Why are Americans in the dark about the benefits of food stamps to the society as a whole?

[Robb]

14. Well, *everyone* is most flush in the first two weeks of the month.

Not just SNAP recipients. Plus, figure SNAP at 45 million clients and $65 billion annually, it's a big chunk, but just WalMart has $250 billion in US sales each year.

That said, you're of course correct that no corporation wants to see any part of its sales pool dry up -- and they will never support any real reduction in SNAP. They're competing for the business like they compete for any market segment -- big signs everywhere that say "WE ACCEPT FOOD STAMPS."

As to education, there's a lot we can tell people they'd probably get wrong if they guessed. Half of recipients are children, for one. Off the top of my head, average individual benefit is something like $120/month, so no one's "getting fat off the system." Biggest racial demographic is white. Almost half of SNAP recipients are also working. And there's something absurdly low like a 1% fraud rate across the system.

It's incredibly important. And no one would dare attack it during a recession; oddly, one of the best signs of recovery is that anyone is even considering speaking out against it in public.