For one in seven Americans, the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, aka food stamps, is all that stands between them and too little food. But the complicated calculus of financial survival for the working poor also means any cuts to the roughly $80 billion SNAP, as it’s known, being considered by Congress would be felt well beyond the grocery checkout line. Buying new school clothes, family outings, even getting a toehold in the financial mainstream could be thrown into limbo

“As finances get worse, the dietary quality also gets worse,” warned Dr. Deborah Frank, founder and principal investigator of Children’s HealthWatch at the Boston University-affiliated Boston Medical Center. “Poor nutrition isn’t obvious to the lay person,” she said. “This is a health problem. I think that’s the connection that people miss.”