| WIC provides supplemental foods, healthcare referrals, nutrition education, and breastfeeding promotion and support to low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age five who are found to be at nutritional risk. | ||
| The WIC Prescreening Tool can be used to determine if you may be eligible for WIC benefits. This Prescreening Tool is not an application for WIC. To apply for WIC benefits, you must make an appointment at your WIC local agency. | ||
| This Prescreening Tool might ask you to enter the amounts of your household’s earned (wages, tips, etc.) and unearned income (child support, unemployment benefits, SSI, etc.). Before you begin, you may want to gather this information. | ||
| The WIC Prescreening Tool usually takes less than 15 minutes to complete. |
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
USDA: Online WIC Pre-screening Tool
Launched online this fall from the USDA:
AASA's New Webpage About 4 School Districts + Breakfast in the Classroom
Superintendent Leadership to Enhance and Expand the School Breakfast Program in Urban Districts
AASA has received a grant from the Walmart Foundation
to significantly increase the participation of needy children in the
national school breakfast program using alternative breakfast
strategies, as well as to increase interest, commitment and involvement
of school system leaders in the program. The grant allows AASA to work
with four urban school districts to enhance school breakfast programming.
Through a competitive process, AASA chose four districts to work with on the project. They are:
Read more about each school district's breakfast in the classroom efforts on the AASA website.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Impact of COLA Increase for Food Stamp Recipients with Social Security Income
On January 1, 2012 the Social Security Administration (SSA) will adjusts the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI), regular Social Security (SS) income and Social Security Disability Income (SSD) to reflect the increase in the cost of living (COLA). In January 2010 and 2011 there was no COLA adjustment.
Hunger Solutions New York has a new policy update that highlights the impact of this COLA adjustment for seniors and disabled people who receive food stamp benefits or who are currently NYSNIP recipients. The update also includes information on Medicare Part B premium changes which are also impacted by the SSI COLA change.
To veiw the memo and attachments click here.
Hunger Solutions New York has a new policy update that highlights the impact of this COLA adjustment for seniors and disabled people who receive food stamp benefits or who are currently NYSNIP recipients. The update also includes information on Medicare Part B premium changes which are also impacted by the SSI COLA change.
To veiw the memo and attachments click here.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Center for American Progress Study: Hunger is Suffering We All Pay For
From the Center for American Progress:
"Research in this paper shows that hunger costs our nation at least $167.5 billion due to the combination of lost economic productivity per year, more expensive public education because of the rising costs of poor education outcomes, avoidable health care costs, and the cost of charity to keep families fed. This $167.5 billion does not include the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the other key federal nutrition programs, which run at about $94 billion a year.
We call this $167.5 billion America’s hunger bill. In 2010 it cost every citizen $542 due to the far-reaching consequences of hunger in our nation. At the household level the hunger bill came to at least $1,410 in 2010. And because our $167.5 billion estimate is based on a cautious methodology, the actual cost of hunger and food insecurity to our nation is probably higher."
According to the report, New York State had a hunger bill of $9.28 billion in 2010, a 30% increase from 2007.
Access the full report online.
"Research in this paper shows that hunger costs our nation at least $167.5 billion due to the combination of lost economic productivity per year, more expensive public education because of the rising costs of poor education outcomes, avoidable health care costs, and the cost of charity to keep families fed. This $167.5 billion does not include the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the other key federal nutrition programs, which run at about $94 billion a year.
We call this $167.5 billion America’s hunger bill. In 2010 it cost every citizen $542 due to the far-reaching consequences of hunger in our nation. At the household level the hunger bill came to at least $1,410 in 2010. And because our $167.5 billion estimate is based on a cautious methodology, the actual cost of hunger and food insecurity to our nation is probably higher."
According to the report, New York State had a hunger bill of $9.28 billion in 2010, a 30% increase from 2007.
Access the full report online.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Preventing Hunger and Protecting Taxpayers: Our Renewed Efforts to Combat SNAP Fraud
From USDA Blog Posted by Kevin Concannon, USDA Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, on December 6, 2011 at 1:00 PM
In recent years, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – formerly known as food stamps – has demonstrated an exceptional record in program integrity and stewardship of taxpayer dollars. The program currently serves as a bridge to success for over 46 million Americans who are at risk of being hungry when they face challenging economic times. More than half of those who rely on the program are children, elderly or the disabled, and many participants are newly unemployed and never thought they would be living in poverty. The program has never been more important and neither has the need to be a good steward of its dollars. In this vein, President Obama and Vice President Biden launched the Administration’s new Campaign to Cut Waste in government spending in June to eliminate misspent tax dollars and USDA strongly supports this effort.
Today we are reinforcing this commitment, strengthening our resolve to ensure program integrity and working on behalf of American taxpayers to protect the federal investment in SNAP and make sure the program is targeted towards those families who need it the most. While we recognize that fraud occurs relatively infrequently in SNAP, it has great potential to undermine public confidence in government and jeopardize the ability of the program to serve the millions of struggling families who rely on benefits each month.
Thankfully, the vast majority of SNAP recipients are honest people who spend their benefits to meet basic nutritional needs and to put food on the table. Data shows that illegal activity – such as selling benefits to others for cash – only affects roughly one cent on the dollar. Still, we cannot tolerate even the smallest abuse of taxpayer resources. That’s why we have implemented aggressive strategies to continue to improve SNAP integrity.
We actively investigate illegal activity so that we can remove any violators from the program. In fiscal year 2010 investigations of individuals and retailers resulted in over 44,000 persons being disqualified from SNAP and 931 retailers being permanently barred from accepting benefits. Going forward, we’re seeking to increase sanctions and penalties for retailers who engage in fraudulent activity and we’re using the regulatory process to fight the practice of buying and discarding food just to get money-back deposits.
By using state-of-the-art technology, our data-mining and analysis strategies are successfully identifying suspicious patterns in SNAP transactions. We’re already working on our next-generation system which will be even more effective. We’re aware that social media monitoring is also important to our efforts to prevent abuse in the program. For example, we recently updated our policies to make it very clear that advertising the sale of benefits through social media is illegal.
Again, cases of abuse in SNAP are relatively rare. But it’s important that we work to combat any amount of fraud. That means being aggressive in our investigations and working with our State partners who administer the program to remain vigilant and ensure that program benefits are used as intended. I’m proud to say that USDA takes protecting taxpayer dollars very seriously and we are on the job 24 hours a day to make sure others do too.
To veiw the USDA blog
USDA Press Release Annoucing New Tactics to Combat Fraud
In recent years, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – formerly known as food stamps – has demonstrated an exceptional record in program integrity and stewardship of taxpayer dollars. The program currently serves as a bridge to success for over 46 million Americans who are at risk of being hungry when they face challenging economic times. More than half of those who rely on the program are children, elderly or the disabled, and many participants are newly unemployed and never thought they would be living in poverty. The program has never been more important and neither has the need to be a good steward of its dollars. In this vein, President Obama and Vice President Biden launched the Administration’s new Campaign to Cut Waste in government spending in June to eliminate misspent tax dollars and USDA strongly supports this effort.
Today we are reinforcing this commitment, strengthening our resolve to ensure program integrity and working on behalf of American taxpayers to protect the federal investment in SNAP and make sure the program is targeted towards those families who need it the most. While we recognize that fraud occurs relatively infrequently in SNAP, it has great potential to undermine public confidence in government and jeopardize the ability of the program to serve the millions of struggling families who rely on benefits each month.
Thankfully, the vast majority of SNAP recipients are honest people who spend their benefits to meet basic nutritional needs and to put food on the table. Data shows that illegal activity – such as selling benefits to others for cash – only affects roughly one cent on the dollar. Still, we cannot tolerate even the smallest abuse of taxpayer resources. That’s why we have implemented aggressive strategies to continue to improve SNAP integrity.
We actively investigate illegal activity so that we can remove any violators from the program. In fiscal year 2010 investigations of individuals and retailers resulted in over 44,000 persons being disqualified from SNAP and 931 retailers being permanently barred from accepting benefits. Going forward, we’re seeking to increase sanctions and penalties for retailers who engage in fraudulent activity and we’re using the regulatory process to fight the practice of buying and discarding food just to get money-back deposits.
By using state-of-the-art technology, our data-mining and analysis strategies are successfully identifying suspicious patterns in SNAP transactions. We’re already working on our next-generation system which will be even more effective. We’re aware that social media monitoring is also important to our efforts to prevent abuse in the program. For example, we recently updated our policies to make it very clear that advertising the sale of benefits through social media is illegal.
Again, cases of abuse in SNAP are relatively rare. But it’s important that we work to combat any amount of fraud. That means being aggressive in our investigations and working with our State partners who administer the program to remain vigilant and ensure that program benefits are used as intended. I’m proud to say that USDA takes protecting taxpayer dollars very seriously and we are on the job 24 hours a day to make sure others do too.
To veiw the USDA blog
USDA Press Release Annoucing New Tactics to Combat Fraud
Thursday, December 8, 2011
New Report from NYC Coalition Against Hunger: Child Hunger On the Rise
From the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH):
"New analysis of recent U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data, conducted by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and released today in their annual citywide hunger report, found that nearly 500,000 city children, or one in four, live in families that cannot afford an adequate supply of food – what the government calls “food insecure.” The Coalition’s calculations also showed that one in six New York City residents, 1.47 million New Yorkers, live in food insecurity, struggling against hunger.
A separate survey of New York City soup kitchens and food pantries, also included in the Coalition’s report, found that even as demand at city food pantries and soup kitchens grew by 12 percent this year – on top of a seven percent increase in 2010 and a 21 increase in 2009. In 2011, nearly fifty of these strapped emergency feeding programs closed their doors due, in part, to government cut-backs and decreases in private donations."
FRAC: Spending on Food by Tens of Millions of Americans Drops to Unhealthy Level
From the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC):
"A new analysis of federal data by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) finds that more
and more Americans have been losing the struggle to afford an adequate
and healthy diet. Food spending by the average household fell
dramatically over the past decade, with particularly dramatic drops in
2000-2002 and 2006-2010.
FRAC
analyzed U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) annual reports that
compare the amount of households’ median spending on food to the amount
of the Thrifty Food Plan – the level the government defines as needed
for a bare bones diet on an emergency basis, albeit a level that many
experts consider to be inadequate for most families to obtain a healthy
diet. The FRAC analysis found that:
- Spending on food by the median household fell from 1.36 times the Thrifty Food Plan level in 2000 to 1.19 times that level in 2010.
- By 2010 median spending on food by Black households and Hispanic households
had fallen to the point where it was only a tiny bit above (101
percent for Black households) or was actually below (96 percent for
Hispanic households) the bare bones Thrifty level.
- Spending by households with incomes less than 185 percent of the poverty level fell from 106 percent of the thrifty level in 2000 to 95 percent in 2010.
This
dramatically reduced spending on food would not be so problematic if
households were still spending amounts adequate to obtain a healthy
diet. FRAC’s analysis shows that they are not: indeed, the median
spending of all households has fallen below the amount of the
government’s Low-Cost Food Plan, which is a much more realistic measure
of spending to support health and well-being."
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Opinion Piece: Food for thought
Here's a great opinion piece posted on the Albany Times Union blog, The Observation Deck. the post highlights the rising need for food assistance in the Capital Region and how the Farm Bill can help.
Food for thought
December 4, 2011 at 6:00 am by TU Editorial Board
Our opinion: The needy and the hungry are more dependent than ever on others’ help. Food pantries are only a short-term solution.
This is what it’s like in the trenches of the battle to spare the hardest-hit victims of a horrible economy from outright misery. This is a story of trying to feed people.
In Schenectady, the word comes from a food pantry that the reality of the need that arises in an era of stubbornly high unemployment, mortgage foreclosures, escalating consumer debt and, yes, soaring food prices goes beyond the emergency provisions that charities can provide.
“Food pantries have become a fabric of our emergency safety net, and we deal with people who have chronic emergencies,” says the Rev. Phillip Grigsby, director of the Schenectady Inner City Ministry. “People don’t have enough money to live on.”
So he and his colleagues at similar entities employ the logical remedies. They are increasing, yet again, the number of times people can come to receive emergency food allotments designed to last all of three days. It used to be four times a year. Come January, it will be once a month.
Such anecdotes and examples reverberate across the Capital Region. So what can be done to help people who literally lack enough to eat, let alone maintain a healthy diet?
The availability of emergency provisions, funded statewide to the tune of $29 million a year, is at once essential yet incomplete.
There is a solution. Congress will be taking up the farm bill next year. Legislation that’s renewed just once every five years is an opportunity to reduce hunger and improve public health.
About 70 percent of what’s tentatively budgeted at $98.1 billion goes toward the food stamp program. The increased frequency of visits to food pantries is ample evidence that even $70 billion isn’t enough.
This is what it’s like in the trenches of the battle to spare the hardest-hit victims of a horrible economy from outright misery. This is a story of trying to feed people.
In Schenectady, the word comes from a food pantry that the reality of the need that arises in an era of stubbornly high unemployment, mortgage foreclosures, escalating consumer debt and, yes, soaring food prices goes beyond the emergency provisions that charities can provide.
“Food pantries have become a fabric of our emergency safety net, and we deal with people who have chronic emergencies,” says the Rev. Phillip Grigsby, director of the Schenectady Inner City Ministry. “People don’t have enough money to live on.”
So he and his colleagues at similar entities employ the logical remedies. They are increasing, yet again, the number of times people can come to receive emergency food allotments designed to last all of three days. It used to be four times a year. Come January, it will be once a month.
Such anecdotes and examples reverberate across the Capital Region. So what can be done to help people who literally lack enough to eat, let alone maintain a healthy diet?
The availability of emergency provisions, funded statewide to the tune of $29 million a year, is at once essential yet incomplete.
There is a solution. Congress will be taking up the farm bill next year. Legislation that’s renewed just once every five years is an opportunity to reduce hunger and improve public health.
About 70 percent of what’s tentatively budgeted at $98.1 billion goes toward the food stamp program. The increased frequency of visits to food pantries is ample evidence that even $70 billion isn’t enough.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Upcoming Webinars: It's Not Too Early to Think About Summer Food
Register today for upcoming free webinars about the Summer Food Service Program:
USDA
Summer Webinar Series: USDA is hosting a series of introductory
webinars on the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) beginning in December and
running through February. The webinar gives an overview of SFSP, offers
resources for getting started, and discusses outreach practices to grow the
program. Click
here for details.
New Grant Aims to Convince More Syracuse Students to Eat Breakfast at School
From the Syracuse Post-Standard, 11/30/2011:
"Syracuse is one of four school districts in the country to land a roughly $400,000 grant to entice more kids to eat the free breakfasts offered to them at school.
High school students soon will be able to use their identification swipe cards to get a bagged breakfast from a vending machine instead of partaking of the hot meals served in the cafeteria. And elementary students will be able to eat their breakfast in their classroom instead of the cafeteria."
Read the full article here.
"Syracuse is one of four school districts in the country to land a roughly $400,000 grant to entice more kids to eat the free breakfasts offered to them at school.
High school students soon will be able to use their identification swipe cards to get a bagged breakfast from a vending machine instead of partaking of the hot meals served in the cafeteria. And elementary students will be able to eat their breakfast in their classroom instead of the cafeteria."
Read the full article here.
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