Opinion: Make SNAP more useful instead of restricting the poor's access

• Matthew Phelps of Dubuque served as a minister with The Salvation Army for over 11 years and currently serves as a hospital chaplain.
• The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of his current employer or The Salvation Army.

As a former minister with The Salvation Army, I worked directly with the poor for many years, helping them overcome obstacles to financial success.

I can tell you that Iowa’s current and proposed restrictions on SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, do not and will not provide accountability, but will instead help keep people impoverished.

By limiting how much money people can save, SNAP restrictions will prevent people from saving for a down payment for a house, buying a reliable vehicle for work, making home repairs, and saving for college — all barriers to financial success. By limiting how many vehicles a family can own, SNAP will determine where and when two-parent households can work. This is the opposite of what we should be doing.

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Instead of these proposed restrictions, we should reform SNAP by adding provisions to help the poor overcome financial barriers. New provisions could include:

1. Giving SNAP beneficiaries incentives to save up for a down payment on a house, their children’s college, and emergency savings, rather than punishing them for having too many assets.

2. Allowing high school students in SNAP households to work and save money for college without having to contribute 30% of their income to food, which SNAP rules currently force them to do. The current system incentivizes minors not to work and prevents our poorest teenagers from saving money for college.

3. Allowing families with more than one working person to have two vehicles for more flexible working arrangements.   

Iowa will soon spend $345 million annually to give handouts to children attending private schools. In a few years, all children will have access to these funds regardless of their household income. They will have no asset limitations. Families could own 20 vehicles and still qualify for this handout.

Yet each year these unaccountable funds will cost $300 million more than what is spent to administer SNAP benefits by the state of Iowa. Iowa will be spending 10 times the amount it spends on SNAP largely to subsidize the children of the rich who attend private school. While the average family utilizing SNAP receives $5,664 a year in food assistance, the rich will be given a check for about $7,598 per child who attends private school. I don’t doubt the sincerity of those behind these two pieces of legislation, but accountability clearly isn’t a consistent concern when passing out legislative handouts.

There are always people who abuse financial assistance. These people will find new and creative ways around the new rules and will continue using SNAP, but those who genuinely need our help will be removed or hindered under the proposed SNAP rules. Given the massive unaccountable handout we will soon be offering the rich through private school vouchers, Iowa can afford a SNAP benefit that helps move people out of poverty rather than one that incentivizes them to stay impoverished.

Matthew Phelps of Dubuque served as a minister with The Salvation Army for over 11 years and currently serves as a hospital chaplain. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of his current employer or The Salvation Army.  Phelps can be contacted at matthew.phelps.t@gmail.com.