More Abortion, More Poverty: The Results of SNAP Cuts
The pro-life case against cutting SNAP
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, allows poor individuals and families to buy food they need. A proposal has been made to cut these benefits drastically.
First, I will discuss some myths about who is on SNAP and how long they have been on it. Then, I will write about how this relates to abortion.
Myths Vs. Reality
Many people claim that programs like SNAP allow lazy people to avoid working. They imagine a “welfare queen” who lives high on the hog on government benefits while refusing to work. They resent their tax dollars going to help such a person.
People aren’t eating lobster and steak on SNAP. The average monthly benefit is $157per person. Next time you go shopping, check your grocery bill to get an idea of how much that covers.
Second, only a tiny fraction of people on SNAP are nondisabled adults who aren’t working. Let’s look at some statistics.
The Vast Majority of People on SNAP are Disabled, Elderly, or Children
Here are some numbers. In 2022, nearly 40% of those receiving food stamps were children (with 11.6% of those younger than five). People 60 or older made up 18.3% of recipients.
And in 2015, 28% of adults under age 60 who received SNAP were disabled, meaning either they received disability-related benefits or reported health problems.
Using available numbers from 2015 about the total number of people who receive SNAP and specifically adults 18-59 without disabilities who receive SNAP, we can estimate that about 30% of SNAP recipients are non-disabled adults of working age.
This means that 70% of SNAP recipients are disabled, elderly, or children.
Now, let’s look at households. In 2019-2020, 36% of households that received SNAP benefits contained at least one member who was older or disabled, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
In addition, 65% of households receiving SNAP had children in them.
Most Nondisabled Adults on SNAP Are Working Full-Time
According to the US Government Accountability Office, 51% of adults on SNAP (between the ages of 19 and 64) were working full-time in 2018. An additional 21% were working full-time part of the year (49 weeks or less). Thus, over 70% of those on SNAP between the ages of 19-64 were working full-time for at least part of the year.
The remaining 30% would include at least some of the 28% of people on SNAP who are disabled.
And these numbers don’t include those working part-time.
Wages are so low, and the cost of living so high, that many people working full-time can’t afford food.
My friend who worked in a homeless shelter told me many people she worked with had full-time jobs, but still couldn’t afford housing. They slept in their cars, showered at the shelter, then went to their jobs.
These were all single men only trying to support themselves. A single parent trying to raise kids would have an even harder time making ends meet.
It’s impossible to get an exact percentage for people on SNAP who aren’t disabled, are of working age, and aren’t working. Statistics are from different years, some disabled people work, and some people work part-time and aren’t included in any of these percentages.
However, if only around 30% of people on SNAP are nondisabled adults of working age, to begin with, and we know that 70% of working-age people on SNAP are working full time at least part of the year, and at least some of the remaining people are working part-time, we can guess that the percentage of able-bodied people on SNAP who aren’t working at all is very low.
We can surmise that the vast majority of people on SNAP are disabled, older, children, or working.
Most People Are on SNAP Only Temporarily
In contrast to the myth of the lazy person living on food stamps, most people are on SNAP only for a short time.
According to data from 2012, over 30% of SNAP participants were off benefits within a year. Almost 50% were off them within two years. And over 60% were off within three years.
SNAP is often a temporary safety net utilized only until people or families get back on their feet.
The Proposed Cuts
The new proposal would freeze benefits, so the increasing cost of food is no longer considered. This would lead to $30 billion in cuts over the next decade. These cuts would affect everyone on SNAP, including children, the elderly, and the disabled.
The cuts to the SNAP program will affect:
6 million individuals aged 60 or older.
4 million disabled people
17 million children.
5 million young children under age 5.
Hunger interferes with a child’s education and cognition, inhibiting their ability to learn and leading to lower grades, which can impact a young person for a lifetime. A lack of nourishment during a child’s formative years can also lead to long-term physical and cognitive problems.
SNAP and Abortion
Many pregnant people have abortions because they can’t provide for a child or another child. In a study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute, 73% of people having abortions gave not being able to afford a baby as a reason.
Only 16% of US women of childbearing age live below the poverty line. But in 2014, they had 49% of all abortions in the country.
Thus, about half of all abortions are done on the country’s poorest women. Sixteen percent of American women are having half of all abortions.
Additionally, 26% of women having abortions had incomes of 100% to 199% of the poverty line. They are the second-poorest women in our country. Yet they make up only 18% of the population.
A relatively small proportion of the US population is having the majority of abortions, and they are the poorest groups in our society. The 66% of American women who are not poor or close to poor account for only about a quarter of women having abortions.
In other words, for every abortion a middle-class or wealthy person in the US has, there are three abortions among the nation’s poor.
Having a child is something many poor people feel they cannot afford. Researcher Laura Hussey, in her book The Pro-Life Pregnancy Help Movement: Serving Women or Saving Babies? (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2020), asked women who had abortions the following question:
Other countries provide a lot of assistance to women and their families that the government, employers, and schools in the US do not provide. These countries give women things like free childcare, free healthcare, money they can use to pay their family’s expenses, and the chance to take months or even years off of work with pay after giving birth.
Would you have made a different decision about your pregnancy if you could get that kind of help? (pp. 207-208)
Twenty-two percent of the women who responded said that if such programs had been available, they would have rejected abortion and had their babies. Another 34% said they were unsure.
Only 44% of the women said they still would have aborted. This means more than half of people having abortions might have changed their minds if the United States had a better social safety net.
Government programs to help the poor, then, would save the lives of roughly between 22% and 56% of babies being aborted today.
Overturning Roe v. Wade, it should be said, didn’t do that. Abortions are more common now than they were before Dobbs. The abortion rate has not gone down since Roe was overturned—it’s gone up.
For those of us who hoped overturning Roe would prevent most abortions, we have been sorely disappointed. When you factor in people who are ordering the abortion pill online (an unknown but likely high number), the situation is even more dire.
Dobbs has barely made a dent.
Twenty-two percent of one million abortions is 220,000. We pro-lifers have the power to save at least 220,000 babies a year just by creating a more robust social safety net.
And this is something we could easily do. Most pro-abortion people won’t fight us on it.
People who oppose SNAP but are pro-life on abortion must choose which they want more.
Either they can insist on knowing for sure that not one single undeserving person will get government assistance, or they can save the lives of over 220,000 preborn children a year.
Does the fear that someone will get benefits they don’t deserve really justify refusing to save 220,000 human lives a year? Is making sure no one gets government assistance more important than saving 220,000 babies?
Are some people so determined that not a penny of their tax dollars go to help poor children, disabled people, the elderly, working families, and a tiny fraction of nonworking adults that they would let all those preborn babies die?
I don’t want to believe so.
Some have pointed out problems with government safety net programs. The answer is to reform them, not eliminate them.
Cutting SNAP could lead to more babies being aborted as parents struggle to put food on the table. It’s a step in the wrong direction.
To send an email to your congresspeople opposing cuts to SNAP, go here. All you have to do is click a button.
Sarah Terzo covered the abortion issue for over 13 years as a professional journalist. In this capacity, she has written nearly a thousand articles about abortion and read over 900 books on the topic. She has been researching and writing about abortion since attending The College of New Jersey (class of 1997) where she minored in Women’s Studies.
Permission is given to pro-life organizations to repost or reprint this article, but please include the following:
This article originally appeared on Sarah Terzo’s Substack. You can read more of her articles here.