As 42 million Americans face a pause in food stamp payments, the real crisis isn’t hunger—it’s a nation forgetting the dignity of work.
This editorial ran in the Tuesday 4 November 2025 edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.
My mother died of cancer when I was a baby, leaving my father to raise four sons as a poor single dad. Though we qualified for assistance, my father (a Greatest Generation World War II veteran) refused it. He worked extra hours, hunted, and fished to keep us fed. Nothing went to waste; you did what you had to do.
My brothers and I grew up with that mindset: you don’t mooch off others. Taking government assistance means making someone else work on your behalf: wage slavery. When government redistributes income, it isn’t generosity; it’s forcing people to hand over the fruit of their labor to those who didn’t earn it.
Among older generations, self-reliance was the norm; you worked harder and got off assistance fast. Call it the Protestant work ethic, echoing the Apostle Paul: “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat” (2 Thess. 3:10). Paul’s point is the unwillingness not inability to work. A hungry belly is still the best motivation to earn your own meal.
Fast-forward six decades, and that ethic has all but vanished. Headlines now warn that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, better known as food stamps) could run out of money if the Democrats’ government shutdown continues. The USDA says payments to 42 million recipients could pause without new funding. Outrage followed, with threats to steal from stores instead of taxpayers.
The data tell the story of how far we’ve fallen. The U.S. Census Bureau reports SNAP now costs taxpayers about $106 billion a year, roughly 2% of the federal budget. What began in the 1960s as a safety net has become a permanent system, with spending doubling since 2008 even after inflation.
When the Food Stamp Act was launched in 1964, it was pitched as a way to help the poor. Like many programs, it soon outgrew its mission. Previous stigma discouraged abuse; now Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards make dependence effortless, and society no longer sees any shame in living off others’ labor.
Despite the official line, the program extends well beyond struggling American families. Democrats claim illegal immigrants don’t get food aid, yet aliens here unlawfully use their anchor babies to qualify and collect taxpayer-funded benefits for the whole family.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation reveals just how deep this dependency runs. About 39% of U.S. citizens receive some form of welfare, including 25% who get food assistance through SNAP, WIC, or school meal programs. For legal immigrants, those numbers rise to 52% and 34%. And for illegal aliens, 59% get some form of welfare and 48% get food assistance.
That should alarm anyone who values hard work and self-reliance. Legal immigration built this country, but the underlying expectation was contribution, not continual dependence. If someone comes here unable or unwilling to support themselves, they shouldn’t stay at taxpayer expense. “Feed the world, starve the taxpayer” is not a sustainable national slogan.
The deeper problem is that welfare programs like SNAP often trap people in dependency rather than helping them climb out. Clinton-era reforms once required able-bodied adults without dependents to work or seek work after three months on benefits. But 31 mostly blue states have since waived those limits. For many, welfare has become a way of life—a career in dependency, not a bridge through hard times.
Church pantries and neighbors’ help have been replaced by federal bureaucracy run by people who care nothing for their recipients’ wellbeing. Instead, they have every incentive to keep them on the leash, since more dependence means bigger budgets and job security. Their issue isn’t compassion, but control.
The Cato Institute calculated that combined welfare benefits equal a pre-tax income of $40,000–$60,000 a year. That’s quite a Universal Basic Income. When benefits rival wages, people stop working. Remember the COVID shutdown? Why trade guaranteed support for less pay? Worse, USDA data show SNAP fraud exceeding $1 billion each month.
The better path is neither cruelty nor complacency. Food insecurity shouldn’t be managed by distant federal or state bureaucracies with no personal oversight. It belongs in local hands: churches, charities, and community groups that know the people they serve. Local organizations can meet real needs while helping families move out of poverty, not stay in it. My father’s generation saw poverty as a challenge to overcome. They believed dignity came from hard, honest work, not a government debit card. The solution will be slow but sure. Practicality must take precedence: SNAP should aid those who truly need help, not those who simply prefer it to work.