650,000 people. That is the number of working class and poor people whose CalFresh (California’s SNAP implementation) benefits are at risk under the new guidelines to be enforced by the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill.” An estimated five million people depend on food assistance in California alone, the wealthiest state in the world’s wealthiest country. Millions are struggling to access their benefits now with the government shutdown recently reaching forty days, and even after the shutdown ends, hundreds of thousands will no longer be eligible because of the updated work requirements.
But why is it that millions can’t afford food, when many of those who receive benefits are working, often in the world’s most profitable companies like Amazon, McDonalds, or Walmart? The Government Accountability Office (GAO) published findings in 2020 of several states’ benefits recipients and where they worked. Across the country, the largest, most profitable corporations showed up again and again. Walmart, Amazon, McDonalds, all companies with profits in the billions, pay their workers so little that they have no other option than to make up the difference with programs like SNAP or Medicaid. The truth is that the system is built to extract as much value out of working people as possible, and if the cost of paying their workers enough to be able to live can be pushed on to taxpayers, all the better for their bottom line. The answer to this manufactured crisis is not a more robust social safety net, but a society in which people’s needs are the primary concern, not the profits of a tiny minority.
