One in nine Americans uses food stamps

[Cees Binkhorst]

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Zal nog wel erger worden.
De financiele en wapensector, tezamen met de uitbreiding van de algemene
beveiligingssector zuigt een steeds groter deel van de economie op.

Groet / Cees

> One in nine Americans uses food stamps
> By Tom Eley
> 20 August 2009
>
> One in nine Americans relied on food stamps in May, the highest
> proportion ever, according to recently released data from the US
> Department of Agriculture (USDA). In all, 34.4 million people used the
> Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a federal program
> that provides assistance to low-income people, an increase of more
> than 2 percent from the previous month, and a staggering increase of 6
> million over the past year.
>
> May’s increase was the sixth consecutive month that set a new record
> in food stamp use. Government food assistance increased in every
> state, with Florida registering the sharpest gain at 4.2 percent.
>
> The year-over-year percentage increase in food stamp use is more
> striking, with 13 states, representing every region of the country,
> registering a spike of more than 25 percent. These were Utah (45.5
> percent), Nevada (39 percent), Idaho (36.3 percent), Washington (34.5
> percent), Florida (34.2 percent), Vermont (33.6 percent), Wisconsin
> (31.3 percent), Arizona (29.7 percent), Colorado (28.9 percent),
> Georgia (28.3 percent), Maryland (27.2 percent), Massachusetts (25.3
> percent), and Oregon (25 percent).
>
> “Food stamp enrollment is rising because the economy is having a
> devastating impact on low-income families and they need this program
> to eat,” said Stacy Dean of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
> said. “Every single state has been affected.”
>
> The food stamp program is largely funded by the federal government and
> administered by the states. Historically, recipients could redeem
> stamps or coupons for food assistance at grocery stores, but in recent
> years paper stamps have been phased out in favor of a debit card
> system called Electronic Benefit Transfer.
>
> The program aims to assist the desperately poor. According to the
> USDA, the average gross monthly income of food stamp-receiving
> households was $640, with nearly 80 percent of all benefits going to
> households with children.
>
> The program provides an average of $133 monthly per person requesting
> food assistance. By way of comparison, according to the USDA’s own
> estimates, a “low-cost” monthly nutritional scheme for a single
> teenage boy requires a minimum of $220 spending on food per month.
>
> Federal food assistance for the poor was a Great Society measure
> created during the the Lyndon Johnson administration (1963-1969).
> Since the late 1970s, it has weathered round after round of cuts at
> the hands of both Democratic and Republican administrations and
> congresses, who claimed to be creating a “culture of responsibility”
> among the poor.
>
> The most savage of these cuts came in 1996, through Bill Clinton’s
> “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act,”
> which eliminated eligibility for legal immigrants (these restrictions
> have since been only slightly relaxed), limited stamp use for “able
> bodied” adults without dependents to three months during a 36-month
> period, and substantially reduced maximum food benefits.
>
> The result is a food stamp program that, even in more favorable
> economic conditions, fails to meet basic nutritional needs and shuts
> out the vast majority of the working class from any assistance
> whatsoever. The economic crisis has laid bare the woefully inadequate
> character of the program and the “social safety net” as a whole.
>
> In Texas, demand is such that in July the state was delinquent in
> processing nearly 40 percent of new requests. Rachel Cavazos, who has
> four children, is jobless, and is in the midst of a divorce, applied
> for food stamps in April and has not yet heard back on her request.
> “It’s very hurtful, especially when somebody doesn’t give you the
> benefit of the doubt,” the 32-year-old Houston native recently told
> the Houston and Texas News. “The help is not for me. It’s for my
> babies. I don’t want my children to suffer.”
>
> Recently at a Dallas, Texas, food stamp office, a line of the
> desperate and hungry formed before 5 a.m. “I got a four, a five and a
> 15-year-old. And right now I got $2.27. So we’re going to have some
> Ramen noodles tonight,” Kenyadda Momanyi told a local news station. A
> class action lawsuit has been filed against the state of Texas to
> force it to process applications more swiftly.
>
> Mickey Warren, food directer of Christian Life Food Pantry in Knox
> County, Kentucky, recently went before the local Chamber of Commerce
> in a desperate bid for charitable contributions. “It’s toward the end
> of the month and people are starting to look for more and more food,
> because by now the ones that draw food stamps, they’re gone, the kids
> are hungry,” he said.
>
> “Warren recalled [recently watching] a small girl rip open a whole
> pound cake package in the pantry parking lot, grasping it with both
> hands and eating it like a candy bar, because she had been hungry,”
> the local TimesTribune.com reported.
>
> In Wichita, Kansas, a grandmother summed up her plight in a word. “The
> most simple word would be we’re hungry,” Kathi Boggs told a local news
> station, as she sat with her 6-year-old grandson, Alex, at a soup
> kitchen. “At the end of the day there’s not enough for food.”
>
> “People are desperate,” said Gary Madden, a charity worker who assists
> people in gaining access to food stamps in San Bernardino County,
> California. “People calling now are saying things like ‘I’ve never
> asked for help in my life. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’ve
> lost my job and I’m about to lose my home.’ More men are calling.
> Families are doubling up in homes.”
>
> “Callers are saying, ‘bank bailouts, auto company bailouts, where’s my
> bailout?’,” Madden told BlackVoiceNews.com.
>
> http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/food-a20.shtml
>
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