Caring for the poor - a human responsibility: echo opinion

A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

— Proverbs 11:25

SNAP - putting food on the table an echo opinion by Dustin Pugel

Published in the Kentucky newspaper - The State Journal

(MaineWriter opinion - Right wing Christians including those who call themselves "Evangelicals" are quick to support Donald Trump but they are silent about his cruel policies opposing programs that help the poor.)

In the 2018 holiday season, as Kentuckians (and Americans) celebrate with friends and family around the table, we must also remember the impact policy choices are having on one of the best tools we have to ensure we all get enough to eat.

The federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, plays a critical role in improving the health and well-being of 580,000 Kentuckians, including workers, children, seniors and 23,000 veterans. According to Feeding America, SNAP provides 12 meals for every one meal the network’s food banks provide. And, though relatively modest — SNAP supplements Kentuckians’ food budget with an average of $1.36 per person, per meal — it goes a long way to help prevent hunger and its consequences.

SNAP doesn’t just provide nutrition; it is also one of the best anti-poverty programs we have. In Kentucky alone, SNAP keeps 164,000 of us out of poverty, including 73,000 children. It also helps our economy. In 2017, the federal government injected $933 million into local Kentucky economies through SNAP. And, by reducing food insecurity, SNAP keeps us healthier, too. Research shows that people who are food insecure are likelier to have a chronic disease such as heart disease, cancer or diabetes.

Despite all of these benefits, the state has erected new barriers to SNAP participation in recent months. As a result, between May and September of this year, more than 10,000 adults lost food assistance after three months of not being able to prove they worked enough hours. Many of them live in “labor surplus areas,” communities with more people who need work than there are jobs. Some face discriminatory barriers to employment or work in low-wage industries where consistent hours are hard to come by. A significant number of those losing coverage were likely unclear about the new paperwork requirements they had to meet.

As time goes by, the number of people who cannot surmount the state’s new barriers is likely to rise, leading to more and more people losing nutrition assistance. Until this year, the state routinely waived time limits for communities facing economic challenges. It should return to the practice of doing so.

At the same time the state is kicking people off SNAP, Congress is working to finalize the Farm Bill — landmark legislation that is passed every five years and funds SNAP and other priorities. With many Americans and Kentuckians left behind in the slow recovery from the Great Recession, it’s crucial that lawmakers pass a Farm Bill that protects and strengthens SNAP — along the lines of what the Senate passed earlier this year — and avoid the harmful cuts to SNAP included in the House version. U.S. Rep. James Comer and Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky serve on the conference committee that will decide the fate of SNAP soon. They should recognize the vital role SNAP plays in the commonwealth among their constituents and in our economy.

Many Kentuckians (and Americans) will donate food, serve in soup kitchens and take meals to neighbors in the coming weeks. Many will give even when it feels difficult financially to do so. This generosity strengthens our communities, but we can’t fight hunger through charity alone. We also need our lawmakers, both state and federal, to protect and strengthen SNAP. 

As we give thanks this season, let’s ensure all families can put food on the table.

Dustin Pugel is a policy analyst with the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy.

Food stamps help working class people

Tougher work rules for food stamps *won’t* help poor people — or save much money

Los Angeles Times opinion editorial ~ echo:

Unemployment is at a record low. The U.S. economy has logged nine straight years of slow-but-steady growth. Yet somehow, 40 million Americans need help from the government just to put food on the table. Although that figure is down from its post-recession peak of 47.6 million in 2013, it's still far above where it was in 2007, when only 26 million Americans were enrolled in food stamps (formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

Congressional Republicans are right to believe that there's something terribly out of whack here. 

How can so many Americans have jobs yet so many still qualify for food stamps? But their solution — adding tougher work requirements to the program — rests on a faulty premise that people are gaming the system, rather than the reality that so many of the jobs added since the recession are low-wage.

If they succeed in imposing the new eligibility rules, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will force 1.2 million Americans out of SNAP by 2028 — most of them parents with school-aged children. What a callous and wrongheaded response to the complex problem of poverty in one of the richest countries in the world.

The work rules are part of the $868 billion farm bill being debated in the House this week, which has split predictably along partisan lines. "We are focusing on empowering people," House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) said this week while defending the proposal. And he may well believe that. It's a persistent, if flawed, article of faith among conservatives that public assistance can do more harm than good because it encourages dependency on government help. Under this line of thinking, if poor people were given the right incentive to get off their rears and do an honest day's work, they would be better off in the long term. 

That's a nice story, but no more accurate than that of apocryphal welfare queens who drive luxury cars and wear designer jeans financed with overly generous public assistance checks.

We agree that people should be encouraged to work and helped to overcome the barriers they may face to employment. But it's worth bearing in mind that food stamp recipients already are required to hold down jobs or attend work-related instruction if they're capable, as mandated in 1996 as part of a larger restructuring of welfare benefits under former President Bill Clinton. About 44% of the households relying on food stamps have at least one person employed, according to 2015 data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The current rules limit individuals without kids who are 18 to 49 years old to three months of SNAP benefits every three years unless they are working or enrolled in a government-sponsored training program. This group accounts for only about 17% of SNAP beneficiaries — the rest are minors, people caring for young children, seniors and disabled individuals. (College students and immigrants in the country illegally are not eligible for benefits, no matter how poor or hungry they may be.)

The new rules would extend the work requirement to those up to age 59 and to parents of children as young as 6, while increasing the number of hours of work required per week from 20 to 25 by 2026. The CBO estimated that about a third of the recipients who would be covered by the new work requirements already, would meet them, and most of the remaining group would be exempted. Nevertheless, a large number would still drop off the rolls, the CBO projected.

Would the House GOP proposal result in more people gainfully employed? Maybe. But the added bureaucracy and hoops that recipients would be required to jump through — such as having their eligibility checked every month — would certainly raise the program's costs and reduce participation by needy Americans whose work hours may fluctuate wildly from month to month.

So what problem are House Republicans trying to solve? There's no evidence of massive fraud in the system; instead, the government reports a fraud rate of less than 1% — one of the lowest rates of any government program. Its administrative costs also have been relatively low.

Nor is anyone getting rich on food stamps benefits. 

Enrollees receive only $126 a month on average. To be eligible, applicants must have income of 130% of the poverty line or less, the equivalent of $2,213 a month or less for a family of three. That is hardly enough to pay for rent in Los Angeles, let alone buy food. And the new work rules, which could hurt so many legitimately needy people, wouldn't even save the government much money. The CBO estimates the new work and reporting rules will save $9.2 billion over 10 years by forcing people out of the program, but would cost an added $7.7 billion to provide more government training programs for those who need them to remain eligible, as well as to administer the new rules.

There is indeed something wrong when so many Americans need help feeding themselves and their families. But it is not something that can be fixed by imposing new, unproven and, frankly, miserly work rules on poor Americans.

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Cutting Efficiency - Congress Must Have Important Things to Do!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75748.html

Our US Congress needs to deal with real problems, which is precisely why it's plain wrong for their efforts to waste time cutting efficient programs.

In the link to the Politico op-ed,  Kevin Concannon* described the positive impact of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), our nation's successful food stamp program. He explains how working people who largely live on minimum wage jobs, or less, are helped by food assistance.  What's more, the SNAP program is efficient.

Concannon described meeting a lady working in a hotel gift shop who explained how her family relied on food stamps assistance, because so much of her working class salary was needed to pay bills.

Moreover, SNAP is a well managed program with 96 percent of the resources efficiently utilized. In other words, very little goes to waste when money is invested in food security for people living in poverty or just one paycheck removed from being destitute.

Yet, the US Congress used valuable tax payer paid for time to cut funding for SNAP.  I dare to speculate, some of the deliberation about the cuts were done while Congress and staffers were eating.


"That’s why it’s so puzzling that the House Agriculture Committee passed more than $33 billion in additional cuts to SNAP — at a time when the program has never been more urgently needed by Americans, and its operation is highly efficient," writes Concannon.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75748_Page2.html#ixzz1toHwi7yc

Among the wasteful programs that could, instead, be cut is the elimination of completely unnecessary American military installations in Japan. In fact, Japan doesn't even want the US military to be in their country, at all.  There are already US military bases in Korea, where our security presence is necessary for national defense.

Cutting just one US military base in Japan would likely pay for the entire SNAP program with money left over to improve compliance surveillance.  One could easily make the case that US tax money does a lot to help food security in Japan, because funding one base certainly provides millions of dollars in salaries for everyone working in the facilities.

Food security is never an issue with the US Congress, who enjoy salaries well above the national average- and certainly substantially higher than minimum wage.  Money to support SNAP, to help the working poor, comes from the same tax source as Congressional salaries.

One reason social programs and food security programs like SNAP are considered by Congress is because the beneficiaries are completely terrified to write as advocates for their own needs.  I've seen this desperate recoil response time and again while working with Maine Care beneficiaries. For the poor to say anything to advocate for their needs puts them "on the radar screen", so to speak, and a target for cuts to medical care or housing subsidies.

It's time American tax payers stop paying high salaries to Congress while the elected officials, who we pay for, waste time cutting programs for the poor.

*Kevin Concannon is the undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services at the Department of Agriculture.