Viewpoint: A proposal to reconstruct the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) into a universal basic income program for food

Food insecurity has emerged as a leading measure of well-being in the U.S. due to the magnitude of the problem, the array of associated negative health consequences, and higher health care costs. The Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP, formerly known as the Food Stamp Program) has ensured that the extent of food insecurity is less than it would otherwise be but many food insecure Americans aren’t on the program due to choice or ineligibility and SNAP benefits are often not enough for current recipients. In this paper I consider what would happen if SNAP was instead structured as a Universal Basic Income (UBI) program. Using a measure of additional dollars needed by food insecure households (the resource gap) and data from the 2019 December Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS), I find an 88.8% decline in food insecurity rates if the costs are borne by households in higher income-tax brackets. The cost to this would be approximately $730.1 billion. If, instead, the UBI was only extended to those with incomes up to 400% of the poverty line, the decline in food insecurity is slightly lower at 88.5% but at a much lower cost of $408.5 billion. If benefits were expanded by roughly 25% and only extended to those with incomes up to 400% of the poverty line, the reduction would be 98.2% at a cost of $564.5 billion.