Working 70 Hours, Still Hungry: Why SNAP Can't Solve Food Insecurity Alone
44 million Americans are food insecure. The wealthiest nation on earth is failing its most vulnerable citizens. And the solution isn't more food banks—it's addressing the systems that keep people trapped in poverty.
Tammy Johnson knows this reality intimately. Growing up in poverty with a single mother who couldn't work due to health issues, she and her sisters depended on school meals for survival. At 14, a summer job program changed everything. "I realized the ability to work and take care of myself put me in a position of self-sustainability," she explains. "I just needed the tools and the resources and the doors open for me."
Today, as Executive Director and Founder of Empowering the Masses, Johnson is opening those doors for thousands of families in Texas. This state ranks #1 in the nation for food insecurity.
The Crisis Within the Crisis
When recent government disruptions delayed SNAP benefits, the impact was immediate and devastating. "Families are becoming desperate," Johnson reports. Her Dallas-based food bank typically serves 500 families weekly. In one week during the crisis, that number jumped to 745.
But the problem runs deeper than temporary benefit disruptions. Texas faces a perfect storm of factors creating widespread food insecurity: strategic placement of grocery stores that creates "food apartheid," lack of transportation, and poverty wages that force families into impossible choices.
Food Deserts Are Food Apartheid
Johnson doesn't mince words about why Texas leads the nation in hunger. "I call them food apartheid because those things are done on purpose. It's strategically done with the way grocery stores are placed in communities."
The reality for families in food deserts is brutal: no walkable grocery stores, needing two or three buses to reach fresh food, and arriving at convenience stores where milk costs $8 per gallon and a single banana is $3. Meanwhile, Top Ramen and processed snacks cost just $5.
"That's what I'm going to get for my family," Johnson explains. "Food insecurity is a lack of access to healthy, nutritious foods, but also the inability to afford it or get to it regularly, even if I have SNAP."
Time Poverty: The Invisible Barrier
Here's what critics of government assistance often overlook: most people receiving SNAP benefits are working, often multiple jobs. They're experiencing what Johnson calls "time poverty."
"Think about an average single mom receiving SNAP benefits," she says. "I may work 40 hours at a warehouse, then four hours a day doing Uber. That's 70 hours a week, 140 hours every two weeks. And I still don't have enough to provide for my family in a holistic way."
When you're working 70+ hours weekly and still can't afford groceries, when do you have time for job training? For cooking nutritious meals? For helping children with homework? For breaking the cycle?
The Upstream Solution
Empowering the Masses operates on a simple formula: Education + Advocacy = Empowerment.
Instead of just providing emergency food relief—"putting a band-aid over a bullet hole"—they offer short-term workforce training programs designed specifically for people experiencing time poverty. Phlebotomy and Community Health Worker certifications can be completed in 12-16 weeks, with evening classes that accommodate working parents.
The results speak for themselves. Akira, a young woman working two jobs and receiving SNAP benefits, took a risk: she quit one job to attend the 12-week phlebotomy program. Four weeks after graduation, she landed a hospital job paying $27 per hour. She immediately called to cancel her SNAP benefits.
"That was an example of what SNAP is supposed to be there for," Johnson emphasizes. "It's not people sitting around waiting on benefits. It's people really trying to figure out how to do this thing called life in these crazy times."
What You Can Do Right Now
Policymakers: Get out of your offices. Talk to constituents experiencing food insecurity. Include affected communities in policy conversations.
Employers: Check in with your staff. Someone sitting in the cubicle next to you may be visiting food pantries at 6 a.m. before work. Pay living wages when possible.
Individuals: Volunteer. Donate. But most importantly, understand that solving hunger requires addressing housing, healthcare, education, and employment simultaneously.
As Johnson powerfully states: "We're more alike than we're different. I don't care what side of the aisle you sit on. At the end of the day, we all have to eat. If one of us is not good, then none of us is as good as we can be."
The solution to America's food crisis isn't charity—it's opportunity.
Learn more at empoweringmasses.org