Gov. Pawlenty wants poor Minnesotans to be prevented from using food stamps to buy candy and other junk food. He’s reflecting society’s broader ambivalence about charity: We generally want to help the poor, but we don’t trust people to use our help wisely.
The very existence of a “food stamp” program reveals this fundamental ambiguity.
Economists are virtually unanimous in the opinion that giving out cash is the most effective way to help the poor. This isn’t liberal muddle-headedness. In fact, the more conservative the economist, the more likely he or she is to think that it’s a bad strategy to give vouchers limited to food purchases.
That’s because a key assumption in economics is “consumer sovereignty,” that people have different tastes and preferences and that no one knows better than the individuals themselves what their most pressing needs are.
However, just as economists broadly agree about the benefits of international trade but have failed to convince the general public, so they have failed to convince society that if we want to help poor people, we just should give them money.
Many people support government aid to the poor. They don’t want it used to support “bad” consumption. The poor shouldn’t get taxpayer dollars to spend on booze, drugs, gambling, fast cars or frozen pizzas.
As a result, instead of a negative income tax or an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, society gives out Section 8 housing vouchers, food stamps and access to Medicaid. Cash would be more satisfying to poor people, but the other things are more satisfying to the rest of society.
All of this stems from our conflicted views about why the poor are poor.
One view is that all people are essentially alike but some are poor due to essentially random circumstances of birth or life. The opposite view is that people are not at all alike. The hardworking, honest ones have good incomes and the lazy and undisciplined do not and therefore are poor.
The truth, of course, lies in between. The poor, like the middle class or the rich, are not a homogeneous group. Some will spend most of their lives in poverty while others will live that way for a short time. Some made very bad decisions or experienced unusually bad luck. Some have poor mental or physical health. But many work hard and manage their daily affairs reasonably well.
People with common sense realize the complexity of poverty. Sensing human need, most citizens want government to help people in need. But most are also wary that public aid will be abused, and that’s not likely to change.
The brief kerfuffle in local opinion columns following the Pawlenty proposal is testimony to the symbolic weight we attach to such measures to discipline the poor. Yes, having to separate frozen pizza and cheese puffs from the meat and potatoes at the checkout may be an additional embarrassment for some food-assistance recipients. But it is not likely to change what the poor eat very much.
Studies show that giving food stamps raises household food consumption only slightly. The stamps free up household funds to buy other things and total consumption rises, but most of the increase is in non-food items.
University of Minnesota professor Ben Senauer in 1993 wrote a masterful overview of this and other aspects of the food stamp program and its policy issues for The Region, the quarterly publication of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve.
It earned him a national quality communication award from his fellow agricultural economists and is available on the Internet at www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=3733. Gov. Pawlenty, lawmakers and others who are interested in this issue should read this fine article to separate substance from rhetoric.
© 2003 Edward Lotterman
Chanarambie Consulting, Inc.