STOP SNAP FRAUD!
Bright red signs, with instructions like the one above, are hard to miss. But chances are, if you commute regularly into Washington, D.C., you might've seen this exact message plastered throughout D.C. Metro stations and on buses in recent weeks. The posters, sponsored by the D.C. Department of Human Services, broadcast a clear message about Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamp, recipients: "To purchase items other than food or qualified products is a CRIME, punishable by program disqualification and/or incarceration."
By trumpeting the misuse of SNAP benefits as a criminal act, D.C. DHS invokes a well-worn image of people in poverty, one that casts them as criminals prone to abusing programs at taxpayers' expense, though the message finds more basis in perception than on paper. That the campaign's emergence comes at a time when Congress is re-authorizing the legislation that includes SNAP suggests that its purpose isn't so much to enlist passersby to police fraud as it is to codify a contrived image into policy.
[For more on this story by MAGGIE YOU MING TSAI, go to https://psmag.com/economics/erasing-welfare-myths]
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