How executive power affects children living in poverty

Charlotte Willenbring/The Miscellany News. Roughly 42 million Americans—about 13 percent of the country’s population—rely on food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), in the United States. At a register on a Tuesday morning, a mother will swipe her Electronic Benefit Transfer card to pay for her weekly groceries, but instead of an approval beep, the screen will flash back an error: Insufficient Funds. As the register line grows, she will silently hand back the apples and the milk, moving them to the cashier’s put-back basket while her six-year-old daughter watches. This quiet exchange at the register is a clear picture of what policy scholars call the downstream effect. Political decisions made in the White House affect citizens across the country; the policy created in Washington, D.C., changes the lives of thousands of Americans everyday. The downstream effect characterizes how abstract political or administrative decisions at the top of the chain in D.C.

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