Poverty Is A Policy Choice

Quinn: [00:00:00] How do we make it easier for more Americans to reliably put food, in particular, hot food, on the table? That's today’s big question and my guest is Salaam Bhatti. Salaam is the SNAP Director at the Food Research and Action Center, a 501c3 that uses advocacy and strategic partnerships to improve the health and well being of people struggling against poverty related hunger in the United States.

Before joining the Food Research and Action Center, or FRAC Salaam was the Public Benefits Attorney and Deputy Director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center where he specialized in public benefits law. During his term there, he directed the development of a SNAP eligibility calculator to make food assistance more accessible to households in with low incomes, he lobbied the state assembly to effectively champion bipartisan efforts to extend SNAP eligibility to over 25, 000 households, to enhance access to child nutrition programs [00:01:00] and repeal laws that denied SNAP and the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, known as TAMF, to those with drug felonies.

Salaam also served as the director of Virginia Hunger Solutions, a project of VPOLC, where he supported the initiative's mission of eradicating hunger and enhancing the nutrition, health, and overall well being of children and families living in poverty throughout this great commonwealth.

Welcome to Important Not Important. My name is Quinn Emmett, and this is science for people who give a shit. In our weekly conversations, I take a deep dive, almost 200 now, with an incredible human, like Salaam, who's working on the front lines of the future, as we say, to build a radically better today and tomorrow for everyone.

And my goal is to stand in for you, and to help you answer the question, What can I do? Let's go.

Salaam. Welcome to the [00:02:00] show. You've already put up with me for 20 minutes. So, we should get into it.

Salaam Bhatti: No, thanks for having me, Quinn. This was great.

Quinn: For sure. Well, let's see if we can stay great here. So, for years. I started these conversations with a pretty ridiculous question, but I used to actually get pretty great answers from it. I've grown up a little bit. The question was, Why are you vital to the survival of the species? And usually people would cackle and then I might actually get something a little profound.

I would encourage them to be bold. I have rephrased that a little bit. Into two questions. Even though it might sound like one. So this is how we're gonna start. Are you ready?

Salaam Bhatti: Yes.

Quinn: Okay. Why do you have to do this job? Basically, why of everyone, of everyone in the world, does the world need you to do this work?

Of course, a lot of other people do it. But why you? That's the first [00:03:00] part. And the second part is, why do you have to do this work? Okay. Of everything you've done in your past, and all the ways you could answer the call. Why do you have to do this work?

Salaam Bhatti: Yeah. the world doesn't need me. There's a thousand other more qualified people to do the job. I just happened to, you know, stumble my way into it. Why do I need to do this? So I grew up lower income in a lower income household. We qualified for and received the WIC program benefits, women, infants, and children, and throughout public school, we received the free school meals.

And then when I was in law school from 2008 and then I graduated and up until I got my first like real job in 2017, I was living in poverty, like just abject poverty in Queens and Long Island, New York. So, it was just like a lot of hardship, a lot of suffering, a lot of suffering alone. And it wasn't until I [00:04:00] would reach out to my collective, my communities that I was able to actually get out of poverty and actually find more sustainable work and do greater things. And ironically, my first real job was at the Virginia poverty law center which is the job that got me out of poverty. And I'm very grateful for that opportunity, but also like really, agitated that we have the richest country in the history of the world.

the strongest country in the history of the world. We're called the land of plenty, but we have plenty of poverty, we have plenty of hunger. And so I am just very sick and tired of all of that. I don't want other people to have to go through what I went through. I am in this because I am literally trying to end poverty in America because I truly believe we have the resources to do so. After all, poverty is a policy choice.

Quinn: It is. It is. It is a choice we make every day. I saw someone in a T-shirt once and it's really stuck with me. Poverty charges interest. Which I really [00:05:00] like. So, before we get into this whole thing of the work you're doing in the world, first of all, thank you for sharing that. Part of the reason this is still such a clusterfuck in the U.S., despite being so rich and so strong, is because, to some folks, it is a moral question of whether we should support with WIC and SNAP and everything else. Medicaid. At any point, did you feel like, you know what? I'm good. I'm just going to rely on SNAP and WIC and the government and I'll just leech off them and, and feel good.

Because it sounds insane, but that is what a lot of folks believe that's how the program runs.

Salaam Bhatti: If only it was that luxurious to live on government benefits. The sad thing is that when I was living in poverty in law school, I was not eligible for SNAP benefits. And that's because there is a rule known as the work to eat rule where college [00:06:00] students have to work 80 hours a month to qualify for SNAP benefits.

So while you are supposed to be fully immersed in the college experience of learning and studying, you're also supposed to be working 80 hours a month. And now if you are low income, and you're going to college, you're likely a first generation student in a higher level or higher education. So you don't really know what you're doing.

You're just, you know, learning as you go. And then on top of that, you got to work 80 hours at most likely a minimum wage or low wage job. So what we're seeing is, is that this is happening and people are qualifying to receive SNAP benefits to put food on the table, but they're pretty much failing out of school. Because they have to also work on top of trying to study and it's impossible. It's not right. It shouldn't have to be this way, which is why we're pushing for legislation to repeal that rule and let college students be eligible simply because they are in college trying [00:07:00] to make for a better future.

Quinn: Thank you for sharing that. That is supremely helpful and just another thing. Do you remember, was it Happy Gilmore or Billy Madison? Where Steve Buscemi has the list on the wall of people he's going to kill and he crosses out. I can't remember which it is, but I have that list of things that just make me angry every day.

And this is clearly now just one of them.

Salaam Bhatti: We can get very angry, but we gotta laugh through the pain.

Quinn: Yeah. 100 percent laugh and stir up some trouble here. So just to clarify that rule and where we can get into this. Is that also tied up in the Farm Bill? Is it federal? Is that by state? Where would we take action on that?

Salaam Bhatti: It's federal and it would be actionable through the Farm Bill by including one of the pieces of legislation that is designed to undo it, which is called the EATS Act, E A T S and if we could roll that into the Farm Bill, that would make some amazing moves for college students across the country, especially considering that so many college campuses [00:08:00] have food pantries popping up and as noble as it is that people are students are coming together to put these things together, it's horrifying that we have to have that in America.

Quinn: So let's paint the picture a little bit for folks, and there's so many different ways to come at this, but I recently tried, so the young woman who booked me on the show, Willow, , who works with me again, a thousand times smarter, more capable than I am. She is Canadian. And so I had to explain to her recently, what the Farm Bill is and the, what do they call it? The things, the hyperobject, the things that are so big that you can't comprehend like how big they actually are. That's basically the Farm Bill. Why is SNAP tied up in this? And why is SNAP among the biggest pieces of the Farm Bill, which is, I think was supposed to be passed last year and then just expired again recently, right last month, something like that.

Give us some feedback of again, how a [00:09:00] SNAP fits into this big puzzle.

Salaam Bhatti: Yeah, so SNAP stands for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It's one part of the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill has many different parts. They're called Titles. Title four is nutrition and that's where SNAP falls in. And it kind of gives us like this bipartisan approach to the Farm Bill. It provides a balance so that it's not just all things going to farms and households with low income are left in the dust. These two, big, massive entities come together and the Congress members, policymakers are able to work together to put some bipartisan things through. So historically the precedent is always that this was a bipartisan process, let's make sure farmers can make the food and that households that are going hungry can get some benefits to put food on the table. But last year, we saw the Farm Bill go partisan. The biggest thing that we saw and that we're continuing to see to this day is that there are [00:10:00] some members of Congress who want to cut 30 billion dollars, that's billion with a B, from SNAP benefits. Not from administration, not from this or that or the other, but from the actual benefits that people receive.

Quinn: And just so we know, 30 billion out of how much? Not for the whole Farm Bill, but 30 billion out of how much in benefits are given out?

Salaam Bhatti: Right, so the average benefit is about just over six dollars per person per day. So it's not, again, you know, going back to the question of why not just live on it. You can't. You can't live on it. You can barely survive on it. So what they want to do is they want to cut 30 billion dollars over 10 years and this is at a time when the USDA just put out a report a few weeks ago saying that food insecurity is on the rise. We're also aware that grocery stores are charging a lot more So the SNAP benefit, let alone your dollar, is not going as far as it used to. So cutting 30 billion dollars at this time is a nonstarter,[00:11:00] if the Farm Bill from either the House or the Senate has this in it, it's not going to pass.

It's not going to go through. It's going to be blocked immediately. And the president, of course, would not sign it. So we have to look at the silver lining of this USDA report and meet the moment. We have to have a SNAP program that not, it doesn't go back to where it is already. We need to make it stronger considering the times we're in.

Quinn: And now inflation is starting to come down a bit. Why is food insecurity still rising? Can you talk to us about how that's such a systemic, I mean, obviously poverty is, but in particular food insecurity, how it ties into housing and everything else.

Salaam Bhatti: So everything has gone up, right? We saw housing go up a whopping, what, like 30, 50%, something outrageous. We've seen wages not increase at that rate. Inflation from a year or so ago was [00:12:00] massively higher than it has been in the past year. But again, it's all coming together. At a time when the welfare benefits are simply just not enough. One of the things that we can say is that the SNAP benefit formula is based on something known as the Thrifty Food Plan. There's four different types of formulas that the USDA can look at when, you know, determining benefits and Thrifty Food Plan is the lowest one. It's the cheapest one. It's the most minimal one to have some sort of nutritious diet. So what lawmakers want to do is they want to cut money from the lowest plan, which is just ridiculous. Now when it comes to why is food insecurity rising the USDA report didn't conclusively say why food insecurity is rising but we can say, you know inflation, wages, housing costs, because the rent always eats first. Utilities, you know, it was a hot summer. People with AC were using a lot more energy for that. If they are, you know, if they're blessed to have even a [00:13:00] working AC unit. We saw gas prices are higher. So, you know, it takes money to get to their jobs, picking up kids. Childcare is high and there's not enough subsidies associated with that. This also came at a time when the pandemic benefits are now wiped clean. There's no increased emergency allotments. There's no Child Tax Credit expansion. The P E B T, pandemic EBT is gone. So it's just we're now back to normal and we now see that the government could end poverty but deliberately chooses not to.

Quinn: Tell me a little bit about, and this is going to seem ridiculous because I realized the answer is there isn't one, but what is the professed rationale between cutting 30 billion dollars out of benefits alone. Again, like you said, not overhead, not admin, not people, but out of actual benefits, out of the cheapest algorithm.

Salaam Bhatti: The lawmakers say they want to take that 30 billion, [00:14:00] and I'm queuing up Patrick Starfish meme, and move it over to the farmers for something about commodities. And it's well, didn't we just send 20 billion dolalrs in foreign aid? That'll last a few months. And now you're trying to cut 30 billion over a 10 year span.

Like we need to get our priorities in order. Do we want to bomb innocent people or do we want to feed our own?

Quinn: So, again, just setting the table because part of the reason I asked the question is of why are you here? Why do you do this work? Why do people need you to do this work? As we so often have folks on the show who are doing a specific job because they have experienced it in some way. They grew up in poverty, they were in law school in poverty, we had an incredible gentleman out of, Iran, whose dad had this undiagnosable muscle dystrophy, and he grew up and became a scientist and solved it, but not in enough time to cure his dad, but we also have people who go, I'm just inspired and I want to fix a bottleneck that'll unlock more things, [00:15:00] but, as many people in the U.S., and I have the number, but I want you to talk about it rely on WIC, SNAP. There's a lot of folks that don't, because obviously we have a lot of inequality, which goes both ways. So a lot of people don't know what it's like to live on that 6 dollars and depend on it to understand. So, let's set the stage.

How many people today in 2024, especially as all the pandemic continues? Child Tax Credit and all that stuff has expired. How many people rely on SNAP right now?

Salaam Bhatti: Over 42 million people rely on SNAP right now. And that's I would say that's an artificially low number because this is based on the federal poverty level, which is an artificially constructed formula that's outdated. And it doesn't actually consider what poverty is. So we would, you know, estimate that there's tens of millions of more people in America who are living in actual poverty, who should be added [00:16:00] to the SNAP rolls.

And get some food on the table so they can have a better future.

Quinn: Where does that, obviously the nation itself, the population is growing, you know, as we make our way towards 400 million. Where does that number fit sort of on the historical scale of, I guess, the percentage of the population that is dependent on it? Where does 42 million fit there?

Salaam Bhatti: Yeah, it's skews higher than average or than before. SNAP is a 60 year old program and it's been evolving since those early days to help a lot more people. Now it's not a matter of shame that we have over 40 million people receiving SNAP. It is a matter of shame that we have over 40 million people in the strongest country in the history of the world and richest nation living in food insecurity. So what we've seen is that the government can increase the benefits. The government can expand the Child Tax Credit. And when the government did [00:17:00] expand the child tax credit, it cut child poverty in half. Adding a few extra dollars, we could have eliminated child poverty. So that is the shameful thing.

There is no shame in utilizing SNAP benefits. It's there for you.

People who utilize it, they're not receiving it for the rest of their life. It's on average just a few years and it's a great hand up to make sure you have food on the table and your money can be flexible and liquid for other necessities.

So it's absolutely important that you get food on the table and food in your bellies. We've seen the science show, that when SNAP benefits are received in the beginning of the month kids will perform better in school and we can see that their test scores improve or are higher at the beginning of the month compared to the end of the month. Typically a household will run out of or exhaust their SNAP benefits within the first three weeks. So in the third or fourth week of the month we've seen grades slump in households with low food [00:18:00] insecurity or households with SNAP. So that's it's a telltale sign right there that we need to increase the snap benefit adequacy so that it does last the whole month so that we can give our kids a better future too.

Quinn: It really parallels in a lot of ways, and this is an oversimplification, but it's both of them are timely, and both of them again are part of the systemic problem. It parallels a lot of how Medicaid has been expanded in the past 15 years, and then through lowering the threshold for being eligible during the pandemic, and now how many people are being unenrolled.

It seems like 70 percent of which is because of fucking paperwork, not because they're not eligible anymore, but how much that affects poverty and health and education and people being able to go to work or go to school or whatever it may be. When the pandemic started, Ed Yong, the science writer, Ed Yong, who is from the Atlantic, won the Pulitzer, you know, his metaphor was, this pandemic is like a [00:19:00] flood that is going to expose all the cracks in our sidewalk, right?

And my poor man's version was, this is a pop quiz on, here's all the economic and societal decisions you've made over the past 50 years. Let's see how it goes. Not great, obviously, but we did get to do some interesting experiments that we probably never would have gotten able to do, like Medicaid stuff like the Child Tax Credit and like you said, Cory Booker and so many others have been yelling about this for years, suddenly it cuts child poverty in half and then we don't do it anymore And I know a bunch of states have done their own version but it's amazing because now we have the evidence right and now we have the evidence how many people and like you said, it is more than ever so clear that this is a choice.

Salaam Bhatti: What's the beautiful thing about expanding the Child Tax Credit and increasing SNAP benefits is that the money gets used up within weeks. It doesn't get stored in an offshore account never to see the light of day again and[00:20:00] accrue interest. This money goes right back, not just into the economy, but the local economy. It is an incredible investment into local communities.

Quinn: Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit. How does SNAP, I don't know if it pays for itself, but like you said, by week 3 and 4, families are running out of it, which means they're using it. How does it stimulate local, regional economic growth? How does it pay itself back?

Salaam Bhatti: So, the studies actually show that during an economic downturn, every SNAP dollar that's used generates about $1.54 in economic activity. So, what does that mean? That means it helps to pay for the cashier at the grocery store. It helps to keep the lights on. Pays for the truck driver that's transporting the fresh produce. It helps to pay the farmer who's growing the food. So it's got a great immediate impact in the whole supply chain of your local economy. And let's not forget it's feeding people as well.

Quinn: Right. And you're like, but it also it's just literally feeding people. It's [00:21:00] just God, this makes me angry, so I was again, another semi analogous version is having lived in Los Angeles for the past 15 years or so where the air quality is much better than it once was, obviously, but it's still not ideal.

And now wildfire smoke is so bad. And there's so many studies, not just about heat in the classroom or how it doesn't cool down at night and how that lowers grades, but also wildfire smoke and what that can do especially to growing brains and I was an asthma kid growing up. And so it's amazing how quickly I turn into Batman about these things where I just become so angry about it's like it's food on the table.

It's kids who can't breathe. This is not some unsolvable problem. This isn't like, how do we decarbonize steel? It's very straightforward, and it works.

Salaam Bhatti: I thought you would turn into Batman because of your asthma and you would just go, where is she?

Quinn: Right, exactly. Where is the food? [00:22:00]

Salaam Bhatti: How do we destroy poverty?

Quinn: Yeah, 100%.

Salaam Bhatti: Well, Batman, if your parents had paid taxes, Gotham wouldn't be the craphole that it is.

Quinn: Yeah, oh, they built a subway? Yeah, right. Fuckers. Okay, so like you said, this is on and off sort of the 60 year program. Now there's WIC, there's all these different pieces, Medicaid, many Americans do not have bootstraps, but we have versions of these things. It's just like you said, the poverty level as it's defined is very low.

But a lot has also changed about diets and nutritional guidelines and how and where we shop for groceries with all these mergers, but also online grocery shopping and I know hot foods is a complicated part. How has SNAP and WIC, kept pace if at all with nutritional guidelines, farmers markets, trying to keep up with grocery shopping and online shopping things like that.

Have we seen actual progress in those places?

Salaam Bhatti: Yeah. So we saw a massive amount of progress happen within SNAP[00:23:00] a few years ago in the 2018 Farm Bill. This is the first time that the Thrifty Food Plan that I talked about earlier, the formula for SNAP benefits actually got updated to reflect the true cost of having a nutritious diet to go with the foods and beverages that are available today and to even consider other things like what are people buying? And the fact that hey, you know, 60 years ago, we had a much different workforce, a whole different family environment where the man was working and the lady was staying at home.

Now, it's no longer, people don't have 16 or 20 hours a week to cook from scratch, which is what this outdated formula was providing. So with a Thrifty Food Plan update, we saw all these things that get taken into account for and the SNAP benefit increased by about a dollar 20 per person per day. So that was great. Of course a dollar 20 isn't that much. But it's a step in the right [00:24:00] direction and we know incrementalism is the word of the day every single day in Congress. So what the Thrifty Food Plan update did was it said hey, we're going to update this, here's the new things we're going to keep an eye on, and then we're going to update this every five years. So that is what some Congressmembers are up in arms about. This increased the spending for SNAP and so what we want to do is we want to stop that. And that's going to be that 30 billion dollar cut. So, that's one thing, that's one way that SNAP has kept abreast with nutritional changes.

Quinn: What about again, just practicals? Can you use it for hot foods now? Like you said, who has time to cook at home? And it was like, I love to cook. I never have time. I know hot foods is a thing. What about ordering groceries online? Where are we on that?

Salaam Bhatti: So, the hot foods one is such a mind numbing thing. If you were taking the SNAP challenge that FRAC likes to host every year, and this is a trailer, a teaser trailer, well, you know, next year [00:25:00] we should be doing the next SNAP challenge. You might think, you know, Hey, I have, you know, just over 6 dollars per person per day to spend. I'm just going to buy a rotisserie chicken and I have meals for a week, but guess what? You cannot buy a hot rotisserie chicken with your SNAP benefits. You cannot buy any hot foods with your SNAP benefits. It's a really weird law that has no scientific basis. There's no mathematics behind why you cannot buy hot food.

It's in the federal codes. It's something that we are trying to repeal. And currently in either the House or the Senate, the House has some sort of semblance of a committee Farm Bill. The Senate has some frameworks, but they both have language in there to do a study about hot foods. We don't need to do a study.

Just turned it on. It doesn't just flip the switch and let the hot foods be bought because the studies have been done. It's already been in pilot or beta testing whenever a disaster happens because the states will [00:26:00] put forward waivers to the USDA, the United States Department of Agriculture that oversees and administer SNAP, and they'll ask for waivers to the definition of food. And that's when the hot foods are able to be bought during and after disasters with your SNAP benefits. So, hey when people are living in poverty, every day is a disaster. So just, you know, let them buy hot foods with their SNAP benefits.

Quinn: I have so many things I want to shout about. One, I have good and bad news about disasters. One is that it's all the time now, for everyone. And two, you're exactly right. I remember one of my earliest guests, one of my favorite humans, she wrote a lot of the Green New Deal, now works at the Roosevelt Institute, Rihanna Gunn Wright had an interview once where someone asked her, something, something climate existential crisis and she's like, I'm Black, which existential crisis are we talking about here?

And you're right. It's very expensive to be poor in this country and the thing that most people have such a [00:27:00] difficult time buying is time, childcare, preparing food takes a lot of time if you have your power on and running water, which we also like to take away from folks. And so it just seems so incredibly frustrating that we still can't do that.

It seems so primitive and medieval. When we try to fight for that, what is the most common argument presented against hey, no, sorry, you still can't have hot food.

Salaam Bhatti: So some people say that there's a confusion between purchasing hot foods and using SNAP benefits at a restaurant. We say, you know, there's two entirely different things. There is a Restaurant Meals Program that states can opt into, and that only is for certain populations. Those who are over 60, those who are homeless, or those who have a disability, or if you're a spouse of anybody in one of those three groups. Those are the only people who qualify for the Restaurant Meals Program. The state has to opt into it, and the restaurant has to participate in it as [00:28:00] well. So that's a completely different program. Hot foods is another separate thing. That's when you do go to the grocery store, your convenience store.

And instead of buying the cold chicken, you are able to now buy the hot rotisserie chicken, maybe use the hot food bar, because like you're saying, time is incredibly valuable. They're not making any more of it. So when you have to juggle taking care of your kids while maybe using public transit to get to the store trying to figure out when you're going to your next job and the multiple jobs you're juggling as well, you know, hot foods can go a long way to saving you time. But it also just changes your day when you have a hot meal in your belly. When I was living in poverty and I was you know munching on whatever cold stuff I had, it really puts a damper on your day. But then when like on the occasion, I got a hot meal. Oh my God. It was a night and day difference and how you feel.

Quinn: Okay. Focusing on what is available and what is not, how has it kept up with nutritional guidelines? [00:29:00] Obviously a lot has changed and tried to been changed and we've got Michelle Obama's plate, we've got the new added sugar tag, which is great, and all I do is shake cans of iced tea at people and show them the added sugar.

I'm really a pleasure to be around. How has SNAP adapted to that, if at all? And same with WIC.

Salaam Bhatti: I can't speak to WIC, but I can say that with SNAP. The beauty, one of the beauties of SNAP is that the participants have full autonomy to buy whatever food beverage they want, whatever, you know, non alcoholic, no tobacco, not hot. So we want to repeal that hot part of course. But yeah, they can buy whatever foods they want for their diets.

And what we've seen is that the households that participate in SNAP, the households that are eligible and participate in SNAP have better health outcomes than households that are eligible and don't participate in SNAP. What we've also seen is that when the SNAP benefit amount was increased during the pandemic and during the recession, [00:30:00] we saw emergency room visits decrease. And so that means medical debt decreased. That means Medicaid spending decreased. So it was an economic boom for a lot of families and the government in terms of cost savings as well. But when SNAP benefits are reduced or there's you know, not participating in SNAP, then emergency room visits increase, which increases medical spending and increases Medicaid spending. So those are some of the ways we see health outcomes tied to SNAP benefits.

Quinn: Okay, so, if we didn't clarify, if you're not familiar, and we're gonna have to find some easy to read resources for folks on the Farm Bill. Passed every five years. It's supposed to be past every five years. We're a little late. A lot of the stuff is still running. Obviously it expired last month.

Now we got an election coming up. Who the fuck knows? Okay, so with our Action Tool, right? When we say, you're like, I want to donate to some candidates. The first thing we're going to do is say, maybe don't donate to [00:31:00] president and federal level. Your money is going to go much farther on the state and local level.

And then we're going to push you towards candidates who are endorsed by folks we work with or are allies of. But we're also not going to push you towards races that someone's definitely going to win or definitely going to lose. Because those are also not a good use of your money.

We want races that we can swing, but might also swing a House or a chamber or a city council or a school board, whatever it might be. Again, we want you to trust that when we tell you to smash your thumb on a button, we've done most of that work for you. Keeping that in mind, what are sort of the one, two, three things you guys are fighting for in this current Farm Bill iteration that you think will be most effective and has a chance of being a part of the package?

Salaam Bhatti: So I guess the top three things that we believe can and will happen in the Farm Bill are one is the repeal of the drug felon ban. [00:32:00] There is a law that was inserted into the Great Welfare Reform Act during former President Clinton's time to end welfare as we know it.

And, Congress included this provision that said, if you have a drug felony on your record, Y=you can never receive SNAP or another program called TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, for the rest of your life. So it doesn't matter if you pay your fines and you do your sentence, you serve your time, you have this life sentence, a double punishment for the rest of your life.

Only if you've had a drug felony on your record. So there was also a provision in there that said states can repeal that and so far maybe about half of the states have modified or fully repealed it, but now we're in a bipartisan situation that this should be repealed in the next Farm Bill.

Quinn: So, you think either way that that one's gonna pass. So that's great. What is like, on the [00:33:00] precipice that would be the most effective? What's the intersection of we need help to pass it, and it might pass but it might not and could affect the most people? Am I making any sense?

Salaam Bhatti: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So there's this massive problem about SNAP benefit theft. It's called skimming And it affects people who have debit cards, credit cards as well. Now SNAP participants are prime targets because the SNAP card, it's essentially like a hotel key card.

It's doesn't have many security features, if any. So what people do is you swipe it. It's still a magnetic swipe, magnetic stripe swipe card with a four digit pin, but it doesn't have the CVV number. It doesn't have an expiration date. So things that would keep you secure when you're shopping, especially online don’t exist. So as a result of this, there are, you know, criminal rings, crime associations, a Romanian criminal gang, that's really honed in on this and has stolen over 90 million dollars in [00:34:00] benefits from people. And so what we have before us in Congress is a bill called Fairness for Victims of Skimming Act which is both in the House and the Senate. And what this does is that this would extend permanently the replacement benefits and the full replacement of any benefits that are stolen from SNAP participants. Cause right now we just have short term expansions or extensions to replacement benefits. We had one that was supposed to end at the end of September.

It just got extended into December 20th by the continuing resolution. So we don't want to kick the can down the road for the rest of our lives. We have to understand that we're going to be seeing theft happen. People are going to be stealing SNAP participants benefits forever. So we need to make sure we have a permanent fix of a replacement so that households with the lowest incomes in America aren't starving because somebody stole their benefits. So we need a lot of support [00:35:00] behind the Fairness for Victims of Skimming Act to get that through. So we have that permanent replacement. The Hot Foods Act we were talking about, you know, hot rotisserie chickens. We need a lot of support to get that through as an actual repeal of the ban not as a study. So that's, it's just known as the Hot Foods Act. It's championed by Representative Grace Meng out of New York, so that would be wonderful. And we would love to see the door open for the EATS Act, which stands for Enhanced Access to SNAP Act for college students, so that they can receive SNAP benefits without having to work 80 hours a month.

Quinn: All sounds pretty fucking great. I mean, God. Okay. That's really helpful because again, we really try to operate on what is most actionable going to affect the most people, but also is not a waste of time in either direction.

That matters. People like to feel like, Oh, I'm in a fight. Let's do this thing.

This has all been super, super helpful. So what [00:36:00] else can we do so, for instance, we've kind of broken the app and how we structure these things, down into a few different, we call them verbs. Do you remember Mad Libs?

Salaam Bhatti: Heck yeah.

Quinn: Yeah, it's kind of like Mad Libs, basically. So we say I want to verb about a noun. And so the typical verbs are learn, donate, volunteer, be heard, and that is typically at the federal and state level, where you call and yell at your reps with a script we give you, or on the local level, we provide a template for you to go to your school board meeting or city council meeting, whatever it might be.

And there's also invest in, there's get funded for, and then all the different nouns. What do you feel like are the most effective ways we can help? And I'm also going to follow up with you offline about this because clearly I think there's some work we can do together here. But I guess off the top of your head live, what are the places we can be most helpful?

Salaam Bhatti: Two ways definitely one is to visit frac.org and right at the top of the page there's [00:37:00] action items. We have something called the Action Network, the FRAC action network which you know, the acronym is FAN. So be a fan and what we do with the action network is we have these priorities that we need to get before Congress, and it's so impactful when constituents reach out to their Congress members, which is your entire audience base. So we need all of you to encourage your Congress members to prioritize ending hunger in America through specific actionable items that we continuously update on our website. And one of the current ones is about, you know, supporting the permanent replacement of stolen SNAP benefits. We also at FRAC focus on, my colleagues will be focusing on WIC and passing Healthy School Meals For All, strengthening child nutrition programs. So this leads to the second thing that you know, if you can, donating to FRAC is a worthwhile investment because we are at the head, we are at the helm of championing amazing [00:38:00] policies, strengthening incredible federal nutrition programs, all the while also looking at root causes and seeing how can we truly end poverty related hunger in America?

Quinn: Great. Those are super helpful. Anything else, any other groups you really feel like are doing excellent work should be congratulated and thanked for doing excellent work or deserve support?

Salaam Bhatti: We have so many wonderful partners across the space because you cannot do this alone, you'll never get anywhere. So we are happy and proud to work with the Center on Budget, with Feeding America and that's just some of my partners, and oh, gosh, I feel like I'm at the Oscars and I'm like, Oh no, I'm going to forget somebody. And the tabloids are going to rip me apart for this. But just like there's so many, what's so important is it's not just nonprofits, but it's private groups as well. Private corporations all coming together to say, Hey, listen, we have this shared goal of making sure you know over 40 million people are taken care [00:39:00] of because that is, it's good for the economy.

It's good for Morals, it's good for our own inner peace, etc, etc, etc. So, it's really wonderful to come together with non-traditional coalitions With so many different types of private citizens, to get the ball moving and this is truly the only way anything good can be accomplished in America by getting everybody together.

Quinn: Great. Awesome. Well, we'll get more specific on that stuff offline and you can send us any other resources, things like that. All right. I got a last few questions I ask everybody that I'm going to get you out of here. Is that all right?

Salaam Bhatti: Sounds good.

Quinn: Okay. You've talked about your history. You were very kind and generous to share that.

I think a lot of folks will identify with that. When was the first time in your life when you realized you had the power of change or the power to actually, you know, really do something meaningful for others? And that could have been six years old with a lemonade stand or [00:40:00] six months ago.

Salaam Bhatti: It would probably would have been in just the fast past few years. When my mom and I would go to the WIC office and get our WIC benefits and checkups and everything like that, the same day like we would go in the morning later in the day we would be doing Meals on Wheels delivery for, you know, those who have disabilities, those who are older, and giving them hot meals, bringing hot meals to them in their homes.

And I'll never forget that image of just the smiles of people living lonely lives and how touched they were. It didn't affect me until a few years ago and this is something my mom had inculcated in us growing up that is not just about receiving and taking benefits, but it's also about how can we also give back at the same time, even if we may not have money, we do have our time, which is just as valuable. When I started at Virginia Poverty Law Center as the public benefits attorney, I was tasked with improving SNAP, improving TANF, improving school meals within a [00:41:00] divided commonwealth. And I had the biggest imposter syndrome because I saw what my predecessors tried to do. And how great of attorneys they were.

And I thought if they were unable to, how can I do anything? So I knew that it wasn't something I could do myself. I gathered as many partners, traditional and non traditional together to get the needle moving. And within four or five years of that role, we were able to do some amazing things like expand SNAP to over 25 000 families. Unanimously, in the state assembly, which was unheard of. We were able to increase the TANF cash assistance amount by historic amounts twice. I got to quote Eminem at the Senate committee while I was advocating for, against period poverty and for menstrual equity. I got to work with so many wonderful people to help subsidize reduced priced school meals. So that those were free for those [00:42:00] students who were eligible for it. And we were only able to do some wonderful things in a few years because we did these things together. I didn't know I had the power to do that until I was in concert with others, because I knew alone, I could accomplish nothing.

Quinn: I love that. Thank you for sharing that. It really, especially with how divided so many legislatures are. And obviously, Virginia was going in a great direction. We had a bit of a hiccup and now we're trying to pull our shit back together here. I remember, I don't remember what vote it was or what year because I probably have CTE, but when the new Medicaid passed in Virginia and all of a sudden I think it was like 400, 000 folks had health insurance, not overnight, but that probably had never had it before.

And you just think, Oh. That is something you can do. And what does it mean when someone can take their kid to the doctor for the first time?

Salaam Bhatti: Yeah, yeah. That was , my supervisor, Jill Hankin. She was the [00:43:00] commander in chief on that Medicaid expansion and just a living legend. She retired very shortly after that massive win and rightfully so.

So, it was just, it was a very emotional day. When that happened, not her retiring, that was emotional, but also when Medicaid expansion happened, because you're right, people who didn't have healthcare for the longest time now finally had it. And it was just because it was a policy change.

It wasn't something, it wasn't something like on a 10 commandment that thou shalt not have healthcare. It was just something that we had made. We, as a people said, you know, ah, yeah, poor people shouldn't have healthcare or you can only get this much in benefits, like we can change these things.

Quinn: That's a choice we're making. Thank you for sharing that. Last one in all of your free time. What is a book you have read recently in the past year? Something that has affected you? It has opened your mind to something you hadn't considered before or changed your thinking in some way?

Salaam Bhatti: Oy vey. I mean, as a father, I pick up a lot of books and I never get to [00:44:00] finish them and all the books that I get to finish are like See Spot Run.

Quinn: By the way, we have coloring books on the list. We've got kids books. That's three quarters of my shit. So feel free to share one of those.

Salaam Bhatti: All right. So something that maybe I've read with my kids that helped me. Nothing. It's all Llama Llama, man. He's not anybody.

Quinn: Wait! Llama Llama! Well, Llama Llama's not helping people, but the point of Llama Llama, I mean, that guy gets pretty worked up.

I think about the Llama Llama when the mom's like, hey, hey, hey, I can't do your shit every second. At some point, you're just going to have to hold on a minute.

Salaam Bhatti: You know what? I'll talk about Llama Llama and the bully goat.

This is a story where, you know, Llama Llama is getting bullied throughout the day by a bully goat. And he finally just stands his ground and just, he stopped, but we're, you know, we're not going to be playing here anymore. And then he tells, you know, tells an adult. That you know, this is happening. So that confrontation, you know so many times that I might not be a [00:45:00] confrontational person but when it comes to protecting one's rights and protecting the rights of others because Nelly New was also being accosted through this bully, you know Llama Llama really stood up for her as well. So you know, Salaama Llama may not be standing up for his own rights as much, but I like to consider I have over 40 million clients that I need to stand up for their rights.

Quinn: I love that. See, I told you Llama Llama was going to get it done. There's a reason. There's a reason, I'm telling you. I know there's so many good ones out there. I'm like, fuck, this is really good. God. Berenstein Bears is still up there. So good. All right Salaam, where can our listeners follow you and your work on the internet?

Salaam Bhatti: So if you want to follow me, I'm on TikTok at poverty lawyer on Twitter at Salaam, but you know, Hey, Twitter, fratweets, Instagram, fracgram to get the latest and greatest from our FRAC colleagues and all the work we're doing [00:46:00] to strengthen SNAP, strengthen WIC, improve child nutrition programs.

Quinn: Awesome. Rock and roll. We will throw all that in the show notes. Anything else? What did I miss? That you want to get off your chest here before we let you go?

Salaam Bhatti: We are going to see a Farm Bill within the next few months, I hope, and it's very important that everybody has their hands on deck. To encourage their lawmakers to not bring SNAPto where it was, but to make it even better, especially during this time when food insecurity is rising and inflation is still affecting a lot of people and we have the resources to strengthen this program. So please join our effort on frac dot org to make the good fight. Make some improvements, because after all, you can't lead America if you can't feed America.

Quinn: I love it.