SNAP's $100B budget fails to reduce official poverty, Cato scholar says

The Census Bureau's refusal to count $1.6 trillion in government subsidies as income means no amount of welfare spending can reduce the official poverty rate, according to a Cato Institute scholar.

"The $100 billion spent on SNAP in 2024 added nothing to national well-being. It merely redistributed it," John Early, adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, wrote in a Wall Street Journal letter published July 14.

Early challenged claims that SNAP lifts 3.6 million people out of poverty, arguing that figure relies on an experimental poverty measure that counts SNAP as income while omitting $1 trillion in other welfare programs. The official Census Bureau metric excludes all $1.6 trillion in government subsidies from income calculations, making poverty reduction through transfer payments statistically impossible under that measure.

The debate over how to measure poverty carries direct implications for the $100 billion SNAP program's future funding. If the funds stayed with original earners, Early argued, they would either be consumed with the same economic effect or saved and invested, creating additional well-being that SNAP cannot generate.

The Measurement Dispute

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program served roughly 41 million Americans in fiscal 2024, according to USDA data. Early's critique centers on the Census Bureau's Supplemental Poverty Measure, which counts SNAP and other non-cash benefits as income but simultaneously raises the income thresholds defining poverty and excludes roughly $1 trillion in other welfare expenditures. The result, he argued, is an artificially constructed metric that overstates the program's anti-poverty impact.

The official poverty measure, by contrast, uses a pre-tax cash income baseline that excludes all non-cash benefits including SNAP, housing vouchers, Medicaid and tax credits. This methodology has drawn criticism from both sides of the debate — from those who argue it undercounts government support and from those who say it fails to capture the full cost of living.

Who Benefits From SNAP

Early also took aim at the program's targeting, claiming that 60 percent of SNAP recipients are not poor even by the Census Bureau's official metric. The assertion, if accurate, would suggest significant leakage in a program that cost taxpayers $100 billion last year. SNAP eligibility is set at 130 percent of the federal poverty line, or roughly $40,560 for a family of four in 2024, though states can expand access through broad-based categorical eligibility.

The letter comes as Congress considers the next farm bill, which authorizes SNAP spending. Lawmakers face competing pressures: agricultural-state Republicans and Democrats generally support maintaining or expanding the program, while fiscal conservatives have pushed for tighter work requirements and eligibility restrictions. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that every 1 percentage point reduction in SNAP participation saves roughly $2 billion annually.

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