Could you survive on $4 a day?

When KIRO Radio host Jason Rantz gets a craving for a quick snack, he’ll commonly head downstairs to the vending machines and drop $5 to $7 on a couple of Diet Pepsis and some beef jerky without giving it a second thought. After hearing about a couple of Seattle Pacific University graduates and their food budget, however, he’s thinking about his noshing in a whole new light.

Audrey and Connor Williams are living on just $8 a day. For both of them. The young Vancouver, Wash. couple are among many taking part in the SNAP Challenge, a weeklong exercise that gives people a taste of what it takes to survive on foodstamps. SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, pays just over $4 per person per day for basic groceries.

“If we’re talking the talk, we should be able to walk the walk,” said Audrey, a nutrition educator and AmeriCorps worker at the Clark County Food Bank, in an interview with The Columbian.

The challenge is part of the effort to raise awareness of National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week, which runs through Nov. 18.

Audrey and her husband are lucky. They only have to do it for a week.

Over 46 million Americans were depending on the SNAP program in July 2012, according to the Food Research & Action Center, and 1.1 million in Washington state.

“As you would imagine, this couple is having a hard time trying to live on the $8 dollars,” says Rantz in a conversation on KIRO’s Terry and Rantz Show.

Rantz points out the money barely covers even the most basic of subsistence food items and it’s virtually impossible to buy anything extra to help cook.

“When you go to the store, you can’t buy a pinch of salt, you can’t buy a tablespoon or two of a spice.”

Terry admits he’s had to survive on even less in his earlier days, living out of his car and counting pennies while working his first job in radio. He doesn’t think he could do it again.

“Four dollars a day. Are you kidding me? This is something that without getting on a soapbox here, that is just beyond poor. That is just ridiculous,” Terry says.

Rantz agrees he couldn’t survive a week on the SNAP Challenge – and he’s not about to try.

“I know it sucks. I know it would be hard. I don’t need to do this because I could already imagine what it’s like,” Rantz says. “Try and conceptually understand that you would not get to have those two lattes a day that you have or you can’t buy that beer after work or you can’t go down to that restaurant for lunch. I can’t go down to Subway without completely blowing my budget.”

Audrey admits adults can’t really subsist on $4 a day. And she says most SNAP clients have to turn to emergency sources like food banks at the end of each month because their benefits have run out.

Terry says after hearing about the challenge, he’s now going to be much more aware of people’s struggles when they ask him for money on the street. “I’m going to try to take a mental note if it’s happening more towards the end of the month when their money’s running out. Maybe I’ll be more apt to go out of my way to try and help somebody towards the end of the month.”