamp Program on partisan affiliations. White voters who lived through the Food Stamp rollout as adults were significantly more likely to be registered as Republicans—and less likely to be Democrats—in 2020, compared with White voters who were younger, especially those who were born in a world where the Food Stamp Program was already an established feature of US social programs.
In contrast, Black and Hispanic voters who lived through the Food Stamp rollout as adults were significantly more likely to be registered as Democrats or Independents than Black and Hispanic voters who were younger. Racial polarization in partisan affiliations is an order of magnitude larger than electorate-wide effects, underscoring the extent to which food assistance became a racialized political issue.
Further analysis of voting behavior conditional on party affiliation reveals additional layers of polarization. Exposure to the rollout of the program increased the likelihood of white Republicans turning out to vote while simultaneously boosting turnout among Black and Hispanic Democrats. This divergence suggests that the politicization of food assistance not only influenced party registration but also reinforced voting engagement along racial and ideological lines.
Moreover, when focusing on individuals who registered to vote before the age of 25—a group likely to be more politically engaged—we observe even stronger effects, highlighting the formative role of early political experiences in shaping long-term partisan identity.
Taken together, these findings illustrate how social policy can serve as a catalyst for enduring political realignments. The case of the Food Stamp Program suggests that initial framing and partisan efforts can have consequences that extend well beyond the policy itself, shaping voting behavior for generations.
The program’s name shift in 2008 to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and its catchy acronym SNAP was intended to partially address this polarization that had developed over many decades. Beyond reducing the stigma associated with “food stamps,” the rebranding sought to counter the racialized and partisan narratives that had taken root during the program’s early rollout by emphasizing nutrition, work, and temporary assistance. By reframing food assistance as a modern, employment-adjacent social support rather than a form of welfare, policymakers aimed to make the program more politically durable amid persistent partisan scrutiny—even as the underlying political divisions documented in our analysis continued to shape debates over the program’s scope and funding.
How to Bridge the Partisan Divide over the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
As contemporary debates over social programs continue—not just about SNAP benefits but also in the context of the expansion of Medicaid in the Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the recent cuts to Medicaid in 2025—understanding the historical roots of this polarization is critical. The long-run political consequences of early policy framing should be a central consideration in both policymaking and electoral strategy. And the long-run economic fallout if partisan politics are successful in further diminishing social insurance programs could include substantial contractions in local economic activity as federal SNAP dollars are withdrawn from communities.
To make discussions about SNAP benefits less partisan, it is important that views about the program become decoupled from partisan politics. Yet separating the program from political narratives and stereotypes can be challenging. SNAP is often misunderstood or misrepresented, but at its core, it is a practical program that helps families meet basic nutritional needs.
By focusing on the facts and the program’s broad benefits, as documented in this issue brief, Americans can move past partisan divides and recognize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for what it truly is—a bipartisan investment in food security, economic stability, and the well-being of US families.
This piece was first published by the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.
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The Shutdown Proved That the USA Needs SNAP
The short, natural experiment we all witnessed reinforces that SNAP is the nation’s first line of defense against hunger and food insecurity.
Nov 27, 2025
Since the Food Stamp Act of 1964 and until the recent government shutdown, the Food Stamp program (renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP), had operated without interruption. Most SNAP participants have their grocery needs satisfied thanks to the SNAP subsidies, with only 35% of SNAP households also using community resources such as food pantries or food banks. That is, prior to the shutdown, 65% of the 22.4 million SNAP participating households (approximately 42 million people) did not rely on food pantries.
The shutdown created the conditions for a natural experiment where we could see what the USA would experience without SNAP outside of the conditions of a laboratory. We learned that the 12% of Americans who rely on SNAP find it vital for their household budgets. During the shutdown, lines at food pantries lengthened, and, to “stretch” resources, many food pantries provided households with less food. While many communities stepped up to provide food pantries with more resources, this short-term experiment left open the question of when donor fatigue would set in.
Consider that in 2023, 9.3 million households (24.4 million persons) received free groceries from a food pantry or other community resource. Without SNAP, the 65% of SNAP participating households that had not previously relied on food pantries would likely start relying on food pantries, adding approximately 14.6 million households to food pantry lines.
Adding another 14.6 million households to the preexisting 9.3 million households that use food pantries would entail scaling up the network to an unprecedented level and restructuring it. This would come at a high cost and cannot be accomplished in the short-term. Further, the long-term resources available for such scaling up are uncertain—while Americans are generous in the short-term, establishing an equitable and resourced scaled-up network would require long-term private donations to food assistance at a scale never before shown. Donor fatigue would likely set in.
Reductions in SNAP will fall on the shoulders of communities.
But even if food pantries could provide food to millions more households, the amount of food that pantries typically provide is far less than average SNAP benefits. SNAP provides to participants, on average, approximately $188 per person per month in electronic benefits available to purchase groceries. A family of four receives approximately $750 per month, or $9,000 annually. In contrast, food pantries or food banks typically provide anywhere between the equivalent of two to five days’ worth of food per month. The US Department of Agriculture “thrifty” food plan costs out one week of food for a family of 4 at $231. That is, even if a family were lucky enough to get a full week of food per month from a food pantry, that value would be far less than the value of SNAP benefits (e.g., $2,770 vs. $9,000 per year).
During the government shutdown and pause in SNAP benefits, I toured a large food pantry 30 miles outside of Pittsburgh. Staff reported a surge in new enrollees (in one week getting approximately seven times the number of new families to serve than usual), calls from people outside of the pantry’s service area needing help, and needing volunteers to direct traffic during open hours. The increase in monetary and food donations could not keep pace with the surge in demand, forcing a reduction in each household’s food allotment. Participants lined up well before the pantry opened due to anxiety about food running out.
While SNAP is intended to make it possible for households to meet their monthly food needs, the food pantry and food bank network is not designed to do such. The network was originally designed to cover the period between when one applied for Food Stamps and when expedited benefits would start to flow, which used to be approximately four days but has increased to seven days.
The Trump administration is exploring ways to reduce the number of SNAP participants such as having shorter periods for recertification or making it mandatory for all SNAP households to reapply. The administration hopes that such barriers will discourage people from receiving SNAP.
Reductions in SNAP will fall on the shoulders of communities. The short, natural experiment we all witnessed reinforces that SNAP is the nation’s first line of defense against hunger and food insecurity and food pantries can only be a secondary and supplemental source of food. Food pantries and food banks cannot substitute for a robust, reliable, government-funded food safety net.
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NDP Candidate Avi Lewis Calls for 'Public Options' to Fight High Costs of Groceries, Housing, and Telecoms in Canada
“When people are being gouged at the checkout aisle, on their phone bills, and in their rents, it’s clear that the market is failing,” Lewis said.
Nov 24, 2025
As Avi Lewis moves forward with his bid to become the next leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, the progressive activist, filmmaker, and journalist, announced his first major policy proposal on Monday: an array of "public options" for groceries, housing, phone bills, and other necessities aimed at combating Canada's cost-of-living crisis.
After two failed parliamentary bids in 2021 and 2025, the Vancouver-based Lewis in September launched his bid to take Canada's leftmost party in a more economically populist direction following a series of defeats under its long-serving, Jagmeet Singh.
He hopes his laser focus on corporate greed, which he says is driving Canada's cost-of-living crisis, will help set him apart from other front-runners, including Edmonton Member of Parliament Heather McPherson and British Columbia union leader Rob Ashton.
“It’s a moral outrage that so many people in Canada can’t afford the basics of a dignified life at a time when corporate profits are only skyrocketing,” Lewis said as he unveiled an array of new proposals Monday. “When people are being gouged at the checkout aisle, on their phone bills, and in their rents, it’s clear that the market is failing.”
Lewis called for the creation of a public not-for-profit grocery store chain that would operate coast to coast to combat the growing crisis of food insecurity.
According to data published earlier this year by the Canadian Income Survey, approximately 10 million Canadians—over 25%—lived in food-insecure households in 2024, nearly doubling since 2021 amid skyrocketing food prices.
Lewis described it as a "market failure" that so many Canadians could struggle to pay for food while Galen Weston, the owner of Canada's largest grocery chain, Loblaw, has a net worth of over $18 billion.
Lewis called for the government to create "a low-cost alternative to the big grocery chains, using a high-volume, warehouse-style model supported by local and regional food hubs." He likened the proposal to Mexico's chain of state-owned grocery stores and the government-run commissaries that provide affordable food to US servicemembers and their families, both of which cost less on average than shopping at major grocery chains.
"Think Costco—but run as a public service," Lewis explained in a policy document.
Lewis proposed a similar solution for the cost of cell phone and internet service, which are higher in Canada than in other peer countries.
Attributing this to "an oligopoly of telecom providers that dominate cellphone and internet services in Canada and gobble up smaller competitors," he proposed that the nation create a network of public telecom providers modeled after SaskTel. This publicly owned company serves the province of Saskatchewan and has led to "substantially lower” prices for customers than in other parts of Canada, according to the nation's Competition Bureau.
To combat the spiking cost of rent and a growing homelessness crisis, Lewis also pledged that his NDP would once again prioritize the construction of public housing, which Canada built prolifically until the early 1990s.
He pledged that under his leadership, Canada would establish a public builder to create a million new units of social, co-op, non-profit, and supportive homes within five years.
Lewis also championed the return of nationwide postal banking as an antidote to the predatory fees and interest rates of Canada's financial institutions.
He plans to leverage the nation's national postal service, which is already the only option for financial services in many remote parts of the country, as a competitive alternative to Canada's six largest banks, which brought in more than $50 billion in profits last year, and to predatory payday loan and check-cashing companies.
Finally, he proposed the reestablishment of Canada's government-owned nonprofit pharmaceutical company, Connaught Labs, which created and cheaply mass-produced life-saving vaccines and other medications like insulin for free public distribution. The company was privatized in the 1980s under former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
"During the Covid pandemic, for-profit pharmaceutical companies made billions while countries competed with one another for vaccine supplies instead of distributing them globally to stop the virus's spread across borders," Lewis said.
He said that his new version of Connaught would invest in the public development of innovative pharmaceuticals, such as mRNA vaccines and cancer immunotherapies, and share that technology with low-income countries.
"It's time to take the power back from the price-fixing corporate cartels that have a stranglehold on our economy and put it in the hands of the people," Lewis said. "It's time to build a new generation of public options to reduce costs and raise our quality of life."
Lewis described his "next generation" of public options as following in the footsteps of those pursued by NDP-led provincial governments.
"Whether it's public auto insurance in Manitoba, the agricultural land reserve to protect food security in British Columbia, a public telecom provider in Saskatchewan, or, of course, Medicare, our party has created public institutions that continue to make people's lives better and more affordable decades after their creation."
"The cost of living crisis we face today demands bold solutions," he added. "That means expanding public ownership to lower bills and improve services while creating good union jobs in the process."
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