On Saturday, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps, will run out for more than 40 million Americans. Those millions of Americans are collateral damage of what is so far the second-longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
But even as the looming deadline has underscored the very real impact of the stalemate in Washington, D.C., it has also led to the latest flare-up in America’s decades-long war on entitlements. On social media, creators are gaining views by posting rage baits posing as people receiving food assistance and living a life of luxury on government money. These videos have racked up millions of views and tons of angry responses.
Krissy Clark is a journalist who has covered the social safety net in The uncertain hour podcast. Clark says these videos are part of a long history of Americans stereotyping SNAP recipients as lazy and entitled.
Clark spoke with Today, explained host Noel King to talk about how the “welfare queen” stereotype has long been present in American politics and is still shaping politics today. Below is an excerpt from their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s a lot more in the full podcast, so give it a listen Today, explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
Tell me where your thoughts go when you see videos as this.
We have no idea who these people are or if they actually receive food stamps or not. I was watching one of these videos and it’s specifically a parody account that says it’s someone who likes to do skits and skits. So I think one thing is: Are they themselves really genuine food stamp recipients?
“Two-thirds of the participants are children or adults over 60 years of age or people with disabilities.”
And then the reactions you see in the comments, people. [are] calling these people headlines, parasites, looters, people living on food stamps, intergenerational dependency. The first thing that comes to mind is: this is not an accurate representation of the majority of people who receive food assistance. It’s a very old set of tropes and stereotypes, but if you really look at the numbers, it’s not an accurate description of most food stamp recipients.
On the one hand, two thirds of the participants are children or adults over 60 years of age or people with disabilities. Then, when you take those people out and look at the majority of SNAP participants who, in theory, can work, most of those people are working in a given month, and a large majority of them have worked in the last 12 months or in the next 12 months, or will work in the next 12 months.
The average benefit for the average food stamp recipient is about $6 per day. So this whole idea that the typical SNAP recipient is just sucking the government’s tea and doesn’t want to work and is lazy, that’s not reflected in the data.
What about he answer “entitled”, “parasites”, “looters”, “intergenerational dependence”? Does that surprise you?
Unfortunately this is not the case, because it is a story as old as our country and even older. There is a deep anxiety that people in America have collectively, and that politicians have amplified in many ways: this deep anxiety about if we collectively help people, are we helping the right people? I think many Americans have this fundamental divide that runs through American history: who are the poor who deserve it, who are the people who deserve our help, and who are the poor who don’t deserve it.
How do our assumptions and even suspicions become political?
We’ve probably all heard of the Reagan tropes surrounding “welfare queens.” This was related to his efforts to make deep cuts to food stamp eligibility and food stamp payments in the 1980s.
And then we jump to 1996, when Congress approved the most radical social reforms in history. The New Republic magazine had a cover photo, in August 1996, with the big, eye-catching headline: “On Judgment Day, Sign the Bill Now,” encouraging [President Bill] Clinton signed the welfare reform laws that were going to create truly good welfare as we knew it. And on the cover of the magazine is a photo of a black woman with a cigarette in her hand holding a baby drinking from a bottle.
I remember the ’90s. I was a kid, but I knew the “welfare queen” trope was in the water. It makes me think about what’s happening today, where a single tweet claiming to be a video of a woman saying, “I have nine kids and I’ll never get a job because I get food stamps” can suddenly reach millions of people.
When you see these videos on social media, is anything different now because of how viral they can become?
The feeling I get is not, “Oh, we’re in this new world.” It’s: “Here we go again.” This is the same playbook, the same fears. Maybe they’re amplified, they reach people faster. But yeah, I was also a kid in the ’90s and I was in the water. It was just what, there were certain stereotypes and certain suspicions that we didn’t need social media for. They were already there. And I think that message and those suspicions will travel in one way or another.
There’s a big difference between 2025 and the past, and we’ve talked about it on the show: Safety net programs are often seen as Democratic territory. Democrats vote for them; Democrats need them.
But then the situation changed after the 2024 elections, because many poor and working people voted for Donald Trump. You recently saw Josh Hawley, the Republican senator from Missouri, write a op-ed in the New York Times saying we need to fund SNAP.
Do you think Republicans will change their stance on welfare because more and more people who need benefits are voting Republican?
It would slow it down a bit. I was largely reading it through the lens of, [Hawley is] trying to focus here on the “deserving poor.”
I also think if you look at his voting record, this summer he voted in favor of the sweeping changes to eligibility for food stamps and other types of eligibility for public assistance that were in the so-called One Big, Beautiful Bill. In some ways, these will have much more long-term and far-reaching effects in terms of limiting who has access to food stamps and other types of government assistance.
Saturday is when the benefits end. You’ve been reporting on this, Krissy, for a long time. When people lose their benefits, and when they lose them in such large amounts, where do they turn for help? Where do they go to look for food?
There is a network of food banks and food pantries. The nonprofit sector is obviously trying to fill the gap, but I think anyone you talk to in that world says there’s no way we can replace the kind of support that food stamps offer and that we, collectively as a nation, through our government, offer.
A few years ago I was in Dayton, Ohio, and I was in a Walmart right at midnight, because I knew that when the clock strikes 12:01, you have your monthly benefits. The number of people who, just as the clock struck 12:01, entered Walmart late at night to start buying food, demonstrated the immediate need. This is not something you can wait until the next day. [for] moment.
I ran into this woman who was with her 8 year old son. Their food stamps had already run out since last month. As much as I tried to budget things, I also had a job; I think he worked for Dollar General; I simply couldn’t make ends meet without this help. So think about that on November 1st.