The weekly Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) News Digest highlights what's new on hunger, nutrition and poverty issues at FRAC, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, around the network of national, state and local anti-poverty and anti-hunger organizations, and in the media. The Digest will alert you to trends, reports, news items and resources and, when available, link you directly to them.

1. FRAC Testifies Before Senate for Seniors
(U.S. Senate, March 5, 2008)

FRAC President Jim Weill testified on Capitol Hill last week at a hearing on hunger and elderly Americans. The message he brought before the Senate Special Committee on Aging at the hearing, titled Seniors Going Hungry in America: A Call to Action and Warning for the Future, included facts on hunger among senior citizens as well as steps to address the problem. He cited research revealing 86 percent of senior citizens who are eligible for food stamps don’t participate in the program because they feel “the effort needed to apply outweighed the benefits.” He also said that “the growth of the oldest part of the senior population will be the rapidest. These demographic changes likely will mean more poverty and food insecurity in the years ahead unless our society improves its supports for lower-income senior citizens.”

The Food Stamp Program was the main federal solution FRAC’s president mentioned, and he said that other federal programs (Senior Farmers, Market Program, the Emergency Food Assistance Program, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, and Meals on Wheels) are also be effective in addressing the problem. He also recommended immediate steps that federal and state policymakers can take to make the Food Stamp Program more accessible to seniors, saying "…one essential priority must be making food stamp benefit allotments more adequate--increasing the minimum benefit and other allotment levels and reversing the impact of long-term changes in the 1996 law that cut benefits." He pointed out that the $10 minimum benefit, which most often applies to seniors and persons with disabilities, provides barely one-third the purchasing power today that it did when it was set in 1977. He urged Congress to finish work on the Farm Bill and enact proposed changes in food stamp benefit levels and asset rules.

2. Research Shows Benefits of Breakfast for Adolescents
(Reuters, March 3, 2008))

At study of more than 2,000 teens in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area found that those who eat breakfast regularly tend to weigh less than those who skip the meal. Teens who eat breakfast also exercise more as well as consume an overall healthy diet. The study focused on measuring Body Mass Index (BMI) – lean individuals have lower BMIs than overweight or obese persons. Adolescents who skipped breakfast, according to the research published in the journal Pediatrics, weighed as much as 5 pounds more on average than the teens who ate breakfast every day. It’s believed that breakfast helped teens control their hunger, and kept them from binge eating at lunch and dinner. Study author Mark Pereira, of the University of Minnesota, noted that adolescents who ate breakfast are "much more physically active and…have lower fat intake, lower cholesterol intake, higher fiber intake." The study mentioned that approximately 25 percent of the nation’s teens skip breakfast.

3. Food Stamps are Part of Democrats’ Budget Package
(USA Today,March 3, 2008)

House and Senate Democrats delivered their 2009 budgets last week, and again included increased funding for a second stimulus package among federal spending goals in Medicare, unemployment benefits, and heating aid. Fewer tax cuts are also called for by the Senate and House budget committees. About $35 billion would be reserved for a second fiscal stimulus package that could include spending on food stamps, unemployment benefits, heating aid for low-income families and highway and bridge construction.

4. Agriculture Secretary Highlights Importance of School Breakfast Program
(FNS, USDA, March 4, 2008)

Kicking off National School Breakfast Week, USDA Secretary Ed Schafer called for increased participation nationwide in the national School Breakfast Program. The program has "grown steadily over the years," said Schafer, from a pilot program serving 80,000 to 10 million school children now participating each day at more than 84,000 public and private schools. "Starting the day with healthy nutrition helps children stay alert and perform better in school," Schafer noted, and mentioned the various ways schools can offer the meal: traditional breakfast, grab-and-go, and breakfast in the classroom.

5. School Nutrition Association Asks Congress for School Breakfast Assistance
(Food Navigator USA, February 26, 2008)

School Nutrition Association (SNA) members asked Congress last week for uniform national school nutrition standards as well as funding for those standards and to improve the quality of the nation’s school meal programs. The standards would cover all food and beverages sold during the school day. SNA President Mary Hill said "The child nutrition programs are both under pressure to serve nutritious meals to more low-income children and being pinched by increased food, labor and milk costs." High costs of healthy foods are hampering 50 percent of school systems that pledged to implement healthy food policies, according to a recent SNA study. Also, food offered in schools by school stores, fundraisers, and teacher rewards make it hard for schools to control student nutrition.

6. Food Stamps Key to Assisting Local Residents
(San Bernardino Sun, February 28, 2008)

San Bernardino community leaders are focusing on food stamps as a key method of improving their residents’ lives. The leaders have begun an initiative to help poor and working class residents access public programs they may not be aware of. Frank Tamborello, the Los Angeles chapter director of the California Hunger Action Coalition, said "Those who desperately need [food stamps] are not getting the help they need, and the county is losing millions in federal funding." Community leaders are cite the current economic downturn as particularly troublesome to low-income residents. (Article available through newspaper’s archive section.)

7. Stigma Keeps Teens from Accessing Free Lunch
(The New York Times, March 1, 2008)

Teens eligible for no-cost lunch in San Francisco’s schools are still going hungry because they feel stigmatized by the choices they’re offered and the methods by which they’re made to pay. While cash-paying students are gravitate toward a la carte items, schools separate subsidized meal recipients – they’re the ones in line for the government-approved, "nutritional" food choices, apart from the more popular snacks and fast food lines. "[It’s become a] social justice issue, according to Berkeley, California’s public schools director of nutrition Ann Cooper. The San Francisco Department of Health and the Campaign for Better Nutrition partnered in a lawsuit last year, charging that this type of segregation in the lunch room violates state and federal laws. In fact, the National School Lunch Act prohibits student segregation. Advocates are suggesting changes to the system, and California schools are removing the stigma by offering the same food to all students, regardless of their financial status. Some schools have instituted debit card systems which keep financial transactions private between student and cafeteria cashier. Others have eliminated the a la carte line altogether.

8. School Breakfast Popularity Ranks Kentucky in Top 10
(Louisville Courier-Journal, February 25, 2008)

227,000 Kentucky students – one-third of the state’s school population - participated daily in the School Breakfast Program in 2006, a total that ranked the state eighth in FRAC’s most recent School Breakfast Scorecard. Participation numbers continue to rise in 2008, as only five schools out of Kentucky’s 1,238 don’t offer breakfast. Jefferson County saw its participation numbers increase this year, as 1300 more students are now eating breakfast in the county’s schools. This article quotes FRAC’s president Jim Weill, who talks about the future: "…many states and schools recognize the benefits of making sure that all children have a healthy breakfast to start their day, but we need to go further." Even with pockets of increased participation, the report shows that the breakfast program reaches only 45 out of every 100 low-income children who receive school lunch. Breakfast is even more important to children from low-income families, who may not get a meal at home to start the day.

9. African-American Issues Haven’t Improved Notes Study
(The Detroit News, February 28, 2008)

A new report by the Kerner Commission, which outlined goals in poverty, racial injustice, education and crime in 1968, gives African-American progress in those areas a D+, in spite of growth of an African-American middle class. The Commission reconvened last year to investigate progress since the urban riots of 1967, and the new report found discrimination still exists in employment practices, home purchasing and mortgage lending. African-American unemployment – one of the "most important" causes of poverty – is still twice that of white unemployment. The report’s solutions include boosting the minimum wage, requiring the Federal Reserve to act when unemployment rises past four percent, increasing job training, more college grants for low-income students, and more equitable public school funding.

10. More Indiana Residents Driven to Apply for Food Stamps
(Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, February 28, 2008)

While successful food stamp outreach efforts have raised the numbers of recipients in Indiana, the numbers are also rising as more residents suffer under the triple threat of higher food/utility prices, job losses, and stagnant wages. Indiana’s Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) reported a 22 percent increase in average annual food stamp recipients between 2003 and 2007; in 10 of the state’s counties the increase was higher, between 24 and 87 percent. Assistance programs, publicity and other outreach efforts have delivered the benefit to more people needing it, but there are more people struggling with the economic downturn, rising prices and declining buying power of lower wages. Fort Wayne Community Harvest Food Bank executive director Jane Avery stated "…clearly our area is still suffering. There are a lot of folks who have seen their incomes reduced because of job losses or medical problems, and they need more assistance." A phone service hosted by the United Way reported close to 4,000 calls for food assistance in 2007 – the highest number of calls in four years, and the second highest type of assistance request, behind calls for overall financial assistance.

11. Computers and Staff Link Low-Income Residents to Social Services
(San Bernardino Sun, March 4, 2008)

A program titled the "Free Tax and Benefit Access Center" is helping many low-income residents in one San Bernardino working-class community identify tax rebates as well as social services, such as food stamps, they may not be aware they’re eligible to receive. Run by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Center comprises a staff of five who, with the help of the Internet, walk low-income and working poor families through the maze of tax preparation forms and public assistance applications. The Food Stamp Program, along with Home Energy Assistance, are the two most common benefits residents find through the program. Both means of assistance equal federal dollars that can be funneled into the community. Currently, it’s estimated that the county loses $203 million in federal funds each year as only 56 percent of food-stamp eligible citizens apply for the benefit. Bobbi Jo Chavarria, the head organizer at the San Bernardino ACORN office, said that paperwork, lack of education, and poor government outreach create barriers preventing the needy from accessing services, and said the Center expects to help more than 500 people with their taxes by April 15.

12. North Carolina Seeing Rise in Food Stamp Applicants; May Signal Start of Recession
(Charlotte Observer, February 28, 2008)

In spite of the healthy economy in parts of the state, unprecedented numbers of North Carolina residents are applying for food stamps. Food stamp recipient numbers in Mecklenburg County have "more than doubled" since 2000, jumping 6 percent in 2007 alone, and now 1 in 10 of the county’s residents rely on food stamps. 35,496 people in the county received food stamps in 2000; close to 82,000 got them in September of last year. 6,870 applications were filed in the last part of 2007, while there were less than 1000 in the early part of the year. The food stamp numbers mirror those of the recessions of the early 1990s and 2000s. Individuals hit by the current sluggish economy, and who are relying on food stamps, include Laura Meeks, a 61-year-old former administrative assistant, who moved to Charlotte and applied for food stamps when she couldn’t find work. Now evicted from her apartment, and still unable to find employment in the slow job market, she spends nights in a homeless shelter and augments her food stamp benefits with meals at a local church. For other residents, the long lag time between jobs is forcing more and more to seek public assistance. Department of Social Services workers say the long lines they’re currently seeing as more and more people apply for various benefits are "unusual," since the number of applicants usually drops in the early months of each year. On one recent morning, 131 people applied for food stamps, health coverage, and cash.

13. Inflation Winning Over Paychecks in Knoxville
(Knoxville News, February 24, 2008)

A Knoxville area "statistical snapshot" shows that while income for residents seems to have grown between 2000 and 2006, it is buying less as the economy has shifted from manufacturing jobs to lower-wage service sector employment. According to the report, households in the top five percent of earnings have seen their income increase, but for the majority of workers, "there has basically been no wage improvement." Population, economic and health care data from government and agency sources were compiled for the report.