Danielle was a mother, a day care teacher, and a bartender at The Blue Monkey on a select few nights during the week. In what free time she had, usually on the weekends and late weeknights, she took online classes at Arkansas State University to get the job she always wanted — a kindergarten educator. She lived across the bridge, in West Memphis, Arkansas, and she had very recently had her third son, Conner. Her work and school kept her occupied. When she was home, her time was spent building practice lesson plans and learning effective communication methods to settle down her future classroom. Her 9-5 was more of a 10-3 at the West Memphis Christian Preschool, where she would watch the school children who were too young to start school but old enough to learn how to color in between the lines. It paid minimum wage, just like every other job she held before. This was the closest job she could get to her ultimate vision of becoming a teacher. Her second was as a bartender at The Blue Monkey in Downtown Memphis. She picked up as many shifts as she could handle.
While she managed her three children, two jobs, and her own schooling every weekend for years, her checks were consistently light. Danielle received food stamps during this time, as well as WIC. She taught her oldest son, who shopped with her, to look for WIC-approved foods, scanning the aisles for maroon tags with the bold white letters. Her income alone wasn’t enough to survive, but the assistance she received got them by. They ate good enough dinners to convince the children into thinking that, maybe, there wasn’t a money problem after all. The assistance provided a cushion for her and a successful mirage for her children that reassured Danielle’s family everything would be okay.
WIC is the supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children. Those eligible for WIC are families whose income is 185 percent below the poverty line. In Arkansas, that was between $27k and $57k for a family of four. Danielle, my mother, did not have an income that was suitable to keep her family alive without the support of WIC. She had a boyfriend who was an out-of-work contractor and an ex-husband whose child support came infrequently. She was the breadwinner and the head of a household that was holding on to whatever breadcrumbs she brought in. WIC didn’t just provide us with meals to get by; it allowed my mother to build the foundation to get an education and create a better future for herself and her children.
During the government shutdown, WIC was not at risk as some of the other federal assistance programs. WIC received additional assistance during the shutdown to keep it afloat, unlike the SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps, which ran out on November 1st (and are now set to flow again this month after a lot of back and forth). During her time as head of household, my mother relied on both of these programs to inject $200 to $250 dollars a month into her budget, to keep her family fed. The shutdown, which was portrayed as a radical left issue on government websites and video messages, had great consequences for people receiving benefits from the government — consequences that were overlooked by the salaried and still-paid politicians on hiatus.
I’ve seen celebrations regarding the halt of benefits, from those without any understanding of the benefits themselves. As described with my mother as the example, a majority of those who receive benefits, excluding the disabled in most cases, have to have a job that does not pay them a living wage. This isn’t a handout for the lazy; this is a means to an end. Not to mention that keeping food assistance programs afloat is good for business. Walmart sales average around $25 billion annually on SNAP benefits. Kroger, Tyson Foods, Post Consumer Brands, and dollar stores all take in millions of dollars in profit annually from SNAP-supported customers. SNAP is also what allows the companies listed above to continue paying low wages, as their workforce uses SNAP themselves to cover the difference in what their employer won’t pay.
Those who have celebrated the halt in funds miss the point entirely and don’t understand that SNAP reform cannot and will not come until the mega-corporations decide to pay their employees a wage that is suitable to live on. When our politicians fail us, they fail people like my mother, and they fail children like my brothers. Despite the strain on funds during the shutdown, our future focus should be on what we can do as organizations, cities, and states to keep our constituents fed when our government leaves us behind. While the politicians on the hill throw their parties and renovate their bathrooms, our states are being called on to uphold the example of governments not leaving their people behind.
If we prioritize keeping our voters and citizens thriving, maybe we can have more people like my mother. My mother, who eventually got her degree, became an educator who would go on to win teacher of the year in Mississippi, and bought her first house about four years after coming off of the benefits that helped her provide for her family.
A native Memphian, Clint Abner is general manager of a food and beverage manufacturing company. He is a husband, father, and writer (when he finds the time).