Dr. Mariana Chilton, Children’s HealthWatch Co-Principal Investigator and Founder of Witnesses to Hunger, wrote an important piece on solving poverty in America.

There is no mom I talk to (and I talk to hundreds through our research as part of Children’s HealthWatch and Witnesses to Hunger) that actually wants to be on food stamps. They participate in SNAP and other public assistance programs because they have to in order to protect their families. Hunger is solvable. Better wages and income supports, like SNAP, work to protect family health. Our research has shown that SNAP promotes child health, and prevents hospitalizations. Yet our leaders in the House of Representatives are dishonoring America’s mothers by trying to cut $20 billion from the SNAP program. Did they forget that half of SNAP recipients are children? Do they know that 60% of people on SNAP work while receiving SNAP, and that the rest are either children, disabled or elderly? Do they know that for $1 spent on SNAP, $1.72 is generated in the local economy?