7 Ways the House Farm Bill Hurts the Middle Class

In a brief by the Center for American Progress outlines the ways in which the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act, also known as the Farm Bill, would negatively impact low and middle-class populations. As a result of the $16 billion proposed cuts to nutrition aid over the next 10 years:

• Approximately 19,000 jobs would be cut in 2014 alone.
• Approximately 2 million SNAP participants would be unable to access food assistance.
• Approximately 1 billion meals would be eliminated for struggling families in the first year of nutrition cuts alone.
• Approximately 280,000 children would be cut off from access to free school lunch.
• Categorical eligibility that gives states the flexibility to waive asset tests when families are applying to SNAP would be eliminated, penalizing families for accruing minimal savings.
• Approximately $90 a month would be cut from 500,000 households that participate in the heat and eat program, which helps families avoid choosing between paying for food or utility bills.

Click here to read the full brief.

Buffalo News: Don't Slash Food Stamps

The Buffalo News came out this week with a compelling opinion in support of SNAP/Food Stamps.

The food stamp program has increased in spending for a reason. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 65 percent of the growth in that spending in the past four years can be blamed on the weak economy, 20 percent on higher benefits included in the 2009 bill, and the rest to other factors.

Click here to read the entire opinion.

Community Investment Grants

Sponsor: Share Our Strength
Submitted: 9/14/2012 3:35:00 PM

The purpose of this funding is to bring together key groups from the private and public sectors to create sustainable partnerships that are working together to end childhood hunger. Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry grants utilize funds raised through our Great American Bake Sale, Dine Out For No Kid Hungry, and other sources to support innovative programs that help improve children’s access to programs that help address hunger.

Multiple grants ranging from $5,000-10,000 will be awarded to select applicants. Nonprofit organizations, schools, and other eligible organizations that are involved in increasing access to summer meals programs, enrolling families in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, and increasing the availability of school breakfast through alternative models are eligible to apply.

Click here for more information.

SNAP/Food Stamps Has Been Greatest Responder to Recession/Poverty

A recent post on the Demos blog does a great job at highlighting SNAP's successful response to the recession by keeping millions of Americans out of poverty.

Between 2000 and 2009, the program reduced the poverty rate by an estimated 4.4 percent. Since the Great Recession, food stamps have kept a million formerly income stable Americans from falling into poverty. And, most staggering of all, the Census numbers suggest that food stamps have kept 2%, or 6 million, of Americans from falling into poverty.

Click here to read the full post. It is full of great information.
 

FRAC: Census Bureau Releases New Poverty Data - SNAP Lifting 3.9 Million People Above Poverty Line

From Food Research & Action Center: 

Washington, D.C. – September 12, 2012 – New data (pdf) from the U.S. Census Bureau show that 46.2 million people (15 percent) lived in poverty in 2011, a change not statistically significant from the 2010 poverty rate of 15.1 percent. The report again underscored the importance of key safety net programs in reducing poverty. According to the Census Bureau, 3.9 million people – 1.7 million children – would have been lifted out of poverty if Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) benefits were counted as income. 

Click here to read more. 

Ten percent of U.S. households couldn’t adequately feed kids in 2011

From the Washington Post: Posted at 03:30 PM ET, 09/05/2012

by Tim Carmen

Ten percent of American households were not able to provide their children with “adequate, nutritious” food at times during 2011, according to a new USDA Economic Research Service report released today. This translates into more than 16.6 million children — or 22 percent of all American kids — who lived in households that could not adequately feed them.

Click here to read the full article.

Who Benefits From Food Stamps?

Government data show food stamp rolls have reached a record high. Where is all that money going?

Published in The Atlantic, September 5, 2012
by  Brian Fung - Brian Fung is an associate editor at The Atlantic. He has written previously for Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, and Talking Points Memo.
 
We've hit a major new milestone on food stamps: As many as 46.7 million Americans received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in June, at a cost of $6.2 billion, a USDA report out this week shows. That's a new record, outpacing by 56 percent the number of Americans who were on food stamps at the depths of the recession in 2008.

The new figures are especially sobering against the backdrop of recent congressional attempts to take benefits away from SNAP recipients. Earlier this summer, the Senate proposed trimming $4 billion from the food stamp budget. Not to be outdone, the House called for a cut that was four times as deep.

You can look at the enrollment numbers in one of two ways: either it's a sign that more Americans than ever are in need of help, or that more Americans than ever are receiving benefits who don't need them. Where you stand often falls along partisan lines, but it doesn't have to. Unlike most questions of ideology, this is one where the facts exist.

Who actually benefits from SNAP? Statistics gathered by the USDA and issued in its newest report show the following:

• Some 43 percent of SNAP recipients live at or below half the poverty line. Only 15 percent can say they live above the poverty line.
• Children under 18 account for 47 percent of all food stamp recipients. Eight percent are seniors.
• Forty-one percent of beneficiaries lived in households with partially- or fully-employed workers.
• The share of SNAP recipients that also receives welfare benefits is at historic lows; in 2010, that number was less than 10 percent.
• SNAP recipients spend most of their food budget on meals at home, with grocery items like red meat and dairy products accounting for the top two food groups.
• Administrative costs for the food stamp program are at the lowest they've been since the 1990s.

Read more and view charts...

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity: Ending Childhoold Hunger in America

From the Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity: 


Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity will be running a series of commentaries in the summer of 2012 on the fight to end childhood hunger in America.

This commentary is the tenth and final installment in the series, which is entitled “Ending Childhood Hunger in America.”

by Andrea Silbert, The Eos Foundation

Since it began in 1999, the Eos Foundation has invested in a variety of organizations in Massachusetts. As a funder, several challenges motivate us, including fighting hunger, providing healthy food, promoting urban agriculture, and helping families in low-income communities develop their own backyard gardens. At the same time, we have funded research by Children’s HealthWatch, which confirms how effective programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and heating assistance have been in promoting positive health outcomes and educational achievement among children and, ultimately, helping to break the cycle of poverty. 

Click here to read the full commentary online. 

Key Steps to Improve Access to Free and Reduced-Price School Meals

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has released a report "Key Steps to Improve Access to Free and Reduce-Priced Meals" by Nate Frentz and Zoë Neuberger. The report outlines steps State and local program administrators can take to improve program access for eligible children in several key areas. This paper also highlights helpful resources and describes six key opportunities for advocates and program administrators to ensure that all eligible children are certified quickly and easily for free or reduced-price school meals.

Click here to read more. 

13 Percent of New York State Households Struggling with Hunger; New Polling Data Show Broad Support for SNAP/Food Stamps and Opposition to Cuts

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                            

Contact:  Alisa Costa

518.436.8757 x122

                                                                                               

13 Percent of New York State Households Struggling with Hunger; New Polling Data Show Broad Support for SNAP/Food Stamps and Opposition to Cuts

Albany, NY – September 7, 2012 – One in eight households in New York State struggled with hunger on average in the years 2009-2011, according to new data released this week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in its annual report on food insecurity. Nationally, more than 50 million people lived in households that were food insecure in 2011. These numbers show that there are still millions of hungry Americans, even while some in Congress propose billions in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps).

New polling data released this week by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) shows an overwhelming majority of Americans opposing SNAP cuts. The strength and depth of public support has remained steady over the last two years. In particular, when asked “[t]his year, Congress will consider cutting billions of dollars from the food stamp program in an effort to reduce federal spending. Do you favor cutting food assistance to low-income families and seniors, or do you think that is the wrong way to reduce government spending,” 75 percent say it is the wrong way to reduce spending. That number was 77 percent in January 2012 and 71 percent in November 2010.

Seventy-nine percent of respondents to the FRAC poll support spending more (55 percent) federal money or about the same amount (24 percent) to address the problem of hunger, compared to just 17 percent who say the federal government should be spending less. Support for SNAP specifically and opposition to SNAP cuts is high among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; higher among women than men; high in all major geographic regions; and high among all age groups, especially among those aged 18 to 34. The poll of 1,011 adults was conducted by Hart Research Associates from August 23-26, 2012.

Full results of the poll are available on FRAC’s website.

“With one in eight New York State households struggling with hunger, it is unacceptable that so many in Congress have proposed cuts to SNAP that would harm the most vulnerable among us – seniors, working families, and children,” said Linda Bopp, Executive Director of Hunger Solutions New York.  “Americans support SNAP, and they believe government should – and must – do more to address hunger.”

Both the Senate and House Agriculture Committee versions of the Farm Bill contain cuts to SNAP. The Senate plan for the Farm Bill includes a cut of more than $4 billion over 10 years to the program, achieved largely by reducing SNAP benefits for an estimated 500,000 households (300,000 of them in New York State) by $90/month. The House Agriculture Committee bill would make these same cuts plus completely end benefits for a minimum of 1.8 million people nationwide, cutting the program by $16 billion.

Among the 13.2 percent of households in New York State considered to be food insecure during the 2009-2011 period, 5.1 percent were considered to have “very low food security.” People that fall into this USDA category had more severe problems, experiencing deeper hunger and cutting back or skipping meals on a more frequent basis for both adults and children.

“Given the depth and breadth of the economic downturn, SNAP continues to help more than three million New Yorkers afford food,” said Bopp. “Clearly, there is more work to be done.”

In New York State, people who are struggling to afford food can visit www.FoodHelpNY.org to get assistance applying for SNAP.

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About the USDA Report
Since 1995, the United States Department of Agriculture, using data from surveys conducted annually by the Census Bureau, has released estimates of the number of people in households that are food insecure. Food insecure households are those that are not able to afford an adequate diet at all times in the past 12 months. The report also includes food insecurity rates for each state, but for states it uses three-year averages to give a better estimate of the number of households experiencing food insecurity. Experts agree that the Census/USDA measure of food insecurity is a conservative one, with the result that only households experiencing substantial food insecurity are so classified.

NYC Council Votes for Breakfast in the Classroom

From the Amsterdam News:

The New York City Council voted last week to implement breakfast in the classroom in all New York City school in order to combat hunger and ensure that every child has a healthy start to their day.

With one of the lowest school breakfast participation rates in the country, the New York City Council addressed the issue last week when it approved resolutions that would allow breakfast to be served in the classrooms of public schools instead of the cafeteria. With fewer than 40 percent of low-income students using school breakfasts, the council felt this would help students get the balanced meals they need to be productive during the school day.

However, the vote is only symbolic as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott oppose the measure. 

Click here to read more.

You can learn more about the School Breakfast Program and breakfast in the classroom on our web site.

Food Family Farming Foundation's Grant Deadline Extended for breakfast program equipment

Don't forget to apply for Food Family Farming Foundation's grant for breakfast program equipment. The deadline is September 15. Learn more here.