Most American voters don’t want food stamps to be stamped out.
Some 61% of registered voters say they are against reducing funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps. That’s according to a survey commissioned by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future, in June.
Of those who were opposed, 73% said they were “strongly opposed” to any cuts in funding.
About 1,000 registered voters responded to the survey in total.
The House and Senate have debated the future of SNAP in recent months, as lawmakers work on a farm bill.
The House proposed adding more work requirements for SNAP recipients to the bill. Currently, SNAP recipients must register for work, take a job if it is offered to them, not quit a job or reduce their hours and participate in employment and training programs if they are assigned by the state, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
Recipients also must also fit certain criteria for their income: They must have a gross monthly income of no more than $1,307 for a single-person household or $1,760 for a family of two.
SNAP in total cost $68 billion in 2017, according to the USDA. That’s down from a recent high of nearly $80 billion in 2013.
The Senate version of the farm bill, which passed June 28, does not add more work requirements. Now, a smaller group of lawmakers in the House and Senate must make changes, and present a version of the bill to President Donald Trump, who would then sign it into law.
Trump’s administration has previously suggested ways of saving money on the SNAP program, including giving boxes of food to families, instead of allowing them to buy items themselves using Electronic Benefit Transfer cards.
But some critics have said that idea is unrealistic because it would create problems during delivery, and it gives recipients a smaller choice of foods, which could be a problem for those with special diets.
The vast majority of respondents to the Johns Hopkins study were “unfamiliar with many aspects of the farm bill,” according to the school. But many said they support increasing funding for farmers.
