It's been a few years, but I wrote a paper in college about the welfare system. The research I found, for Georgia, was that the people receiving food stamps were getting much less that I thought, they are also limited, so the buying steak and lobster is bullshit, it's not on the list of items that can be purchased with food stamps.
We can also have programs work together. If every child received breakfast and lunch at school, that could be considered in the family need.
Just looked it up.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-to-snap-eligibility-and-benefits
GROSS income to qualify for SNAP (GA food stamp program) for a family of 3 is $33K a year and assets totaling less than $4500.
Oh, and this:
Who is not eligible? Some categories of people are not eligible for SNAP regardless of their income or assets, such as individuals who are on strike,
all people without a documented immigration status. <---