“Our clients can only visit once per month,” a fellow food banker told me when comparing services offered by our respective organizations. “We don’t want anyone becoming too dependent.”
Most people know that food pantries lack the supply and capacity to provide shoppers with everything they’ll need to get through the month. Restricting visits and quantity is a common solution. But somehow, these limitations have become entwined with the idea that they also prevent people from growing “too dependent” on assistance. We justify providing inadequate resources in the name of fostering self-sufficiency.
The belief that offering help reduces self-sufficiency shapes modern welfare. Ensuring that resources are never enough forces users to continue looking for other options to fill the gap; to work harder; to “better themselves.”
This idea assumes that there are other options.
Thanks to the myth of the American dream, we tend to believe there is always something one can do to escape poverty- work longer hours, continuing education, a higher-paying job, or smarter budgeting. At its core, this attitude embraces the idea that poverty results from a lack of effort, and that finding the right motivation is the key to success. Ensuring that welfare doesn’t provide security is supposedly that incentive.
However, the reality is that economic mobility in the U.S. has never lived up to the hype.
The fear of dependency entirely neglects the reality of the environment around us- success is rarely achieved through individual effort. Most people who attain self-sufficiency enjoy inherited wealth, racial privilege, and social advantages not available to everyone. How hard we work has little impact on our economic mobility.
Preventing people from growing “too dependent” on things like food or other resources robs them of stability. Instead of enjoying the security of having their needs met, it forces individuals living in poverty to constantly scramble to make end meet. This instability makes it impossible to plan for the long term because the short-term is always a crisis of scarcity.
Hunger never happens in a silo. Denying a household adequate food, besides leaving them hungry, may force them to deplete their housing budget, fuel trauma, impede their health, reduce work performance, or have other harmful impacts.
Our disdain for providing adequate help is one of the very reasons keeping people in poverty.
At its root, our preoccupation with the idea that someone might grow “too dependent” on food assistance boils down to the fear that they haven’t earned it. But the primary result of this policy is that it removes stability and security. We’ve institutionalized perpetual uncertainty for welfare recipients.
How can anti-hunger advocates fight the dependency narrative?
- Be outspoken about why this is a ridiculous concern. We need food to live, so arguing against people becoming too dependent on a reliable food source is both absurd and dehumanizing.
- Acknowledge the inadequacy of our system. Few organizations can offer enough food to fully support their clients. That’s ok, but make sure your community knows that it’s not enough. Don’t ignore or dismiss comments about the inadequacy of resources- empathize!
- Advocate at every opportunity for increasing benefits, on the local, state, and federal level. We know that adequate support helps people succeed. Increased SNAP benefits during the height of Covid kept hunger at bay. Providing people experiencing poverty with a stable foundation is the best way to set them up for success.
The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.
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Reintroducing justice and dignity to the fight to end hunger 