Food Stamp Challenge Paper

As students, we were asked to take the (SNAP) Food Stamp challenge. SNAP is the foundation of the nutrition assistance programs. This program provides over 47 million individuals in nearly 23 million low-income households (Rosenbaum, 2013). We, students, were allotted only seven dollars a day to spend on food per person. What I realized while taking this challenge shocked me; to understand how families who are less fortunate than mine manage to feed themselves is astounding for what little they are given. My family, which consist of two adults and two growing boys, decided we would take the food stamp challenge and attempt to eat three nutritious meals for a day on the allotted seven dollars per person, or twenty-eight dollars for our family of four. When the challenge was first presented to me in class I was adamant that I was not going to even attempt it; simply because I thought there was no way to feed my family even one decent meal on the amount of money allotted. However, after presenting it to my husband he suggested we try it even if it was just for one day. After talking through the assignment with him we thought it would be good for our kids to learn that …show more content…
According to White House statistics, “Full-time women workers earnings are only about 77 percent of their male counterpart’s earnings. The pay gap is even greater for African-American and Latina women, with African-American women earning 64 cents and Latina women earning 56 cents for every dollar earned by a Caucasian man.” Political groups often make decisions that affects families who receive benefits such as SNAP, mostly based on conservative values. Such values argue that women do not need government assistance but instead need to get better jobs. However, with the pay gap how is that even possible? Because of the conflict theory fewer resources are allocated to meet the specific essentials of families that are truly in