The new face of food stamps: working-age Americans
In a first, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps — a switch from a few years ago, when children and the elderly were the main recipients.
Some of the change is due to demographics, such as the trend toward having fewer children. But a slow economic recovery with high unemployment, stagnant wages and an increasing gulf between low-wage and high-skill jobs also plays a big role. It suggests that government spending on the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program — twice what it cost five years ago — may not subside significantly anytime soon.
Food stamp participation since 1980 has grown the fastest among workers with some college training, a sign that the safety net has stretched further to cover America's former middle class, according to an analysis of government data for The Associated Press by economists at the University of Kentucky. Formally called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, or SNAP, the program now covers 1 in 7 Americans.
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Doctors say cutting food stamps could backfire
Doctors are warning that if Congress cuts food stamps, the federal government could be socked with bigger health bills. Maybe not immediately, they say, but over time if the poor wind up in doctors' offices or hospitals as a result.
Among the health risks of hunger are spiked rates of diabetes and developmental problems for young children down the road.
The doctors' lobbying effort comes as Congress is working on a compromise farm bill that's certain to include food stamp cuts. Republicans want heftier reductions than do Democrats in yet another partisan battle over the government's role in helping poor Americans.
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50 years into war on poverty, food stamp cuts hit Ky.'s Owsley County harder than most
Rosanna Troyer is coping with the drop in her federal food assistance from $367 to $303 by cutting back on meat purchases and buying more canned goods and macaroni and cheese.
Her 12-year-old daughter is already sick of the hot dogs they've been eating frequently at their home in Owsley County, which has the lowest median household income of any U.S. county outside Puerto Rico.
"She says 'mom, can't we have something else? I told her, you got to wait, maybe next month," said the 36-year-old Troyer.
Troyer is one of the more than 47 million Americans who receive food stamps, all of whom saw their allotment drop on Nov. 1 as a temporary benefit from the 2009 economic stimulus ran out. Few places feel the difference as profoundly as Owsley County, an overwhelmingly white and Republican area whose own representative in Congress voted against renewing the benefit.
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More New Yorkers Face Hunger After Congress Cuts Food Stamps
Following Congress's decision to cut $5 Billion in funding from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or, food stamps) last November, New York City food banks have been flooded by families and individuals, according to a new report from the [PDF] Food Bank for New York City.
Following the cuts, 31% of food pantries reported an increase in traffic of more than 25%, while 16% of food pantries saw a rise of more than 50% of people looking for food. These cuts come as nearly one-third of New Yorkers struggle to afford food on a daily basis....
During November of 2013, more than a quarter of food pantries turned hungry New Yorkers away because they had run out of food.
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U.S. Child Hunger Rates By County: 2013 Report Reveals Most Food-Insecure Places For Children (Photos)
For as much wealth as the United States has, there are millions who struggle to get enough to eat.
Feeding America, a nonprofit that combats hunger, released its 2013 nationwide food insecurity study last week, and the numbers are grim.
The report uses USDA research data from 2011 to zero-in on child hunger at the local level so that local groups can more effectively address the problem. The study was supported by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, which works to combat poverty worldwide.
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Opinion: We are the poor
Fifty years ago, when Lyndon Johnson declared war on poverty, the poor were different – “other,” as in Michael Harrington’s seminal book of 1962, “The Other America.”
That’s no longer the case.
After the War on Poverty ended, Republicans told working-class whites that their hard-earned tax dollars were being siphoned off to pay for “welfare queens” (as Ronald Reagan decorously dubbed a black single woman on welfare) and other nefarious loafers. The poor were “them” – lazy, dependent on government handouts and overwhelmingly black – in sharp contrast to “us,” working ever harder, proudly independent (even sending wives and mothers to work in order to prop up family incomes dragged down by shrinking male paychecks) and white.
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