One in seven recipients of SNAP benefits earned associate's or bachelor's degrees, Census Shows

[modrepub]

Gripping fresh diplomas from Penn State in 1979, Suzan Neiger Gould and her husband, David Gould, were ready to cash in on the hard work that the world had told them was the price of admission into the middle class.

But it all crashed quickly after David was laid off from his research associate position. Suzan’s part-time job running after-school programs wasn’t enough to support the couple and their baby daughter in their State College home. “We had nothing to fall back on,” said Suzan, now 66, the executive director of Manna on Main Street, an anti-hunger nonprofit in Lansdale. “We ate cheap, almost spoiled food to get by.”

The couple signed up for food stamps, now known as SNAP, for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “Even for two educated individuals like David [now an attorney] and me,” Suzan added, “it was a struggle. ... So many people need the emergency food system.”

A U.S. Census Bureau analysis released earlier this month proved that:

More than one in three adults receiving SNAP had attended at least some college classes, and about one in seven had earned associate’s or bachelor’s degrees in 2017, the year of the most recently available data.

And even among participants in the federal program known as WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children), one in five had college degrees.

There is a “broad socioeconomic range of adults who rely on government assistance,” according to the Census Bureau.

3 million got SNAP benefits

About 3 million college graduates, including 1.6 million bachelor’s degree holders, received SNAP benefits in 2017, according to the Census. When the years 2020 and 2021 are closely studied, that number may well balloon, anti-hunger experts surmise, as so many people with degrees lost their jobs during the pandemic.


[link:https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/one-in-seven-recipients-of-snap-benefits-earned-associates-or-bachelors-degrees-census-analysis-shows/ar-AAKvyC7|

[jimfields33]

1. I think giving the information on majors would help future students

If you have a degree, but it’s overpopulated and not enough jobs. New students need to be aware of this and not take the major. Beauty of college is there are numerous majors to take.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. We talk, but do not value education We treat it as a goal, not a door...

I don't like the idea of education being just trade school, and see the profusion of "postdocs" as a severe problem, but college is now almost as common as high school diplomas and really doesn't command the respect it should.

It's certainly not worth the money it costs now.

[Arazi]

3. Student loan debt relief would solve a lot of this

[ripcord]

4. I know a lot of poeple don't like to hear it but college isn't always the best path

It was a real shame when trade education was mostly taken out of schools.

[Midnight Writer]

5. We are all at the mercy of the invisible hand of the free market. Unless we're born rich.

[modrepub]

6. I May Be Called Names For Pointing This Out

But a lot of American Business titans came from humble origins; Ford, Hershey, Carnegie, Rockefeller, Jobs and many others were not born rich. Certainly rich families give their prodigy a leg up on others but the market doesn't necessarily reward your pedigree.

In a truly open market there's a lot of churning, kind of like that king of the hill game kids used to play. A market can be a lot like a natural biological system rewarding those that can adopt to changes and punishing those that fall behind. I think a lot of people on this board make the assumption that all rich people had it handed to them and all poor folks have the deck stacked against them. If the "market" is functioning as described by the Austrian economist Joseph Shumpeter, then the new replace the old via "creative destruction". Kind of like the build a better mouse trap metaphor.

[Klaralven]

7. Prospects vary widely for degree holders depending on major, performance, and college

Once graduated, prospects diverge even more widely depending on employers, jobs, managers, spouses, children, health, accidents, relatives, friends, etc.

Lots of college degree holders can be expected in the bottom quartile economically 40 years after graduation.

[Demovictory9]

8. k&r