The Food Stamp Challenge: Ingenious or Inappropriate?

Remember the Food Stamp Challenge promoted by four members of Congress in May 2007? The premise was simple: each representative would live for one week on an average food stamp budget of several dollars a day. Their goal, according to the Food Stamp Challenge blog, was to "raise visibility and understanding around the challenges that millions of low-income American's face in obtaining a healthy diet under current food stamp benefit levels."

The Challenge spread like wildfire as additional politicians, advocacy groups, news reporters, and even entire states agreed to try poverty's shoes on for size. "The little I eat only dulls the hunger," said California Assemblyman Mark Leno. "So the hunger becomes a chronic experience. It doesn't go away when I wake up the next day or the day after that."

Three years later, the Food Stamp Challenge is once again picking up steam. But not everyone finds the experiment so delectable.

Students at St. John's University subsisted on a food stamp budget for 100 hours earlier this month to commemorate the 350th anniversary of social justice advocate St. Vincent de Paul's death. "I was really, really hungry," lamented Meredith Chester, a first-year law student. "I was shaking I was so hungry." The students have followed up the challenge with panel lectures discussing the inherent deficiencies of the current Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The Challenge has also garnered national media attention. CNN's Sean Callebs is in his final week of a month-long effort to live off about $5.86 a day, or $176 total. He's keeping a blog documenting his daily struggles, and each entry is rife with excerpts from readers' emails. Most are sympathetic. Some, however, are critical.

A common argument is that food stamps aren't meant to pay for all of the groceries a person buys; therefore, the Food Stamp Challenge misrepresents the struggles of SNAP members ("That is a joke," says Julie, a food stamp recipient from Tennessee. "People who truly need food stamps are using them as the ONLY means of food purchase (Unless they use food banks).") Others complain that while the Challenge is a fun experiment for the rich, it's a harsh reality for the poor; Lee Ann writes, "As you (and I) near the end of the month we have two things going for us. Your life will once again be yours -- and I have money to buy ahead, buy the sales so I can go on living on Six Bucks a Day." The stories of everyday SNAP recipients don't make it onto mainstream blogs or TV specials. Yet these are the people who live the Food Stamp Challenge every day.

So, which is it? An ingenious effort to raise awareness about the difficulties of eating on a limited budget? Or a well-intentioned but inappropriate concept that just comes across as patronizing? What do you think of the Food Stamp Challenge?

Photo credit: brandi666