To replace income-based welfare with a contribution-based credit system that ensures food access, empowers families, supports recovery, and protects vulnerable populations—without incentivizing poverty, dependency, or household fragmentation.
Core Principles
Food is a right, not a reward.
Support is earned through contribution, not claimed through poverty.
Family integrity is honored, not penalized.
Recovery and redemption are possible for all.
Oversight ensures dignity, not exploitation.
Credit Structure
Credit Type
Description
Examples
Civic Credits
Earned through volunteering and public service
Street cleanup, vendor shifts, fire station support
Family Stewardship Credits
Recognizes unpaid caregiving and parenting
Childcare, elder care, homeschooling
Skill-Building Credits
Earned through education and training
GED, parenting classes, trade school
Health & Wellness Credits
Earned through therapeutic engagement
Counseling, medical checkups, support groups
Emergency Credits
Temporary support for verified hardship
Job loss, domestic violence, addiction recovery
1 Credit = $1 in food purchasing power, redeemable at approved vendors, farmers markets, and Community Food Hubs.
Credit Structure
Credit Type
Description
Examples of Qualifying Activities
Monthly Cap
Civic Credits
Earned through community service, volunteering, or civic participation
Food bank work, neighborhood cleanups, tutoring, elder care, voter registration drives
100 credits
Family Stewardship Credits
Recognizes unpaid labor in caregiving and family stability
Parenting, co-parenting, elder care, homeschooling, foster care support
80 credits
Skill-Building Credits
Earned through education, training, or job readiness
Earned by participating in health-positive behaviors
Attending medical checkups, fitness programs, mental health counseling, addiction recovery
40 credits
Emergency Credits
Temporary boost for verified hardship or transition
Natural disaster, job loss, domestic violence recovery, reentry from incarceration
120 credits (time-limited)
Redemption & Use
Community Food Hubs: Local centers offering fresh produce, meal kits, and cooking classes.
Mobile Markets: Pop-up trucks in food deserts, accepting credits and offering nutrition education.
Digital Wallet Integration: Credits can be tracked and redeemed via app or card, with real-time balance updates.
Bonus Multipliers: Extra value for purchasing fresh produce, local goods, or attending nutrition classes.
Guardrails & Integrity Triggers
Able-Bodied Requirement: Adults aged 18–59 without dependents must earn credits through contribution unless medically exempt.
No Credit for Additional Dependents Alone: Additional children do not increase credits unless paired with increased contribution.
Household Integrity Check: All adults in a household must be declared; cohabitation with a working partner does not disqualify but may adjust credit thresholds.
Audit Triggers: Sudden household changes, repeated hardship claims, or contribution gaps trigger review—not punishment, but recalibration.
Upward Mobility Pathways
Credit-to-Cash Conversion: After 6 months of consistent contribution, participants can convert a portion of credits into cash for non-food essentials.
Exit Bonus: Graduating from the program (via employment or self-sufficiency) earns a one-time bonus to support transition.
Mentorship Credits: Former participants can earn credits by mentoring new enrollees, creating a virtuous cycle of empowerment.
Cultural & Civic Integration
Civic Storytelling Credits: Participants can earn credits by sharing their journey, teaching others, or contributing to community media.
Legacy Anchoring: Families who maintain multi-generational contribution streaks receive recognition and symbolic badges (e.g., “Civic Steward,” “Legacy Builder”).
Emergency Support Modules
Domestic Violence & Sex Trafficking Survivors
Immediate 90-day hotel housing
Therapy, legal aid, stabilization support
No police tracking or ID required
Civic Companion assigned for reintegration
Emergency Detox Clinics
Inpatient care for heroin, fentanyl, or urgent addiction
Vendor Portal: businesses opt in to host volunteers
Caregiver-linked accounts for vulnerable participants
Free phones for all participants, including those with felony history
Oversight & Integrity Protocols
Two-Witness Verification for guardians and Civic Companions
Benefit Access Firewall: credits are non-transferable
Monthly Integrity Checks for all participants
Audit Triggers for neglect, manipulation, or proxy abuse
Empathy Audit Logic prevents emotional bypass of civic responsibility
Empowerment Outcomes
No more blanket food stamps based on income or dependents
Credits earned through contribution, healing, and education
Low-income households receive daily school lunch credits
Parents earn daily household credits through verified care
Felony history does not block access—redemption is possible
Trauma survivors receive immediate support and structured reintegration
Program Features
Universal Nutritional Credits: Monthly food credits tied to contribution, not income. Can be earned through civic engagement, education, or caregiving.
Family Stability Incentives: Bonuses for co-parenting, elder care, and intergenerational households.
Community Food Hubs: Local centers where credits can be redeemed for fresh produce, meal kits, and cooking classes.
Audit-Resistant Design: No reward for underreporting income or excluding household members. Uses verified contribution logs and civic engagement records.
Upward Mobility Pathways: Participants receive access to job training, financial literacy, and transition planning.
Transition Strategy
Phase-In Model: Gradual replacement of SNAP with DNAP over 3 years.
Legacy Protections: Current recipients retain benefits during transition, with support to meet new contribution criteria.
Civic Partnership Portal: Online dashboard for logging contributions, tracking credits, and accessing support.
Safeguards Against Exploitation
No benefit increase for additional dependents unless contribution increases.
Household audits include all adults, regardless of declared relationship.
Empathy triggers flagged in audit loop to prevent manipulation of support narratives.
This policy transforms public assistance into a civic exchange ecosystem—one that nourishes, empowers, and repairs. It honors every participant’s humanity while protecting the system’s integrity.
I’m going to disagree, primarily because I think the best option for replacing food stamps is to do away with giving recipients any equivalent to money and instead just giving them the very basic foods that they need directly.
I suggest that the prison system be used to grow all the healthy food that is the distributed to the poor at local farmers’ markets near the Post Office.
You will get a lot a pushback by saying the food is a “right” not a reward. I grow all my own food. It’s work. No one has a right to the food I grow without paying for it. Start out by saying that a civilized society does not allow people to starve.
We don’t want to take money by force (taxation) from one person in order to give to another person. The entity in middle doing the taking and the giving is inefficient and susceptible to corruption. Instead of taxing to support SNAP program, have prison labor grow healthy food for the poor and for themselves.
Also it may be that we’ve made a mistake asking government to take over charity work. Charities have collapsed because everyone now thinks “I pay my taxes, why should I donate too?”
The Green Party had a “right to work” program idea that is similar to yours. Again I think it’s a mistake to say “right.” Better to say “opportunity” to work.
I think you’re overthinking this program. It’s too detailed which would require a lot of bureaucratic oversight. One point you make about “Family Stewardship Credits” I do agree with. Moms who want to homeschool their kids can get paid a minimum salary which would save the state tens of thousands and the kids would probably get a better education.
I think you missing the physically handicapped and those that are too sick to work. Those at the end stages of their pulmonary hypertension and pulmonary fibrosis can barely move without getting out of breath for example. They physically can not work.
I agree that something needs to be done. But this kind of sounds very similar to China’s Social Credit Score. You work at approved jobs, you buy approved amounts of approved food, you go where you are told to go…and if you stray from “approved” activity, no don’t get to eat. Think what you propose would be a slippery slope to total control.
Job requirements would be good. So would being given a “set items” box…cheese, bread, some fruits and Veggies, etc…basics, no junk, no frills, everyone gets the same box of items. Boredom with basic nutritious food might help encourage getting a job.
That is the way it used to be. The Federal government bought surplus food, milk, cheese, canned goods, rice, beans, fruit, vegetables, meat, etc and people needing help picked it up. Just like the food banks of today. Some one in government decided that that wasn’t efficient and they switched to food stamps in coupon books. What you could buy was restricted. Then the government decided that that was degrading so they switched to todays EBT card. Much more efficient and less degrading, but full of fraud and abuse.
okay thank you for your input. I was just throwing some ideas out there. our system is not working. we are taking out more than we are contributing at this point. I was looking at trying to find a solution in which not only poor can access it but everyone and do so without continuing to take out loans.
The problem is that politicians in congress use govt spending to ‘purchase’ votes with certain constituencies. The SNAP and other programs are examples. Those politicians set no limits on the amount that can be spent on those programs, choosing to borrow money to pay for them which adds to the national debt and to the deficit through having to pay interest on the borrowed funds. No solution is possible until that system of ‘vote purchasing’ is curtailed. I’d say “eliminated” but recognize that is probably impossible. The current govt shutdown is the result of the braying jackasses wanting to expand the obhozocare funding so that they can curry favor and ‘buy’ the votes of illegal immigrants that they let into the country by the millions. You and I are paying for medical benefits for third worlders who come here to suck on our public teat.
The ultimate solution to this and so many other problems is a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget and commitment of funds to paying down the national debt until it is erased. This amendment would have to allow for deficit spending, but should restrict it to paying for national emergencies which it would also define as acts of god or war and specifying the means by which emergencies can be legally declared. For example, the amendment might require that any national emergency by declared by the POTUS but also require that a congressional super-majority in both houses confirm the declaration (say 60%, or 261 yea votes in the HoR and 60 in the Senate). Even then, the amendment should limit any funds borrowed to be spent only for addressing the specific emergency giving the control of spending to the administrative branch (preventing congress from buying votes with it). This amendment should also require that any borrowing and spending authorized by congress also contain a plan for amortizing the debt incurred using standards likd GAAP and the US bond rate.
The amendment would also have to recognize that an abrupt implementation of a ‘no-borrowing’ law would disrupt the govt and the economy; so it would be reasonable to set a time period of say 5 to 7 years to stop borrowing except for declared and affirmed national emergencies. Because the debt is so onerous ($37+ TRILLION), there must also be constitutional requirement for congress to fund its retirement. Again, this must be set to a strict schedule and will require careful amortization. A percentage of GDP might be a way to do that.
Finally, all spending that is discretionary should be considered as loans unless the funds are available to all congressional districts in the US. Those loans would be at T-Bill interest rates and amortized using GAAP to set the pay-off periods. How much pork would that eliminate? Of course, the term ‘discretionary’ would have to have a legal definition to allow the courts to enforce the law. I won’t pose my definition here but invite everyone to posit their own. My first instinct would be to limit it to a small percentage (5% or less) of the total budget and require specific congressional approval for each loan, not encompassed in an omnibus bill.
How is this related to SNAP and other benefits, you ask. The answer lies in the fact that congress would be required to set spending priorities. It is obscene that there are more than 10% of Americans receiving SNAP benefits. I doubt anyone can sustain an argument that says that more than 10% of Americans are unable to work while there are millions of job openings going unfilled. And, SNAP is but one of the vote purchasing schemes at work. Shouldn’t politicians be judged at the polls on their ability to be fiscally responsible?
I whole heartedly agree with a Balanced Budget Amendment. There should also be a Congressional Term Limit amendment as well.
The biggest problem with SNAP and all the other myriad of Federal benefit for the “poor” is that there is no incentive to work and for those working to even get a raise or promotion. We have the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) that literally pays the working poor for working. For tax year 2024, a family of 4, 2 adults with 2 minor children where one adult works making $30,000 a gets a tax “refund” of $10,680 consisting of $6,680 EITC plus $4,000 child tax credits, $2,000 per child. This family with their $30,000 a year income also receives SNAP, Medicaid, Section 8 housing assistance because that $10,680 “refund” is not included in their income for determining other benefits. An increase in income, decreases all of these benefits except the child tax credit which goes to $2,200 per child for 2025.
If there is no incentive to work or progress, why bother. Just let the taxpayers give you a comfortable life.
not to mention that 10% of snap recipients are migrants. the percent of undocumented cant be known because they receive benefits thru thru loop holes like anchor babies. The the entire household collects food stamps for each person under that Childs social.
then we have the issue of if the child is under 6 you don’t have to work at all. I am not a fan of taking care of other peoples kids that they chose to have. its one thing to help for a few months until parent can save enough to be able to pay a sitter, bit 6 years is ridiculous.
40% of Americans are on foodstamps. yes they dropped that number on us like we should feel guilty without realizing that is insane. in some states 1 in 5 people get food stamps. That is ridiculous.
Personally I am tired of being guilt tripped over having a problem with caring for other people that are not my responsibility. Rescuing people from their consequences does not help them. In fact we are seeing in action what happens. They become entitled.
There are times that we have all gone thru struggles and could have used foodstamps but it was denied because the persons income was too much. In my idea I was making it where everyone could access benefits but you are required to contribute in some way to do so. The only exceptions would be seriously mentally ill, disabled and elderly. The fact of the matter that is all who should qualify now. also, serious medical illness such as cancer.
60 percent of the recipients are able bodied young people. That isnt okay. yes I like your idea. however, 33 trillion is a great deal of money.
Every benefits program should include an incentive to work AND a time limit for qualification. The WIC program (and any others that support bastardy) should be capped after the first out-of-wedlock child. Women have the option to use birth control or to be sterilized. I would likely support a program that required and paid for that for anyone who is raising a child without a father, but I would not support payments for any subsequent bastard children.
Additionally, such govt programs should be specifically funded which is to say there should be a limited amount allocated annually. The amount should not be allowed to grow as additional people are ‘qualified’ to receive benefits. What if benefits were reduced for those already qualified as new recipients are added to SNAP and other such programs? Or, alternatively, no new recipients could be added.
You got your numbers mixed up here, Heather. There are about 44 million recipients of food stamps but that is ‘only’ 12.3% of the us population. I don’t know the numbers (because the govt doesn’t want us to know) but we can speculate that perhaps as many as half those recipients were not born in the US and most ot those are not legal residents.
What’s needed is a law - maybe even an constitutional amendment - that say that any govt assistance program be limited to citizens of the US. Any refugees who are legally allowed to arrive should receive no govt assistance. Charities should fill that role and those charities should not be allowed to receive govt funding.
You are correct. I do have my numbers mixed up. 41 million participants, but here is why that number isn’t accurate.
The states with the highest participation are border states and sanctuary states and or cities.
Like most statistics these days there is a blind spot in reporting of food stamps participation. If a household has one child born in America, the household receive foodstamps to feed each person in that household. It is then reported as one individual on foodstamps.
In California, at first glance they appear to have a lower participation rate, but anyone with common sense should question that with their homeless population and undocumented migrants. The fact is they treat their undocumented immigrants better than citizens. While citizens are living in the streets undocumented have the red carpet rolled out. This bothers me. They were born here. It’s wrong.
Upon further examination, foodstamp participation is much higher than reported. They have the federal snap of course, but if there isn’t a qualifying American child they have other state and federal services to aid them. In fact more than for Americans.
I figure everyone can access, but it isn’t free, things might change. People will have incentive to change their lives. I care more about seeing people thrive than I do about how much I pay to assist. If more people thrive it’s a win win. If more Americans thrive, we can help migrants but Americans need to come first. They were born here.
You point out a very important factor. If SNAP benefits are counted per household, the number of recipients is much higher. The recent census says that there are about 2.5 people per household in the US. Ignoring the likely possibility that the number is higher in those SNAP households, that makes the number receiving benefits approach 110 million. Although I doubt that number is correct, if it were then about a third of Americans receive SNAP benefits.
In any case, the program serves far too many whom it should not.
Does anyone know how much the SNAP program costs the US taxpayer annually? Perplexity says:
In recent years the federal government has spent on the order of about 110–120 billion dollars per year on SNAP benefits, with some fluctuation tied largely to pandemic-era policies and their phase‑out. For example, USDA data show total federal SNAP costs of about 119.6 billion dollars in fiscal year 2022, of which roughly 114 billion went directly to benefits, and Economic Research Service figures put 2023 SNAP spending at about 112–113 billion dollars.
Credit Structure