Thursday, October 26, 2006
Food stamps fight hunger
From the RoundTable blog
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C. Douglas Smith
Smith is executive director of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy in Richmond.
It's hard to believe that in our nation of plenty, almost 14 million children live in families that can't afford to buy the food they need. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that in Virginia alone, 236,385 families live with hunger or the threat of hunger. That includes families with children, senior citizens living on fixed incomes, and families where the parents have low-paying jobs that don't allow them to afford even basic necessities.
As grim as the picture seems, things were even worse several decades ago. A big reason we're better off now is the federal Food Stamp Program, our nation's time-tested defense against hunger. Now, as Congress prepares to renew the Food Stamp Program, we have an important opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to fighting hunger in the United States by working positively and constructively with our representatives and asking them to reinvest in the program.
In the late 1960s, a team of doctors documented serious hunger and malnutrition in the South, Appalachia and other poor areas. The 1968 CBS television documentary "Hunger in America" showed children suffering from the kind of severe malnutrition that we usually think of as occurring only in third-world countries.
But after food stamps and other nutrition assistance programs were made available nationwide, a team of physicians returned to these same areas and found much less malnutrition and related problems. Many experts believe food stamps were the main reason for the improvement.
Today, food stamps help more than 25 million low-income Americans afford an adequate diet, including 504,789 Virginians. They don't get a lot -- usually less than $1 per person per meal -- but even this small amount can make a big difference. A married couple with two kids, with one parent working full-time at the minimum wage, earns less than half of the poverty line. But when these wages are supplemented by food stamp benefits and our Earned Income Tax Credit, that family will almost reach the poverty line. (About 80 percent of food stamp benefits go to households with children.)
Food stamps also provide critical help to people living on fixed incomes, people who cannot work because of a disability, and people who have recently lost a job. Almost one-third of food stamp recipients are seniors and people with disabilities.
Without food stamps, many people would be forced to choose between buying enough food to eat and paying for other necessities, such as rent, utilities,or prescription drugs. Many also would be forced to seek help from states, local governments and private charities. But state and local government budgets are already stretched too thin and wouldn't be able to make up for the loss of federal funding. There is simply no way our dedicated food banks and church pantries could feed all those in need.
The Food Stamp Program doesn't just help needy people; it also helps the economy. Purchases people make with food stamps ripple through our local economies. The Department of Agriculture estimates that every $1 spent on food stamps generates almost $2 in economic activity.
This helps protect thousands of jobs across Virginia -- from the family farmers who produce food, to the truckers who take the food to market, to the grocers who stock the shelves.
What's more, the Food Stamp Program does all this extremely efficiently. More than 98 percent of food stamp benefits go to eligible households.
The percentage of food stamp benefits that are too large, too small, or go to ineligible people has dropped for seven straight years, setting record lows.
And to prevent fraud, the federal government now distributes food stamp benefits in the form of an electronic debit card, like the ATM cards that most Americans carry in their wallets. These food stamp debit cards can be used only to purchase food.
I encourage our elected officials and community leaders to recognize the importance of fighting hunger, and the central role that the Food Stamp Program plays in that fight, by promoting the adequate funding of the program.
For a nation that's as wealthy as ours, yet still has 14 million children without enough food in the house, I think that's the least we can do.
