categorical eligibility

Christian Piatt 9-16-2013
Healthy food pyramid, Bogdan Wankowicz / Shutterstock.com

Healthy food pyramid, Bogdan Wankowicz / Shutterstock.com

About a year ago, I wrote about my family participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Challenge, which encourages families to try to live on the equivalent of SNAP assistance (food stamps) for one week. It was a growing experience for all of us, and we actually fell short of our intended goal. It turns out that it’s not easy to feed a family of four well — especially without great time and effort — on less than $20 a day.

In looking back on that experience, a number of myths come to mind that I’ve heard from folks about SNAP, which I thought I’d share here.