Why not food stamps?

I'm not particularly a fan of food stamps, especially since I found out in the '70s that my family qualified for them and we were in NO way poor or in need of help buying food.

However, the truly poor generally buy cheaper food, which is correlated with high calories and starches. That accounts in part for obesity among the poor.

Posted by Donna B. | January 24, 2008 6:26 PM

What Donna B. said. Obesity is not a function of the quantity of the food purchased, but rather its quality.

Posted by Lane | January 24, 2008 6:59 PM

However, the truly poor generally buy cheaper food, which is correlated with high calories and starches.

Maybe cheaper per calorie, but I doubt they're cheaper per serving. Since even the truly poor do not generally seem to be deprived of calories I don't think price is a major factor in poor dietary habits. Convenience and taste are probably much more important.

Posted by Mixner | January 24, 2008 6:59 PM

This comment misses the point, and betrays a real ignorance of the terms of the debate. Thanks for not letting that stop you from weighing in, though.

Every economist I know - right or left - would, of course, much rather simply give out cash.

Here in the real world, however, there are institutional considerations, such as: how fast can we print and mail checks to millions of people? The answer: not very, especially in the middle of the tax return season.

So: food stamps. Most recipients already have their cards, and we can transfer money onto them electronically. In this respect, they are a very good platform for delivering (at least part of) the stimulus, becuase they allow us to act swiftly.

The point was never that food stamps were a good way, in the abstract, to deliver the stimulus. But rather that, all things considered, they did have some advantages.

This post is like a cartoon of libertarianism: "In my make-believe, idealized model of the world, this policy you propose has all these exceedingly obvious flaws!"

Got it, thanks.

Posted by bob | January 24, 2008 7:01 PM

The evidence that the poor are forced into buying potato chips rather than apples by their incomes is pretty underwhelming. As Mixner says, the food is cheaper per calorie, but that's the point--they buy things that have a lot of calories, when there are at least equally cheap foods available per serving that have fewer calories. You may have to buy chicken wings instead of breasts, but you don't have to bread and deep fry them.

Posted by Megan McArdle | January 24, 2008 7:06 PM

Hi Megan. Your blog is great, but you just majorly wiffed on this one. I'm not gonna rip you a new one since I to take your criticism of food stamps as largely isolated to the ill-advised idea of including them in a stimulus package, but you just said said awfully dumb stuff. Living in an impoverished neighborhood in Brooklyn and having volunteered on the front-lines at soup kitchens and so forth, I can tell you that there are in fact people whose health is imperiled by malnutrition, that there are lots of people who actually are choosing between food and rent, that food stamps help them, and that yes, it's a massively effed up program. But a poorly-structured program is not the same thing as an unnecessary program. In NY, we're working to get more farmers markets and CSAs to accept food stamps, trying to get more people who qualify for he program to do so, and trying to do consumer education about nutrition.

This is such a no-brainer that I bet you'll just smack your forehead in regret when I point out that a fat person is not a healthy person, and that an unhealthy lower class can wreak havoc on a healthcare system. The reason food stamps are good - when they provide access to nutritious food - is that they make sure that people don't buy cheap, unhealthy foods as a way to make rent. That's why a lot of the "food insecure" are overweight: they load up on the fattening stuff because they have an economic incentive to do so. Food stamps incentivize healthier, smarter food spending.

And by the way, the reason a lot of people who qualify for food stamps fail to sign on for them is *not* because they lack an address, its because of a host of other reasons, notably the fact that until Spitzer was elected, it took several more pages of paperwork to qualify for food stamps than it did to buy a handgun. I may be a gun-friendly fellow, but that's nuts. And though I work in finance and am more than a bit skeptical of welfare spending, I also get to talk to people on a daily basis who need food stamps to get by. Should the program be dramatically reformed? You bet. Am I impresssed with your understanding of hunger issues? Not much.

Posted by Seth | January 24, 2008 7:06 PM

And don't even get me started on the "but poor people are fat!" stuff. That is an entirely separate debate/literature to which you are doing a disservice, and in a single bullet point no less.

Posted by bob | January 24, 2008 7:08 PM

Hmmm....so food stamps make you fat? Never heard that one before. Can I send that one to Readers Digest? If it makes the jokes page, I'll share credit.

Posted by Herb | January 24, 2008 7:15 PM

I agree that food stamps aren't a magic wand, and that there is a troubling amount of lousy food out there. I think we'd all like to see food stamps that people were able to exchange for healthier food and maybe better public health or education programs that made people aware of the dangers of grease and refined starches. But, it is the program we have, and the stimulus package is intended to increase spending and get some liquidity back in the system, not make us all healthy and svelte... those are different problems with different solutions and I think I probably agree with you on those.

That being said, my understanding is that the food stamp proposal is not about expanding program availability. It is about increasing benefits. Remember the stunt where the House Dems went for a month or so on $21 a week? It was to bring attention to the fact that you can't stretch a small budget to buy sufficient amounts of healthy food.

And I'll concede that there is a problem in the political coalition that makes food stamps available. Agribusiness does trade food stamps for subsidies for corn and soy and that makes it harder for us all to find nice, cheap, local veggies and fruits. Show me a bill to gut Big Corn and Big Soy, and I'll sign on. But increasing the food stamp allocation, in this case, isn't making the subsidies larger or the distortions worse.

Finally, I'm not sure that your point #2 is a refutation of my claim that food stamps facilitate consumption spending substitution for the poor. If food stamp recipients consume only food purchased with food stamps, then I think your point holds. However, I think it's the case for many people that food stamps are used to supplement food purchases, not as a complete replacement for cash purchases. So if one could increase the percentage of calories consumed that are paid for with government assistance, you would increase the amount of income they have available for other spending.

Posted by David | January 24, 2008 7:38 PM

On average, what fraction of food budget is covered by food stamps? If say, the average person spends $100/month on food, of which $50 is covered by stamps, and they're doling out added benefits of $25 a head, then the food stamp money liberates $25 of cash. So as long as the recipient doesn't spend more on food, this might work.

But if food stamp benefits are already generous enough that most people's needs are covered as-is, then this looks like a boondoggle.

Posted by Matt B | January 24, 2008 7:38 PM

Greg Mankiw (taking a break from "My So-Called Life") pointed out recently that food stamps are not a good tool with which to manage aggregate demand because it cannot really be used symmetrically.

According to traditional Keynesian theory, fiscal policy should be expansionary in bad times and contractionary in good times. But who wants to cut food stamps for the poor when the economy starts to pick up? Obviously it's better for poor people to have a stable--rather than highly volatile--supply of food stamps.

Cash rebates make more sense--though I myself would still prefer permanent reductions in tax rates or nothing at all.

Posted by rwe | January 24, 2008 7:52 PM

I've also "worked on the front lines", and while theoretically, food stamps might push people into healthy food, in practice, they don't seem to. If you restricted food stamps to produce, unprocessed meats, and so forth, then yes, it might force the poor to spend money on healthy food, but of course, you can choose between tater tots and apples, and the poor choose tater tots. A healthy, balanced diet is not inherently more expensive than living on chicken fingers; it's just less hedonically satisfying in a life with relatively few hedonic satisfactions. To be sure, I've only written one article on the subject, and that a while ago, but as of 2003, the researchers on the subject I spoke to agreed that the problem in poor communities was not an insufficient quantity of food, or that it was not possible to compose a balanced diet out of what the poor were spending on food; it was that the poor were choosing unhealthy foods over healthy ones. It is possible that if we doubled their food stamps, they would suddenly cut their calorie consumption in half, but there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that this is the case, and it seems to fly against everything we know about human nature, and obesity. The new research on obesity indicates that people are almost always eating to set points that rise slowly every year; whatever causation there is in the link between income and obesity almost certainly runs the other way.

Posted by Megan McArdle | January 24, 2008 8:01 PM

I have (what I think is) a unique idea for a fiscal stimulus. I'd love to know if anyone thinks it's extraordinary good, utterly stupid, or somewhere in between or whatever.

Let me preface it by saying I lean toward no fiscal stimulus at all, preferring to let the Fed, rather than politicians, try to manage economic cycles.

But if we are to have fiscal stimulus, a key objective is obviously that it be effective & efficient in terms of immediate stimulus per dollar lost to the Treasury. Getting more money in the hands of lower income/wealth individuals (who will spend a higher portion of it immediately) via tax rebates (particularly employee payroll taxes) and increased transfer payments (e.g., food stamps) fit that criterion, but have a fairness problem in that they represent increased wealth transfer, albeit for the (at least ostensible) purpose of stimulus.

As a result, our political process has produced tax cuts more focused on the middle class than would be most effective and efficient.

So here's my crazy idea to ensure efficiency & effectivess while avoiding that fairness problem: Government issued gift certficates (instead of those cash rebates) that must be spent within 3 months, issued to most/all of the population. Granted, since money is fungible it won't all be incremental, but we could help ensure that by precluding necessities (as distasteful as that sounds), such as food, gas, heating oil, etc., since that's stuff that would be purchased anyway. Using such gift certificates would ensure that a high portion of each stimulus dollar is spent immediately.

I do see the drawback of the expense of processing (government fulfillment of) these gift certificates, but I'm guessing that that expense (or more precisely the incremental expense over that of administration of cash rebates) would be small relative to the size of the stimulus and relative (in qualitative terms) to the benefit of greater fairness.

Another drawback to my "gift certificate" idea is that the processing delay (mainly on the fulfillment end) could inhibit and/or delay the multiplier effect, although that's just an assumption on my part, I have no idea of magnitude, and no idea of the extent to which that problem could be mitigated by streamlining/accelerating the fulfillment process. And of course, some retailers (and perhaps others) honoring the gift certificates would have to adopt a new process and spend some time on it, but here, too, magnitude might not be significant and would be lower the next time this tactic were used (due to learning/experience curve, etc.).

I'd greatly appreciate any comment.

Posted by Brooks | January 24, 2008 8:15 PM

Vouchers for farmers' markets apparently do encourage low-income recipients to eat more healthfully. Here is a link to blog post that references this study http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/the-farmers-market-effect/

The Tucson AZ Community Food Bank's farmers' markets do accept food stamps.

Seems like if there were a way to help people get shares in community-supported agriculture (CSA), they would eat more veggies as well. I certainly eat more collards and squash than I ever did before I joined a CSA.

Posted by Jen | January 24, 2008 8:32 PM

Brooks: Theoretically that would be a less bad stimulus than others that have been proposed. In practice, it would be political suicide. Imagine an ad showing of a family about to lose their home getting handed a gift certificate that lets them buy an iPod but not avoid foreclosure. Since it fails practically, I'd just go for the best theoretical solution, which as you say is no stimulus at all.

Regarding obesity and nutrition, I lean toward Megan's side. I eat more pizza than broccoli, and it's not due to lack of money or nutritional information. Due to unfortunate quirks of evolutionary history, unhealthy food tends to taste really good. It's amusing that many of the same people who correctly note the foolishness of stuff like abstinence-only sex ed expect everyone to take vows of purity with regard to diet and exercise.

Posted by Brian | January 24, 2008 8:44 PM

Brooks: I think the gift certificate idea is a very good one. I think it ought to be restricted to the lower end of the income spectrum. The advantage claimed for food stamps is that they go to people who mainly spend all their income every month, and are thus likely to be used quickly - the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities says increased food stamp grants show up as cash in the economy within two weeks. The problem with gift certificates for rich people is that they may lie in a drawer for 6 months, which is what tends to happen with the Barnes & Noble certificates I get for Christmas. (Of course generalized gift certificates that could be used at many stores would get spent faster, partially ameliorating this problem.)

Megan's post makes a series of claims which would need to be backed up by data, but aren't. SOME of America's poor adults don't need more food; how many, and is this as true for poor kids? (I've heard it's not so true for young children, who can't buy their own food.) The meaning of Point 2 is completely unclear to me; is she saying that raising food stamp grants means poor people end up with less money NET in their pockets? This defies all logic and common sense. Whether the larger food stamp grants raise the cash in their pockets at a 100% rate is immaterial, since 100% equivalent cash value will quickly be going to food retailers and producers and thence out into the economy regardless.

Point 3 is a claim that can only be made with data to back it up. CBPP makes its claim that increasing food stamp grants leads to very rapid injections of cash into the economy on the basis of data, not speculative inference. Claim 4, again, is a claim that could be meaningful, or utterly insignificant, depending on data. When grocery stores and supermarkets in poor parts of the country start earning more cash, does it help the local economy? Maybe one could call up some people in upstate NY and Northeast DC and try to get a sense of that.

And claim 5, finally, runs smack into the two problems that the food stamp concept tries to solve, which are (1) that when you give people cash, they only spend a portion of it, which reduces the efficiency of this idea as economic stimulus; and (2) we lack an efficient bureaucratic mechanism for giving cash to people who aren't paying payroll taxes or receiving unemployment or SS checks, i.e., many of the poor.

I am in general becoming increasingly allergic to rhetoric which is simply oriented towards arguing that whatever the problem is, there's nothing to be done about it within the sphere of politics. This is a political blog. If one doesn't believe politics can accomplish anything, why write such a blog?

Posted by brooksfoe | January 24, 2008 9:00 PM

Just issue government debit cards that cannot be used to withdraw cash, but rather, must be used to purchase goods and services. Problem solved.

By the way, there is a lot of sarcasm in the above paragraph.

Posted by Yancey Ward | January 24, 2008 9:11 PM

It is possible that if we doubled their food stamps, they would suddenly cut their calorie consumption in half, but there is absolutely no evidence to indicate that this is the case, and it seems to fly against everything we know about human nature, and obesity. The new research on obesity indicates that people are almost always eating to set points that rise slowly every year

In other words, raising food stamp grants would have no impact on obesity? So what's the problem? And who is claiming that the point of raising food stamp grants is to fight obesity? The point is to act as an efficient economic stimulus. If you claim that raising food stamps would increase obesity, fine; that's a valid argument against them. But I doubt there's any data to support that; and in any case, one has to recognize that the nanny-state attitude here is being displayed by you, in arguing that we shouldn't give food stamps to poor people because they'll only make them fatter, rather than by advocates of increasing food stamps as economic stimulus, who haven't said anything about that issue.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 24, 2008 9:13 PM

Generally speaking, the research on the relation between poverty and diet seems to accept that lower income produces higher obesity, because there is an inverse relation between energy density and energy cost. In brief, if you don't have much money, it makes more apparent sense to maximize calorie intake at the lowest available cost, to preserve some margin for emergencies etc. There is a good related point in Megan's response about high satisfaction levels in certain (higher fat) foods. It should also be remembered that there is such a thing as habit-forming, and so giving the poor more money directly targetted at food may well produce a "more of the same" food buying pattern. In other words, once they get hooked on high-fat foods, they will just buy more of the same to feed the habit as their purchasing power expands, even to a relatively slight degree. Furthermore, if people are unused to preparing more healthy food, then they may well consider that buying it is a waste of time/boring/pointless.

Posted by nickzi | January 24, 2008 9:14 PM

"So what's the problem?"

The reason why obesity rates were pointed out is that the poor seem to have plenty of food, so extra food stamps aren't going to increase their spending on other things. The point of the plan is to increase spending on non-essential goods.

"we lack an efficient bureaucratic mechanism for giving cash to people who aren't paying payroll taxes or receiving unemployment or SS checks, i.e., many of the poor."

And people who don't pay payroll taxes, or are already receiving government assistance deserve any cash from the government because?

Posted by JordanT | January 24, 2008 9:17 PM

The reason why obesity rates were pointed out is that the poor seem to have plenty of food, so extra food stamps aren't going to increase their spending on other things.

This defies both logic and economics, and is flatly not true. To some extent, more food stamps will substitute for cash which the poor currently spend on food; that cash will then be spent on the myriad other things poor people want but can't afford, as shown by empirical data of what happens when you raise food stamp grants. To some extent, more food stamps will be used to buy more food; this means the government will send more money to food retailers, which then goes out into the economy, which is why we call it "stimulus".

And people who don't pay payroll taxes, or are already receiving government assistance deserve any cash from the government because?

First, we are discussing economic stimulus to avoid a recession; the question of whether people "deserve" money is a philosophical or religious one. Second, they deserve it because they are the long-term unemployed, a category that has risen significantly throughout the low-job-growth Bush recovery of the last 6 years. They don't show up in unemployment stats, but in the lower total percentage of 18-to-65-year-olds employed, which has fallen from I believe 65% to 63% since 2000. Perhaps people have grown significantly lazier in the past 7 years, but I somehow doubt it, and even if they had, we're discussing how to avoid a recession, so who cares?

Posted by brooksfoe | January 24, 2008 9:27 PM

And one more point: if the government issues more food stamps to the poor but the poor don't use them, it doesn't cost anything.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 24, 2008 9:36 PM

Brooks, read what I wrote. To some extent, the food stamps will substitute for other things, but they are very imperfectly fungible. And to the extent that they draw down food stocks, rather than increasing production immediately, they don't stimulate new activity--particularly if businesses know the increase is supposed to be temporary.

Assuming that the poor have some budget constraint on food, they can possibly eat more of it, but they don't need more of it, which is why directing the stimulus towards giving them more food is bad, distortionary policy. It would be marginally less bad if the poor actually used the money to consume higher quality, lower calorie food, but there's no evidence that this happen; most fat people are fat because they're hungry. It is much more likely that the causal relationship between fat and income runs from fat to income than from income to fat--and yes, they could reinforce each other, but what we now seem to no about obesity contradicts this view.

Posted by Megan McArdle | January 24, 2008 9:38 PM

Interestingly, Paul Krugman offered a very good explanation of why economists have generally gravitated toward monetary policy rather than fiscal policy as the means of managing aggregate demand:

Cheney's remarks were those of a vulgar Keynesian — a believer in the now- discredited doctrine that taxes and spending should be routinely twiddled in an attempt to "fine-tune" the economy. Decades of experience shows that this is a bad idea, that when governments try to fight garden-variety recessions by cutting taxes or increasing spending they almost always get it wrong. By the time Congress has finished negotiating who gets what, and puts the new law into effect, the recession is usually past — and the fiscal stimulus arrives just when it is least needed.

Fiscal pump-priming has its place; it's appropriate in the face of deep and persistent slumps. But otherwise we should make budgets for the long run, and let the Fed deal with short-run problems by adjusting interest rates. It's disturbing that Mr. Cheney seems unaware of this basic policy rule.

Posted by rwe | January 24, 2008 9:40 PM

"And one more point: if the government issues more food stamps to the poor but the poor don't use them, it doesn't cost anything."

This seems straightforward, but is not quite as simple as you make it sound. Money still has to be set aside, which then cannot be used for other (perhaps more "profitable") activities, and, as such is effectively a cost to the government and constrains its freedom to some extent.

Posted by yasahai | January 24, 2008 9:40 PM

Are you--as an alleged economist--daft? The purpose of upping food stamps during a recession isn't so recipients buy more food. It's so they spend less on food and spend more dollars on other consumer goods--especially durable goods, like TVs and refigerators. Ever hearof a guy named Keynes?

And why the wanton cruelty--there's no other word for it--toward the poor? So they're fat, lazy and don't have zip codes. Have you no compassion for American families who sometimes have trouble putting food on the table?

Finally, I will guarantee you that the svelt, healthy, deserving "rich" people in America spend way more per capita on food than the people you snidely call "the poor." Explain to me why giving "the poor" more food money will make them fatter, when the more the rich spend on food the thinner they get.

Posted by Mortimer Madler | January 24, 2008 9:43 PM

This is the third post since yesterday to use the word "daft". Any reason for its sudden appearance?

Posted by Rob | January 24, 2008 9:45 PM

The Democrats are doing food stamps because Democrats do food stamps. The Republicans are doing things for businesses because Republicans do things for businesses. The "stimulus" package is for a) posturing (We're from the government and we're going to do something for you) and b) transferring money from unfavored groups to favored groups. Posturing and redistributing money is what politicians do for a living. The "stimulus" package will do nothing for the economy, which is not in the tank and which will recover from the ending of the housing bubble in due course if the politicians keep their hands off.

Posted by Andy | January 24, 2008 9:49 PM

Mortimer, read some of the posts on the thread, and they will enlighten you. Basically, the extra amount of money is not much (not enough to make the poor move up an income bracket) and so they will continue with a combination of survival strategy and habit: buying cheap food because it is higher in calories, tastes better (to them), and because they are used to it. The point about the amount spent misses the issue, which is that the rich pay MORE for "higher quality" but LOWER CALORIE food. The poor reverse the equation, and pay LESS for HIGHER CALORIE food.

Posted by nickzi | January 24, 2008 9:49 PM

Brooks, read what I wrote. To some extent, the food stamps will substitute for other things, but they are very imperfectly fungible. And to the extent that they draw down food stocks, rather than increasing production immediately, they don't stimulate new activity--particularly if businesses know the increase is supposed to be temporary.

Megan, I did read what you wrote, and I responded to it above. This is a valid sounding point, but needs some data to substantiate it. Is it worse than money that's spent in other ways? I mean, if you hand out cash and people spend it on consumer electronics, that also goes partly to draw down stocks rather than generating new activity. Ditto with anything, especially housing at the moment. So how significant is this? It might be utterly insignificant. Needs data.

And you really need to consider the fact that you are making an argument here based on a moral aversion to the way a certain class of people would (arguably) spend the money you're putting into the economy. If we give people cash, they'll spend some of it on drugs, alcohol, and strip clubs. So what? We're talking about how to avoid a recession.

Posted by brooksfoe | January 24, 2008 9:54 PM

brooksfoe,

SOME of America's poor adults don't need more food; how many,

Apparently, the vast majority get more than enough food.

and is this as true for poor kids?

Maybe not "as" true, but mostly true.

See "Poverty and Malnutrition" and the following sections in this document

Posted by Mixner | January 24, 2008 9:55 PM

The comment I made concerning truly poor peoply buying cheaper, thus higher calorie food is obviously being misunderstood.

They buy potatoes, not green beans or broccoli.
They buy chicken thighs, not wings or breasts. They don't fry them because oil is expensive.
They buy white rice, not the more wholesome brown or wild rice.
They buy bologna & hot dogs, not pork tenderloins.

Need I go on? To eat a healthy, low fat diet requires $$.

Posted by Donna B. | January 24, 2008 9:55 PM

I ain't bragging or nothin', but it looks like I'm the first one to post who actually grew up poor. Yay!

I'm not sure which idea made me giggle more: That poor people have enough food already, or that one of the reasons they buy fatty foods is for the calorie count. That reminded me of Survivorman, like, "the carbs in these Doritos will give me an extra 10 to 12 hours of sustenance."

My mother also took advantage of something called WIC, which was a Godsend of a program. I actually don't know if that was a government thing or not.

This was all 20 years ago, I don't have a clue how things work now. Maybe the system is messed up.

Posted by Ben | January 24, 2008 10:07 PM

Dang it, I had all of this saved in one file, somewhere, and I've typed all the easy keywords I can think of, but still no luck with retrieval. Anyway, here goes:

The current best guess is not that the poor - those loathsome fatty characters with absolutely no redeeming virtues of any merit but stuffed with will-sapping vices - are unaware of the nature of what they purchase and the consequences of that type of diet. They are not particularly given to or in the habit of giving into oral gratification. And they wish they could afford a better diet.

But here's where the 'afford' part comes in: the most heavily processed, least nutritious foods, the ones full of the emptiest calories . . . are precisely those that are the quickest and easiest to prepare.

In times past, the traditional role of Mom was to be the family dietician, and she was expected to serve up healthful bounteous helpings for the little nippers, while at the same time pleasing the taste buds of the Man of the House. And you know, she did, more or less, and when there was less-than-healthy food - soda was the particular bane of our mom - she was expected to proscribe it, or at least ration it wisely.

These days, mom picks up a pizza on her way home from work, or maybe some Chinese takeout. She buys those little frozen pillows of deep-fried lasagna, or frozen french-fries. Or something that can be microwaved in less than ten minutes. Yes, apples are healthy, and all adults virtuously recite this fact as if it were a viable alternative. When everybody damn well knows what hypocrites they are, and when the only way most people will eat an apple is if it's baked in a pie. Which, while still a possible healthy alternative, is just about unheard-of for most people any more, except for special occasions. No, if you want apples in a pie, you buy those nasty little 'pastries', or, if you can afford it, have somebody else bake it (_Not_ the local supermarket.)

And that's the long and short of the 'obesity epidemic'. Unpaid work at home indeed. Part of which, as Megan notes, though for the wrong causative factors, is coming back to bite us.

Posted by ScentOfViolets | January 24, 2008 10:07 PM

I find what you say somewhat disquieting. Maybe you don't mean to, but you seem to be patronizingly implying poor people are unusually stupid about food choice.

I think most everyone tends to buy junk food and unhealthy food over healthy food. The comfortably middle-class are not eating a low-fat Mediterranean diet, usually not even when they claim to do so. What can offset things for them, although maybe not that much considering obesity rates in all economic classes, is that they can afford things like gym memberships or exercise equipment. They're also at least somewhat more active. Poverty can be a rather sedentary life.

Also in some cases junk food truly is more convenient and stores better than healthier foods. You know how fast apples turn brown or rot? Soda lasts longer than milk. Corn chips are easier to manage corn-on-the-cob in most cases. Unless they're getting gas money to boot they often do need to think of things that'll store as they may be unable to take that many trips for groceries.

I don't know how to say this without sounding rude, but I'm going to guess you've never actually been poor.

Posted by Thomas R | January 24, 2008 10:07 PM

Food stamps do *Not* mean only eating high carb foods. Am in my 70's, and due to circumstances have only my small social security annuity check and approx. $5/day in food stamps.

I eat well balanced meals: E.g., Buying only on Sale-- An inexpensive chuck roast makes 3-4 meals as pot roast or stew. One can of tuna for 2 lunches as sandwiches or salad. A whole chicken for soup and chicken salad. All made with less expensive fresh veggies than frozen. (Cooking meals like my grandmother did.) I would use the FS increase in purchasing power for spices & variety of ingredients--but am content & happy with what I'm given.

Tho, I do wonder if posters here would fare as well on $5/day, with their steaks, chops, french fries, store-bought bakery items....

Posted by C.G. | January 24, 2008 10:11 PM

ScentofViolets - I can see here you get the analysis from, but you really are oversimplifying the story here - and, for that matter, putting too much emphasis on family situations and the mother of the household. As for the idea that the poor don't give into oral gratification - of course they do! Everyone does - that's part of how human beings are wired. People don't wish they could afford a better diet - what they want is a magic way to eat the same satisfying, highcalorie obesity generating junk - and stay slim and nicely toned. That's why every generation the same failed (and dangerous) diets come back to haunt us.

Posted by kassilder | January 24, 2008 10:16 PM

Donna B,

The data cited in the document I linked to is not consistent with your claims. Quote:

It is often believed that a lack of financial resources forces poor people to eat low-quality diets that are deficient in nutriments and high in fat. However, survey data show that nutriment density (amount of vitamins, minerals, and protein per kilocalorie of food) does not vary by income class. Nor do the poor consume higher-fat diets than do the middle class; the percentage of persons with high fat intake (as a share of total calories) is virtually the same for low-income and upper-middle-income persons.

You refer to the "truly poor," and perhaps their consumption patterns differ significantly from those of the merely "poor," but if that's what you're saying I'd like to see some data.

Posted by Mixner | January 24, 2008 10:21 PM

"This is a political blog. If one doesn't believe politics can accomplish anything, why write such a blog?"-brooksfoe

Brooksfoe is mistaken. The argument being made is against fiscal stimulus in general and against food stamps as a form of fiscal stimulus in particular.

There are more criticisms besides the ones Krugman made of using fiscal policy in the way that the politicians now are trying to. One is that the increased spending (on food stamps or whatver) will raise deficits, raise real interest rates and crowd out private investment. And it isn't obvious, a priori that the positive effect on consumption will outweigh the negative effect on investment.

Secondly, an increase in consumption and a decrease in investment bodes ill for long-run productivity growth. It seems foolish to implement policies that offer dubious benefits in the short run yet will certainly prove costly in the long run. There is nothing like a liquidity trap right now. So why not let the Fed do its work and forget about costly food stamps and rebates? I think that's what McArdle beleives, and if so, she's right.

Attempts at short-run fiscal stimulus are misguided, and fiscal stimulus through food stamps is absolutely loopy.

Posted by rwe | January 24, 2008 10:21 PM

"I ain't bragging or nothin', but it looks like I'm the first one to post who actually grew up poor. Yay!"

Maybe, but I type slow. Although my family was only poor when I was little. We had color TV, may have had more than one car, and I believe owned the house but this is a tad deceptive. There was seven of us in a house with minimal necessities. We got our water from a well. The color TV was one they had from before we became poor and was not worth anything or they likely would've sold it. We practically lived on strawberries and rice. The family chopped wood for the fire so we could stay warm in winter and our Christmas gifts were mostly things our parents made. Granted that kind of poverty is likely rare in the US today, but it does exist. I would prefer private groups give the truly poor food than do a food stamp deal, but of all welfare things I think this seems the most basic and simply humane.

Posted by Thomas R | January 24, 2008 10:21 PM

Tho, I do wonder if posters here would fare as well on $5/day, with their steaks, chops, french fries, store-bought bakery items....

The problem is not whether it is feasible to live on $5/day, but the fact that the wealthy don't need to budget in that fashion and the poor are unlikely to do so. Payroll comes around every week or two; foodstamps are recharged once a month. How is it spent? Typically, in a couple large trips (partly, perhaps, because they can't afford to spend more gas money than that), and what looks good now is what is purchased. By the end of the week/two weeks/whatever, they're back down to trying to feed a family of five for the next two days until on a half-dozen potatoes and an onion.

Living on $5/day is feasible, provided you're not a large person with a voracious appetite, but it requires careful advanced planning and budgeting. Interestingly, people who have and exercise these skills tend not to stay poor very long, even if a bad start in life or a setback has put them there for the present. People who don't have them -- sometimes because of pure sloth, and more often than not because they were never trained in how to do it -- tend to eat a lot of processed fats and carbohydrates at considerably more than $5/day for the first 2/3 of the cycle and then run on the hairy edge of starvation for the last 1/3. So one end, they eat lots of unhealthy, fattening food; and on the other end, they get limited caloric intake that puts the body in emergency-preservation mode. Repeat like clockwork until you have a lower-class obesity epidemic.

Posted by anony-mouse | January 24, 2008 10:27 PM

I see I'd missed a context to this. You're referring to food stamps as an economic stimulus effort. Now that I agree is debatable or even loopy.

I was more thinking of the existence of food stamps or if they're ever necessary. In that case I'd say their existence is probably necessary at least in some cases. (Even if it's just the 2% of the poor according to Heritage)

Posted by Thomas R | January 24, 2008 10:28 PM

Scent,

When everybody damn well knows what hypocrites they are, and when the only way most people will eat an apple is if it's baked in a pie. Which, while still a possible healthy alternative, is just about unheard-of for most people any more, except for special occasions. No, if you want apples in a pie, you buy those nasty little 'pastries', or, if you can afford it, have somebody else bake it (_Not_ the local supermarket.)

I love apples and eat them several times a week.

Tell me, if we're all hypocrites and no one is actually buying raw, unprocessed apples any more, why do I see great big piles of them, in lots of varieties, in the produce section of grocery stores? Ditto for pears, oranges, peaches, nectarines, plums, melons, bananas, grapes, and so on. Are they just there for decoration?

Posted by Mixner | January 24, 2008 10:29 PM

I think people are ignoring the potential stimulus value of food stamp fraud. Any increase in food stamps should be done with the old, easily corrupted paper system. When I was growing up, the mob ran exchanges of $60 for $100 worth of food stamps. This would give the poor an unexpected boost of cash with which to purchase consume goods.

Posted by Njorl | January 24, 2008 10:59 PM

As for the piles of apples, my theory is they are piled up by economists waiting to test out questionable theories about the poor.... A sort of honeytrap, but crunchy and green. Now you know what security cameras in stores are really for!

Posted by zavulon | January 24, 2008 11:00 PM

Thomas, as I say, if the poor need money, give them money. Giving them food is pointless and undignified: it is (these days) almost never what they need most, and it presumes that you have a better notion of what they should eat than they do.

All the rest of the arguments are revolving around a model of obesity that has now, in my view, been largely discredited. The better obesity researchers almost all believe that obese people are obese because they are much, much hungrier than thin people, not because they "eat the wrong things"--giving them unlimited access to a salad bar will not alter the total number of calories they take in, because they will eat until their caloric desires are sated. The poor are undoubtedly eating bologna because they can't afford filet mignon, but there's no evidence that they would be thinner or better nourished if their food budget doubled; they would simply upscale either the same, or a greater, number of calories.

Donna, that statement is--wildly at odds with my experience. I can only speak, of course, to the homes of welfare families that I have been in, and those were all clustered in New York City, which does have a generous benefit level. But people there bought white rice because they liked white rice--brown rice was available in the local supermarket at little to no markup. They deep fried fairly often, no surprise with generic vegetable and peanut oil retailing at under $2.00 for the large bottle. They ate wings, and thighs, and necks, and a huge amount of processed food that could have been prepared for a third the cost from scratch. In this, they were not terribly different from the large numbers of Americans who abhor vegetables and love all manner of fatty, starchy foods. But they weren't forced to it, and believe it or not, they knew what kinds of foods make you fat; they're not children, or savages. They were making a choice. A choice, I might point out, with zero moral content, and which therefore needs no defense that they are forced to it by the terrible hand of exigency.

Posted by Megan McArdle | January 24, 2008 11:03 PM

Megan, would you care to explain why potentially damaging your own body has "zero moral content"? This hardly fits with any religious or philosophical view that I know of. Also, are you so sure that hunger is really about calories per se? What about stomach-filling - the "drink water to take the edge off your appetite" idea? Furthermore, I doubt that your salad-bar analogy works on any level. How much lettuce would you have to work your way through to make it to say, 2000 calories (easily achieved on pizza). As for people making "bad" choices, they don't have to be savages or children to do so - simply human, with limited willpower and a capacity to ignore the likely outcome. Setting up this sort of extreme dichotomy doesn't help your argument.

Posted by chrysippus | January 24, 2008 11:14 PM

Megan, the more you write on this topic the wronger and wronger you get. You claim--again without any citation--that the best researchers say that "obese people are obese because they are much, much hungrier than thin people." Where does this come from? Can you provide a CITATION?

Also, I do not believe you have ever been in a "welfare family's" house, where you claim to have seen--gasp--people eating a high-fat diet. Whose welfare families' houses have you been in? My guess is zero. I can't remember when I read a more racist sentance than this: "They deep fried fairly often, no surprise with generic vegetable and peanut oil retailing at under $2.00 for the large bottle. They ate wings, and thighs, and necks."

By the way, peanut oil was, back in the day, way, way more expensive than vegetable oil. Again----please do some research.

Posted by Mortimer Madler | January 24, 2008 11:38 PM

I have to say, McArdle, I admire your pluck. It takes quite a bit of stamina, I imagine, to pump out all this verbiage when the only thing you really want to say is "I hate poor people—what with their neck-frying and such—and I wish they would all die." But it's all in a day's work, I guess.

Posted by Glenn Kenny | January 24, 2008 11:55 PM

"Daft" is a great word. I love it. We should also increase the usage of its sister-word "daffy," which might lead to a resurgence of the sadly-declining interest in Daffy Duck. Poor old Daffy, he just can't seem to get work anymore.

I'm sorry, were we talking about something?

Posted by liberalrob | January 24, 2008 11:57 PM

I don't know whether I agree with McArdle's point of view about obesity or her concerns about "distorting the food sector" (actually, I can see how it might not be the best thing to inject money into the food sector this way), but the idea that she hates poor people is just stupid. She is literally insisting that we give real money to poor people rather than food stamps. While a whole slew of the rest of you are paternalistically insisting that food stamps would be great because they would restrict the choices of the poor to something that seems at first glance like it would be wholesome (because a one time government check will magically inculcate healthy dietary habits that will last a lifetime, or something), she is arguing that we can trust the poor to make their own decisions about where to spend the money they get. I agree with her. There are all sorts of people who worry that giving real money to the poor will result in the poor hoarding their new cash until long after spending it will fail to benefit the economy. I promise you that what little saving will actually occur will have little effect on the economic outcome. I can't say that the whole idea of "economic stimulus" makes a hell of a lot of sense to me, but if spending money will save the economy, putting it in the hands of the poor first just is the best way to get the job done.

Posted by gerontion | January 25, 2008 12:26 AM

Regarding the idea that the poor are fat because they can't afford nutritious food, is there any evidence at all that any kind of food is more expensive--relative to wages at, say, the tenth percentile--than it was 60 years ago, when obesity was much rarer?

Posted by Brandon Berg | January 25, 2008 12:44 AM

Oh, please don't shatter poor Glenn Kenny's carefully cultivated delusions.

Posted by Mixner | January 25, 2008 12:45 AM

Also, there is some research that suggestive that healthy food is more expensive. Here's a New York Times article on it:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/a-high-price-for-healthy-food/

Posted by gerontion | January 25, 2008 12:51 AM

"if the poor need money, give them money."

I must admit that I kind of agree with this.

I have somewhat mixed feelings on the obesity claims but that is a complex area that is not going to be solved tomorrow. The secular rise of obesity in the modern world is worrisome, concerning and anybody who is sure that they have it solved has almost certainly over-simplified something (or they are much, much smarter than I am).

But I do think that telling people what they should spend their money on is paternalistic. I like giving money to poor people as a way of increasing consumer demand because they will spend it.

I rather dislike the idea of telling them would they can spend it on. Now, if the real reason is one of implementation due to infrastructure issues then okay -- that is at least a reason.

But I don't want to be judged for my decisions on how to spend money and I think that people who are low income should be given the same level of dignity.

Posted by Joseph Delaney | January 25, 2008 12:51 AM

"A choice, I might point out, with zero moral content..."

What this world needs is more people to point out that there are, in fact, actually choices with zero moral content.

"Zero moral content" should replace "daft" as your catchphrase. Let's make a list...

Posted by lwcm | January 25, 2008 12:57 AM

Also, there is some research that suggestive that healthy food is more expensive. Here's a New York Times article on it:

Yes, more expensive per calorie. But not necessarily more expensive per serving. An apple generally costs less than a candy bar. Since getting enough calories doesn't seem to be much of a problem for the vast majority of poor people, they could presumably switch to a healthier, lower-calorie diet without increasing their total food costs. Of course, eating healthier is easier said than done for most people, poor or otherwise. But the big obstacles are taste and convenience and culture (and maybe genes), not cost.

Posted by Mixner | January 25, 2008 1:16 AM

Megan wrote:

The poor don't need more food.

I disagree. Food stamps in CT go to individuals with assets under $2000, and income (say, for a couple w/o children in 2005) under $1390 per month. Now, how much do these individuals typically need to eat? Let's suppose that each person eats $12 in food per day - which is in line with the higher end of what the census bureau estimates our couple would require for a healthy diet, assuming that they can cook all food at home (and assuming that MacDonald's isn't OK). That's $720 per month for the couple. So the couples at the high end of the distribution are squeaking by. But the majority of that population, earning under $1200/month, has a wopping $480/month to spend on rent, clothing, health expenses, and transportation. Too little.

As an aside, I think Megan is making a mistake in assuming that this additional money on food stamps isn't fungible. Unless the poor are getting all of their food from the food stamps program, then additional food stamp money would free up income to go toward other expenses.

Posted by Alex | January 25, 2008 1:53 AM

Buying an apple isn't going to round out the typical poor person's diet (of course every little bit helps), and as terrible a reputation as calories have, they remain the primary reason we consume food to begin with. Servings just aren't a useful metric here. Let's say I am a poor person eating a 2000 calorie diet that consists entirely of Twinkies, and this costs (like the study indicates) $3.52 a day. Now, I decide to go on a diet plan which will reduce my caloric intake to 1200 calories a day (this is a pretty standard weight loss plan). If I halve my twinkie consumption, I will pay 1.76 a day for 1,000 calories, and have 1.76 to spend on nutritiously dense food that I will eat just to get that extra 200 calories. But to get that extra 200 calories it will cost me $3.63 cents, or more than it cost me to buy all the calories in a 2,000 calorie diet of junk food, and twice what I save by reducing my caloric intake of junk food in half.

I don't think anyone would agree that eating 1,000 calories worth of twinkies and 200 calories worth of vegetables and the like would count as a rounded, healthy diet. This is a gross simplification. But it shows that the more I move my diet towards nutritious food, the more expensive my diet becomes. If I want half of my daily intake of calories on what boils down to an extreme diet plan to come from healthy food (just 600 calories of a 1200 calorie diet), I have to be willing to shell out three times as much money as it would cost me to get 2000 calories worth of junk food. And if I want to drop twinkies altogether, I have to really be willing to pay for my new lifestyle choice.

There are probably some legitimate difficulties with this study, because it really oversimplifies how dietary decisions work, and the fact that there is a spectrum of prices even for nutrient rich foods isn't represented by the average number they come up with. But there is a point here which is totally valid-poor people have real incentives to supplement their diets with high calorie food that has little nutritional value, and this seems like as much a recipe for obesity as anything. It's absurd to talk about buying bananas and lentil beans as if one's personal dietary prescription has any meaning for a study that's designed to probe into the linkages between poverty and obesity. Sure, if 30 million Americans all decided tomorrow to eat more pinto beans, maybe obesity rates would plummet. Good luck getting that program off the ground.

Posted by gerontion | January 25, 2008 2:16 AM

Alex:
Now, how much do these individuals typically need to eat? Let's suppose that each person eats $12 in food per day - which is in line with the higher end of what the census bureau estimates our couple would require for a healthy diet, assuming that they can cook all food at home (and assuming that MacDonald's isn't OK).

Food stamp allotments are based on the Thrifty Food Plan, according to which an adult male can get by on $5-6 per day. That's tough, but not completely unreasonable. You can usually find some kind of meat on special for $2-3 per pound, rice and/or legumes are pretty cheap if you buy big bags, and you can probably even throw in some fruits and vegetables without going over. Not the greatest diet, but it's at least not openly hostile to good health.

Spending $12 per day on food is not absurd, but it's well above the minimum needed for a reasonably healthful diet, unless you're eight feet tall.

Joseph Delaney:
But I don't want to be judged for my decisions on how to spend money and I think that people who are low income should be given the same level of dignity.

I agree that it's no one's business but yours how you spend your money. But when the government takes money from taxpayers and gives it to the poor, I think the taxpayers do have a right to demand that it be used responsibly. The general argument against paternalism doesn't apply to people who have already demonstrated, by applying for government aid, that they are in fact not capable of taking care of themselves.

Posted by Brandon Berg | January 25, 2008 3:04 AM

gerontion,

You're not going substitute a diet that consists entirely of healthy food for a diet that consists entirely of twinkies.

More importantly, the prices mentioned in the article you link to just aren't remotely credible as the costs of a healthy diet, as many readers have pointed out in the comments, several citing actual prices of healthy foods from their local supermarkets. The article claims a cost of $36.32 per person per day for a 2,000-calorie diet of "low energy dense foods." I have no idea what kind of food this could be referring to. 2,000 calories of premium organic lettuce? As one reader says, at that price it would cost her $145 per day to feed her family of four, or $52,000 a year! The idea that it would cost $52,000 to feed a family of four a healthy diet is absurd.

Posted by Mixner | January 25, 2008 3:10 AM

"I agree that it's no one's business but yours how you spend your money. But when the government takes money from taxpayers and gives it to the poor, I think the taxpayers do have a right to demand that it be used responsibly. The general argument against paternalism doesn't apply to people who have already demonstrated, by applying for government aid, that they are in fact not capable of taking care of themselves."

I'm sorry, but what you've just said here is utterly ignorant. But hey, you can pat yourself on the back now for not being poor. And there is a whole class of people that you can feel justified in looking down upon, because, as we all know, applying for government aid=being helpless and stupid. So it really works out for you, doesn't it?

Posted by gerontion | January 25, 2008 3:12 AM

I agree that I wouldn't substitute a diet of twinkies-Even a poor person would be paying more than 3.50 a day on food-but not much more. If we take the maximum food stamp allotment for a single person as our guide (if there is a better way to go, I'd love to hear it suggested), that's 162 dollars a month for 2008, which is Mr. Berg's 5 to 6 dollars a day. But that really isn't a lot of money, as glib as he is about suggesting that a nutritious diet can be eeked from it. Something like the McDonald's dollar value menu would be pretty tempting for a guy who only has six bucks to spend any given day. It's cheap and it will fulfill a large portion of his caloric requirements-the sacrifice in essential nutrients is made up for by these expedients. I agree that the study seems to overstate the cost of nutritious food, but junk food really is cheaper than real food-if you think otherwise you are kidding yourself-and a 200 dollar a month budget doesn't leave a whole hell of a lot of room to splurge.

Posted by gerontion | January 25, 2008 3:55 AM

Gerontion:
It's true by definition that someone who needs government aid is not capable of taking care of himself.

Posted by Brandon Berg | January 25, 2008 4:13 AM

MM,

you should take a Poll of all these 'pro-Food Stamp' types:

1.) Do you think it makes sense that the Gov't raises tax revenue to support higher food prices and, then, raises more tax revenue to fund Food Stamps for those who have difficulty 'affording' the higher food prices? If so, explain...

Posted by MEH | January 25, 2008 5:33 AM

guys, the purpose of the stimulus is to goose aggregate demand. whether that happens because people are buying more potato chips or more organically grown kale is totally, completely beside the point.

megan, you can continue to ignore my point about the institutional advantages of using food stamps as a way to do this, but that really is what is at issue here. continuing to hold your fingers in your ears and shouting "just give people cash!" doesn't change anything I wrote above.

what's more, your continued insistence that increasing food stamps will only affect purchases of food is embarassing for someone who professes to have a grasp of basic economics: except for people with very low levels of food consumption, the increase in food stamps will be inframarginal. that is, giving them more food stamps will just free up cash they were spending on food. they can then spend that money on whatever they want, not just food.

Posted by bob | January 25, 2008 8:43 AM

The evidence that the poor are forced into buying potato chips rather than apples by their incomes is pretty underwhelming. As Mixner says, the food is cheaper per calorie, but that's the point--they buy things that have a lot of calories, when there are at least equally cheap foods available per serving that have fewer calories. You may have to buy chicken wings instead of breasts, but you don't have to bread and deep fry them

This betrays an ignorance of the market dynamics of the super-markets and groceries in poorer neighborhoods. We got the education the hard way when we moved from Manhattan to (a relatively better part of) the Bronx. The regular groceries do not carry fresh vegetables and fruits. The (almost rotten) stuff that is usually on display are overpriced. So people don't buy them on two counts: price and quality. So they stay on the shelf longer and the circle continues. I am not sure if the city is supposed to inspect sell by dates and the like, but even if it is, it does not work here. The stuff that looked like it won't start stinking within two days were the tv dinners.

For our part, we looked at a few other options and switched to costco.

Posted by Corporate Serf | January 25, 2008 9:23 AM

So... we're borrowing money to hand it out to people in order to boost aggregate demand. And we're supposed to be concerned that that the people to whom we hand out the money spend it instead of save it. Yet in order to to borrow money for us to hand out, someone has to be saving it so that we can borrow from them, or we wouldn't have it to hand out in the first place.

How long are we supposed to go on pretending that this idea of boosting aggregate demand makes any sense whatsoever?

In case anyone hasn't noticed, we've been boosting the crap out of aggregate demand with all of the deficit spending we've being doing lately and it doesn't seem to have made a difference. Because with all due respect to Lord Keynes, it makes no damn sense whatever.

Posted by RobB | January 25, 2008 10:15 AM

Megan,

Welcome to the club. I once engaged in a very similar debate at Political Animal and ended up being called malicious and malevolent.

Posted by Yancey Ward | January 25, 2008 10:23 AM

"The regular groceries do not carry fresh vegetables and fruits."

It's not like fresh vegetables or fruits are required for a healthy diet. In fact many frozen alternatives have more vitamins because they are picked fresh, and haven't been sitting around at ambient temperature for a week before showing up in a supermarket. Canned isn't that bad either, they just may not taste as good.

From looking at my budget, my wife and I spend $13 a day on food. This includes going out to eat about once or twice a month (restaurant, not fast food). We only buy the healthy type stuff at the store, but stock up on essentials when there is a big sale. We used to do the same on $10 a day, but now we eat a bit higher quality food (more seafood, better restaurants etc.) This is fairly close to the food stamp numbers people have been throwing out. This is living in San Diego, so it's not a necessarily cheap place to live. We could cut this budget down quite a bit, but we like the food we eat.

My point being, it seems like $5 per person, per day is plenty of money for food.

Posted by JordanT | January 25, 2008 10:29 AM

"Daft" -- The Atlantic's decision to hire McMegan. (Am I the only one who occasionally trips over the incongruity of a writer like James Fallows appearing in the same lineup as McArdle?) More daft -- me, for returning to this blog more than once.

I blame Matt Yglesias and Sadly No! for pushing this daft blog, but of course, I mostly have myself to blame for being attracted to tall women and for my habit of reading just about any blog rather than working.

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