Our moral documents are failing hungry families
Our country is about to do something unthinkable: let millions of people go hungry while spending billions elsewhere without hesitation.
As of Nov. 1, funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as “food stamps”) expired. This isn’t a distant policy debate. It’s a crisis unfolding across the nation, including here in the Shoals. If Congress fails to act, families all over Alabama will lose access to the most basic form of help our country provides: food.
SNAP isn’t just a handout. It’s a guarantee that low-income workers, seniors, and families won’t be left to go hungry. It’s one of few federal programs that delivers both dignity and measurable results.
A common misconception is that people on SNAP “just need to get a job,” but the truth is that most already have one (or they can’t work because they’re children, elderly, or living with disabilities). SNAP isn’t about avoiding work, it’s about surviving despite it.
And SNAP doesn’t just “take,” it gives. For every $1 spent on SNAP, the economy gains about $1.50 in activity. That means here in the Shoals, local grocery stores, farmers, and food producers all benefit when families can afford to eat.
The need is staggering. One in every seven Alabamians relies on nutrition assistance. If you go to church this Sunday, look around. If there are 70 people there, about 10 of them will be facing hunger in a few days. With grocery prices still painfully high, SNAP benefits often run out by the third week of the month. Pulling the plug now will hurt, not just those households affected, but our local economy. Yet here we are again, treating hunger like a budget nuisance instead of an urgent, national need. Some lawmakers talk about hunger as if it were a passing phase. Meanwhile, those same people find room in the federal budget for nearly unlimited spending elsewhere — billions more for ICE enforcement and detention, including people who have lived here for decades, contributing to their communities.
One of them was Gio Hernandez: a social worker who had been in the U.S. since childhood, beloved by her clients and colleagues for her compassion and service. After being pulled over this year, she was detained despite years of paying taxes, contributing, and giving back. Rather than endure indefinite detention, she made the agonizing decision to self-deport to a country she hasn’t known since she was a child. What a loss for Alabama.
At the same time, the U.S. is sending $40 billion in new aid to Argentina, and the Department of Homeland Security is spending about $200 million on private jets for Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials, all while hungry families in our communities wait.
Let’s be clear: SNAP is a very effective program. It keeps families fed and lifts millions out of poverty each year. Ending or underfunding it wouldn’t just deepen hardship, it would be an act of abandonment.
I’m calling on Alabama’s congressional delegation (including my own representative, Rep. Robert Aderholt, and Senators Katie Britt and Tommy Tuberville), to treat this issue with the urgency it deserves.
As I tell my policy students: Budgets are moral documents. We cannot balance the budget on the backs of hungry families while corporate subsidies and wasteful spending remain untouched.
In a nation as wealthy as ours, hunger is a policy choice. We can choose differently. We can choose decency. Let’s not starve our safety nets. We have so few left.
Dr. Allison Berkowitz is assistant professor of Education at the University of North Alabama.
