Rethinking the Welfare State: The prospects for ... - e-Library

Food stamps 45
A policy history of the food stamp program 21
The two-stamp system: 1939–43
As discussed earlier, despite its current explicit mandate of enriching the diets of poor
Americans, the FSP actually originated as an effort to aid two very different but needy
groups: unemployed city-dwellers and farmers with unsold surpluses. The first FSP,
inaugurated in 1939 by Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, allowed eligible persons
to buy orange stamps equal to their normal food expenditures. Along with each dollar
coupon, they would also receive 50 cents worth of blue stamps. Orange stamps could be
redeemed to buy any food product; however, blue stamps were restricted to the purchase
of food which the USDA had listed as surplus. The goal was to help the hungry (typically
unemployed urbanites) by providing them with extra food income, while also relieving
farmers of their surplus produce. A quote from Milo Perkins, the Program’s first
Administrator, is illustrative of the FSP’s original intentions: “We got a picture of a
gorge, with farm surpluses on one cliff, and under-nourished city folks with outstretched
hands on the other. We set out to find a practical way to build a bridge across that
chasm.” 22 The first FSP wound up in 1943, once it was decided that the conditions that
created the need for it—unmarketable food surpluses and widespread unemployment—
had ceased to exist.
The second FSP and the Food Stamp Act: 1961–80
The next 18 years saw considerable legislative interest in the FSP, and the second pilot
FSP was initiated in 1961. While it eliminated the requirement of purchasing special
stamps for surplus food, the indirect subsidization of farms remained an important part of
the program’s mandate, as evidenced by its declared emphasis on increasing the
consumption of perishables.
The new FSP allowed consumers to purchase food stamps and receive a subsidy in the
form of an additional amount of free stamps sufficient to “shore up” the household’s
dietary needs. Participation in the FSP grew from half a million in 1965 to over 15
million persons in 1974. 23 In the early 1970s, major concerns arose over the cost of the
FSP, which had grown to $1.75 billion by 1971. 24 As the USDA’s own “Short History”
document observes, “it was during this time that the issue was framed that would
dominate food stamp legislation ever after: how to balance program access with program
accountability?” 25 Republicans and Democrats both championed the FSP, but advocated
very different policy objectives. The Republican initiatives emphasized tighter controls
and the targeting of benefits to the very neediest members of society, while Democratic
proposals focused on streamlining the approval process and reducing errors. The 1977
Food Stamp Act attempted to meet both sets of priorities. Among other changes, it
established the poverty line as the standard for FSP eligibility, undertook to penalize
households whose heads voluntarily quit jobs, and required regional authorities to
actively encourage participation in the FSP by eligible parties (“outreach” policies).
Perhaps the most signiflcant feature of the 1977 Food Stamp Act, however, was that it