[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/Blog\/ID\/71\/measuring-the-long-term-effects-of-food-stamps#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/Blog\/ID\/71\/measuring-the-long-term-effects-of-food-stamps","headline":"Measuring the Long-Term Effects of Food Stamps","name":"Measuring the Long-Term Effects of Food Stamps","description":"Food stamps have typically been viewed in a negative light in the media. But now, a new study has shed a new perspective on food stamps.","datePublished":"2018-07-06","dateModified":"2018-07-30","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/author\/admin#Person","name":"admin","url":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/author\/admin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e26111862ca029071a00a76fae48c51b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/e26111862ca029071a00a76fae48c51b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"FoodStamps.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/FS_Logo-2.png","url":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/FS_Logo-2.png","width":600,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/FS_Logo-2.png","url":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/FS_Logo-2.png","width":100,"height":100},"url":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/Blog\/ID\/71\/measuring-the-long-term-effects-of-food-stamps","about":["News"],"wordCount":381,"keywords":["71"],"articleBody":"Food stamps have typically been viewed in a negative light in the media, with images like the \u201clobster queen\u201d and \u201csurfer-on-stamps\u201d not helping the cause. But now,\u00a0a new study\u00a0conducted by economist Hilary Hoynes at the University of California at Berkeley has shed a new perspective on food stamps.In an article called Long Run Impacts of Childhood Access to the Safety Net,\u00a0Hoynes looked at later-life effects on children whose mothers used food stamps during pregnancy and early childhood. And what she found was nothing short of startling, especially when compared to what the GOP has been arguing for years: mothers who use food stamps during these critical periods of their child\u2019s lives increase their offspring\u2019s self-sufficiency instead of detracting from it.Along with her colleagues Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach and Douglas Almond, Hoynes found that access to food stamps \u201cleads to a significant reduction in the incidence of \u2018metabolic syndrome\u2019 (obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes) and, for women, an increase in economic self-sufficiency.\u201dIn conservative politics after the Reagan era, Republicans have long held to the argument that reliance on food stamps only creates a cycle of neediness, as the benefits teach people that handouts are a suitable alternative to \u201cgoing out and getting a job.\u201dBut with this new study, Hoynes has countered in three specific ways: food stamps work now as they have worked before; food stamps work in the short term to measurably benefit the health of newborns; and food stamps work in the long term to both improving health for both genders and to decrease a reliance on SNAP in the next generation.One point to ponder, though, would be to examine the health and wellbeing of mothers and their children who exist comfortably without a safety net. While the crux of Hoynes\u2019s paper does clearly point out that a safety net is better families than living without it, how does it compare to people who have no need for it? What are the physical and mental conditions of their offspring if they don\u2019t have to go through food stamps?But at the very least, it does take quite a bit of wind out of the GOP\u2019s sails."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Blog","item":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/Blog\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"ID","item":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/Blog\/\/ID\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"71","item":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/Blog\/\/ID\/\/71\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":4,"name":"Measuring the Long-Term Effects of Food Stamps","item":"https:\/\/foodstamps.org\/Blog\/ID\/71\/measuring-the-long-term-effects-of-food-stamps#breadcrumbitem"}]}]