Tuesday, April 02, 2013

America surrenders

Raise the white flag on the war against poverty


Congressional Republicans want to cut $135 billion from SNAP over the next decade. This could eliminate up to 13 million people from the program—by making income eligibility even more restrictive. No hard-working American goes to bed hungry at night, right? Not if you believe the current political rhetoric surrounding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as Food Stamps. Only only the lazy and shiftless are in need of assistance declare those who want the welfare cuts.

Food stamps exist because poverty exists in America. Pay working people enough to feed themselves, and the government will no longer have to fill that role by supplementing wages. Despite widespread enrollment in the federal food stamp program, nearly one in eight Americans still uses a Feeding America food bank. Cut people off of SNAP without raising their wages, and Americans will go hungry in the streets. 50 million people are unsure where their next meal is coming from. That doesn’t mean these 50 million people haven’t made up their minds if they will eat at home or go out to a restaurant. It doesn’t mean these 50 million will make decision between having Chinese or Italian delivered. It means they are unsure if they will eat any food during their next scheduled meal. In the late 1960s Richard Nixon worked declared a war on poverty. It is a war America has lost.

The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. If you worked 40 hours per week at this rate, every week, without a day off, that would equal just over $15,000 per year—or $1,256 per month. That puts you well within eligibility for food stamps in most states across America.

In Pennsylvania, for example, any individual earning $1,490 or less per month is considered poverty-stricken enough to qualify for food stamps.

“The stereotypes about who gets governmental help, in our experience, that’s not the reality,” says Ross Fraser, spokesman for Feeding America, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in America. “SNAP was created as a supplement for working people to help feed their families. The average monthly benefit is $134 a month. That works out to about $1.50 per meal. That’s hardly enough to live off of on its own.”

The simple fact is that many American jobs don’t pay people well enough to feed themselves and their families. The unemployment rate in America is just under eight percent, and yet one in seven Americans—more than 14 percent—currently live in poverty. According to data compiled by Feeding America, 83 percent of all SNAP benefits go to a household that has a child, senior citizen, or a disabled person. Forty-five percent of all SNAP recipients are children.

“The income threshold to qualify for food stamps for a family of four is $23,000 annually,” says Fraser. “The maid who makes your bed in the hotel when you’re out of town, the person who makes your coffee at McDonald’s, most of these people will qualify for food stamps.”



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