Who’s dependent on food stamps? Cheapskate corporations

誰がfood stampsに依存しているのか？―それはケチな会社らだ
July 12, 2013, NBCNEWS.com

7月11日、下院は"farm bill"を可決した。これにより、40年間で初めて、food stampsへの認可が除外された。
これによって、公式にはSupplemental Nutritional Assistance Program （SNAP）として知られているプログラムへの支出が削減されるわけではないが（これは依然として議会の予算措置を得ることができる）、実質的な予算カットに至る可能性が高い。
なぜならば、共和党員の間で、SNAPへの支出への批判が高まっているからだ。

彼らの批判によると、「food stampsは福祉依存を生み出す」という。

しかし、food stampを受けている稼働年齢層がいる家族の多くは、実際には働いている。
しかし働いても自分や家族を養うための十分なお金を稼ぐことができない。
それゆえ、SNAPは、従業員に生きていくための十分な給与を支払わないウォルマートのようなケチな会社を補助するプログラムなのである。

The House of Representatives passed a farm bill on July 11 that, for the first time in 40 years, excludes authorization for food stamps. Although this omission doesn’t eliminate spending on what’s known formally as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), which can still receive congressional appropriations, it will likely result in substantial cuts. That’s because SNAP’s expansion has become a source of growing complaint among Republicans—most famously during the 2012 Republican primaries, when Newt Gingrich labeled Barack Obama “the food stamp president.”

The GOP’s objection to food stamps is that they create welfare dependency among recipients (even though they can’t be used for anything except food). As Rep. Paul Ryan put it in his 2013 budget document, “State governments have little incentive to make sure that able-bodied adults on SNAP are working, looking for work, or enrolled in job training programs.”

But this gets the problem exactly backwards. A majority of food-stamp families with an able-bodied adult do work, and more than 60% of such families work when they have children. They just don’t get paid enough to feed their families. SNAP is therefore principally a program to subsidize cheapskate employers like Walmart that don’t give employees enough salary to live on. It’s actually been called “the Walmart Syndrome.”