A lot of news lately about the Food Stamp Program. Let’s start with today’s story in the New York Times pointing out the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects 2008 to register the highest amount of food stamp usage since the program was established in the 1960s. “Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year,” the Times article reports.
Most states can’t keep up with rising demand for food stamps. One in six residents of West Virginia are now getting food stamp benefits. In Michigan, it’s one in eight. In New York, one in ten. Arizona, Maryland, Nevada, and North Dakota all experienced a 10-percent rise in food stamp usage in the last year. In Oklahoma, one out of three children were eligible for food stamps at some point during the last year.
At the same time, charitable food providers are also feeing the pressure to meet rising demand. Food banks, soup kitchens and pantries all say they are stretched. I was at a national conference sponsored by America’s Second Harvest and the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) in early March. I made a point to ask every person I talked with who was involved with distributing food what conditions were like in their state. I didn’t hear a single person say she couldn’t use more help.
The Food Stamp Program is scheduled to receive a helpful increase in funding when the farm bill is reauthorized. The food banks also receive a share of the food they distribute through the farm bill, and they are due for an increase in the new farm bill. Meanwhile the bill sits in committee, held up by arguments about how to privilege the nation’s commodity farmers. If Congress can’t agree on a new farm bill, and it’s looking increasingly like it may not, it will have to extend the old bill for at least another year or two, meaning no increased funding for the Food Stamp Program or increases for the food banks. Just to put things in perspective, the Washington Post reported last week the average farm household income now stands at $90,000 per year. The article was titled, appropriately, "Hypocrisy That's Hard to Bear."
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