According this article in Saturday’s New York Times, 18 percent of food stamp recipients’ – or 1 in 50 Americans – now live in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.
Read the full report – including the personal stories of some of these Americans – here.
It reminds me how fortunate and blessed I am.
Posted by: Kristina Scott
According to this story from the New York Times.
Posted by Kristina Scott
Sometimes my weeks have a theme, and this week’s theme is definitely hunger. As we hear up for Thanksgiving and the holiday season, I guess we are all thinking about those families who struggle to put food on the table.
The Greater Birmingham Community Partners 2009 Food Summit is taking place as I write this. If you are in Birmingham, and want to take part in the Summit you still have a couple of opportunities – tonight there is a movie night at Urban Standard and tomorrow there is a community garden tour, lunch at Jones Valley Urban Farm and the first Growing Together community gardening class.
Auburn is also thinking about hunger during their Hunger Awareness Week. Alabama Rural Ministries’ Lisa Pierce is living in a box this week to raise money and awareness about hunger in Alabama. You can learn more about her efforts here.
While preparing for my talk yesterday at the Food Summit, I came across this survey from Ask Alabama. A shocking 63 percent of adults surveyed said that they think “a lot” or a “fair number” of families are cutting back on meals due to the economic downturn.
If you want to help address hunger in your community, here’s a resource list we produced this summer for our Give Us This Day Hunger Workshop. If you have other resources you would like to add, please leave them in the comments.
Posted by Kristina Scott
I have to admit that I was surprised when I read this editorial in the Florence Times Daily today that half of all American children receive food stamps assistance sometime during their lifetime. Half. Wow.
Here’s the full text of the editorial and a link to the underlying study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine:
Kids in poverty
A new report shows about half of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, whether it be for a month, six months or years.
Food stamps are among the welfare programs that many middle class and wealthy Americans like to bash.
But they do so at their own risk. If the person to whom they are complaining is 40 or younger, there’s about a 50 percent chance he or she survived on food stamps at one point in life.
About 49 percent of all U.S. children are on food stamps at some point during childhood, according to a study released in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. That includes 37 percent of white children and 90 percent of black children.
“Your neighbor may be using some of these programs but it’s not the kind of thing people want to talk about,” said Mark Rank, lead author of the study and a sociologist at Washington University in St. Louis.
Food stamps are available for low-income people and families, covering most foods, but not prepared hot foods or alcohol. The income for a family of four cannot exceed about $22,000 to receive this help.
Yes, there are abuses, but the average monthly benefit is $222 so no one is getting rich off food stamps. And while many children benefit from the program, children are not among the abusers of food stamps.
The federal program is especially important in a poor state such as Alabama, where many adults struggle to feed their families. And during the current recession, with high employment rates, food stamps are even more critical.
So if you enjoy bashing welfare programs, be careful before you criticize this one in front of other people.
This is one of those cases in which “them” is “us.”
Posted by Kristina Scott