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Why can't everyone just have unfettered access to food?

Like, is that, is that, like, so radical?

This is a political choice.

It's always been a political choice.

If people are going hungry in the United States,

it's because of policies that people are choosing

and practices that people are putting into place to keep people hungry.

Hello, hello.

I'm Brittany Luce and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's

going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.

This week over over 40 million people worried about losing their snap benefits due to the government shutdown.

But with Thanksgiving just around the corner, who's hurt most by hunger?

And why do some believe that if you're hungry, it's your fault? We're getting into it with Poonam Gupta, Research Associate at the Urban Institute, and Maggie Dickinson, Associate Professor at

Queen's College, and author of Feeding the Crisis, Care and Abandonment, and America's Food Safety Net.

Welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having us. Okay, so Puna, Maggie,

for those who don't know, what is SNAP? Snap is the largest federal food assistance program in the

United States. Anybody who meets the criteria is eligible. It's also a federal entitlement,

which means anyone who is eligible gets it.

If more people are in need, the program grows. If less people are in need, the program shrinks.

...