Who Helps Feed the Hungry? Part 1

As we have determined, food security, defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life”, is the norm for over 80% of the population here in the United States.

But if you’re among the nearly 20% of Americans who deal with hunger issues, where do you turn for assistance?

Most people assume that there are government agencies which provide help to any individual or family that can’t regularly put food on the table, and to some extent, that’s true.  The USDA has a number of food assistance programs which target specific populations who face issues of food insecurity. These are programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides monthly benefits to eligible low-income families, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as WIC, supporting low-income women and their young children up to age five (USDA, 2014).

Several other USDA-sponsored programs are commodity-based, meaning they supply bulk food products to state governments for distribution by local government programs. Many of these programs target women and young children, the elderly, rural support programs, and low-income Native American families living on or near Indian reservations.

This is all fine and well. As a nation, we have a moral obligation to help the neediest among us. I am certainly happy to see a portion of my tax dollars go to help those less fortunate than me. But the problem is that my desire to help those less fortunate souls is not always in step with my government representatives. The U.S. Congress decides how the federal budget is distributed, and they don’t always put money toward those programs that I wish to see funded.

This past February, Congress voted to cut SNAP benefits. For the average family receiving these benefits, that translated to a cut in supplemental funds of roughly $90 per month. Now, to a Congressional representative earning $174,000 annually (Brudnick, I.A., 2014), $90 per month is pocket change. And it’s not likely that any of the 535 Congressional representatives are receiving SNAP benefits anyway. I’m sure those who voted to cut these benefits think it’s not that big a deal.

But if your income is so low that you qualify for SNAP benefits (and the organization Feeding America indicates that approximately 83% of all families receiving SNAP benefits have an annual income of $19,530), you’re receiving  about $133 per person per month to supplement your food expenses, about $532 a month for a family of four (Feeding America, 2014). Cut $90 from that. $442 for a month’s worth of groceries. To feed four people.

Have you been to the grocery store recently? Apparently no one in Congress has.

And when government assistance doesn’t stretch far enough to feed hungry families, community and faith-based support networks must step in and share the burden.  We’ll look at some of those resources in a future edition of this blog.

References:

Brudnick, Ida A. (2014). Congressional Salaries and Allowances. Congressional Research Service, pg. 4 January 7, 2014. Retrieved from: http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid=%270E%2C*PL%5B%3D%23P%20%20%0A

Feeding America (2014). SNAP (Food Stamps): Facts, Myths and Realities. Retrieved from: http://feedingamerica.org/how-we-fight-hunger/programs-and-services/public-assistance-programs/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program/snap-myths-realities.aspx#

United States Department of Agriculture, 2014. U.S. Nutrition Assistance Programs. Retrieved from: http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nutrition-assistance-programs/us-nutrition-assistance-programs