1. Food Stamps Ravaged by Steeper Prices
(Des Moines Register, March 30, 2008)

Congress might delay until 2009 passage of a new Farm Bill if lawmakers aren’t able to finish the current legislation in time for the April 18 deadline. This would mean no extra money for the Food Stamp Program, at a time when more Americans are turning to the benefit in order to help them purchase staple foods, in spite of their soaring costs. FRAC’s Ellen Vollinger explains why extending the bill won’t do for the millions struggling with high food prices: “We’re just going to see the purchasing power of food stamps continue to erode,” and extending the bill also “doesn’t do anything to get commodities up on the shelves in the food banks.” The Johnson County Crisis Center in Iowa City now gives one-third less to recipients in order to spread out what they do have. “For our clients that do receive food stamps,” said the food bank’s director Dayna Ballantyne, “the amount of food stamps allocated per household hasn’t gone up with the food costs. The food stamps they receive haven’t gone as far as they used to.”

2. Food Stamp Use Highest Since 1960’s
(The New York Times, March 31, 2008)

The combination of rising food prices, layoffs, and high fuel prices are leading the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to project that the number of food stamp beneficiaries – more than 28 million – soon will be the highest since the program began in the 1960s. Although some of the increase in numbers is due to improved outreach by some states, as well as the restoration access to some legal immigrants, the economic slowdown and the higher cost of prices for basic amenities are mostly to blame. Across the nation, states are reporting surges in requests for benefits, which requires recipients have “near-poverty incomes” in order to be eligible. More than 40 states are experiencing increased numbers, including:

Michigan – with 1 out of every 8 residents receiving food stamps, “an all-time record level” according to the state’s Department of Human Services;
Rhode Island – experiencing an 18 percent increase over the past two years, to a total of 8.4 percent of the population, or 84,000 recipients, the “highest total in the last dozen years…”
New York – one in ten New Yorkers, 1.86 million, now receives food stamps;
Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nevada and North Dakota – have all seen 10 percent or more growth in recipients over the past year.

3. Oklahoman’s Food Stamps Insufficient in Today’s Economy
(Tulsa World,March 26, 2008)

Oklahoma residents on food stamps find it very difficult to afford healthy food as milk prices rise to $4 a gallon and bread goes for $2-3 a loaf. Bringing this news to the Oklahoma Human Services commission, the state’s Department of Human Services director, Howard Hendrick, reported his concerns that upcoming federal funding cuts, combined with high fuel and utility prices, will make it even more difficult for families to provide quality food for themselves. According to Hendrick, one out of every three Oklahoma children received food stamp benefits for at least one month during 2007. Investing in human services, such as food stamps, continues to be “good investment” for the state government if “[we want] to keep the state’s economy going,” Hendricks said.

4. USDA Studies Food Stamp Relationship to Obesity
(What To Eat blog, March 23, 2008)

In her commentary on a recent USDA report reporting the relationship between food stamps and obesity, Marion Nestle suggests that the agency measure the diets of young women after giving them enough food stamps to meet their needs. The USDA study found a link between food stamps and obesity in young women, but did not find a link in other populations studied. “It seems self-evident that having more money - enough money - to spend on food means that people will eat more healthfully.,” said Nestle. It’s evident, she feels, that food stamps aren’t enough to meet a recipient’s needs, as “[t]hey typically run out after three weeks.”

5. Budget Cuts Threaten Infant Survival Program in Maryland
(Annapolis Capital, March 23, 2008)

Healthy Start, a program that helps low-income pregnant women and new mothers navigate the field of government assistance programs is in danger of going under. Cuts to federal grants keeping the Healthy Start program afloat would normally be replaced with money from the Anne Arundel county health department. But the county is facing its own financial crisis, which will be “catastrophic to [the health] department,” according to health officer Frances B. Phillips. Healthy Start dispatches nurses to expecting and new mothers, and is credited with raising the saving infants in a county where the survivability of white children is four times that of black children – for each 1,000 black children born alive, 21 die before their first birthday. Without the program, 500 babies will miss out on nurse visits each year, and 3,000 potential referrals to services won’t be made. Those services include helping mothers, like Cori Mackall, discover what foods to eat during pregnancy, which doctors to visit, how to fill out paperwork for government programs such as WIC, and how to deal with housing issues and other social pressures. Commenting on the support the program provides, Joanne Hasman, a nurse-midwife and member of the County’s Fetal Mortality Review Committee, said Healthy Start gives the “the big picture” to pregnant women and new mothers.

6. West Virginia Food Stamp Numbers Highest in Thirty Years
(Charleston Daily Mail, March 26, 2008)

More West Virginia residents are now on food stamps than ever before, with one out of every six residents receiving the benefit. In February, 274,487 residents received food stamps; five years ago, 246,890 residents received the benefit. The state’s Department of Human Resources is seeing more working poor applying for food stamps, as the four percent rise in food prices means their dollars are buying less and less groceries. These include people who are eligible for lower food stamp amounts – signaling the desperation many are feeling in trying to “make ends meet.”

7. Healthy Diets Keep Children From Failing Academically
(Food Navigator, March 26, 2008)

A study in The Journal of School Health reports that children with increased intake of fruits and vegetables, and those increasing the overall nutrient levels of their diets, are less likely to fail literacy assessments. The research is significant as the positive effects of a healthy diet for children were measured and found to increase. Former studies, much in the news, have concentrated on the effects of malnutrition and “micronutrient deficiency,” or focused on breakfast’s specific role in student cognition. The study’s authors also found a relationship between dietary fat intake and academic performance, and point to the importance of introducing a healthy diet to children at a young age.

8. University Students Join College VP/COO in Food Stamp Challenge
(Bowling Green News, March 26, 2008)

University of Connecticut vice president and chief operating officer Barry Feldman joined nineteen students and adults in the university’s first annual Food Stamp Challenge from March 30 to April 4. Sponsored by the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) as part of their Hunger and Homelessness Campaign, the Challenge is expected to raise student awareness of hunger by giving them some experience living off welfare. Participants are allotted $4 a day for meals and shopped as a group for the week’s groceries, mirroring the challenges faced daily by the 200,000 individuals assisted by Connecticut’s food stamp program in 2007. The University’s PIRG office is planning a conference to coincide with the end of the Food Stamp Challenge week, titled “Hungry for Change: CT Symposium on Hunger and Homelessness.”

9. Senate Aide’s Visit to Food Bank Highlights Hunger Issues in Iowa Town
(Ottumwa Courier, March 25, 2008)

A visit by an aide to U.S. Senator Tom Harkin to the Lord’s Cupboard in Ottumwa, Iowa gave anti-hunger advocates and food bank staff the opportunity to highlight the importance of keeping strong nutrition programs in the farm bill reauthorization. Lord’s Cupboard director Kris Knouf said they’ve had 59 people a day at the facility, and overall they’ve seen a 200 percent increase in people since April 2007. “Schools provide lunch but not all them provide breakfast,” said Knouf, and added that once summer arrives, children might miss out on lunches they would normally get during the school day.

10. Significant Portion of Residents in Nation’s 2nd Wealthiest State Struggling with Income Issues
(Newark Star-Ledger, March 25, 2008)

While New Jersey boasts enough high incomes to place the state second in the nation according to wealth, there are still 200,000 low-income families lacking sufficient income to survive without help. Results from a study by the Rutgers University Center for Women and Work and New Jersey Policy Perspective found that one in five families is low-income, defined in the research as a family of four earning less than $39,942 in 2005, twice the federal poverty income threshold. New Jersey’s high cost of living is creating “a tale of two states,” and possible state budget cuts ($2.7 billion) would negatively affect programs helping the state’s poor. New Jersey Policy Perspective president Jon Shure said the report is “a wake-up call that says we need to invest, not cut, to build a secure future and a prosperous state.”

11. Report Finds Nashville Salaries Not Meeting Family Needs
(The Tennessean, March 22, 2008)

Having a full-time job is not enough to provide basic needs for a family of four, comprising two working adults and two children, in Nashville, according to findings in the 2007 Nashville Living Wage Estimate, Middle Tennessee Jobs with Justice. That family would need a “gross minimum of $43,076” to meet their needs for food, health care, transportation, housing and child care in the metro Nashville area. The reality, as revealed in the report, is that approximately a third (575,000) of 1.6 million Tenneseeans aren’t able making the $10.35 an hour needed to bring their salary to the gross minimum, with many jobs paying less than a “living wage.” Study co-author Melissa Snarr, assistant professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt University’s divinity school, cited a famous phrase “a job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it,” in her printed comments on the report, and hopes that it will begin conversations on wage ethics.

12. Computers Help Speed New Recipients Through Food Stamp Applicant Process
(Ocala.com, March 23, 2008)

Ocala residents applying for federal assistance don’t mind taking the time to visit the Department of Children & Families ACCESS Florida storefront office. Computers and staff make the application process smooth, and applicants say it’s easier to make the trip to the office than wait on the phone to set up an appointment. Staff are on hand to help applicants fill out forms on the computers, and those applicants who aren’t proficient with computers are finding the help useful.

13. Study Finds Food Security Affects Mothers and Infants
(www.springerlink.com, March 26, 2008)

A study titled Food Security During Infancy: Implications for Attachment and Mental Proficiency in Toddlerhood, published in the March Maternal and Child Health Journal, has found that household food security affects a child’s early development and a mother’s positive behaviors with her children. According to the research:

Food insecurity occurs in more than 10 percent of households with infants;
Maternal depression occurs in higher levels when higher levels of food insecurity are present;
Food insecurity is a predictor of insecure child attachment and “less advanced” mental proficiency, and “works indirectly through maternal depression and parenting practices” which greatly influence an early toddler’s emotional and cognitive development.

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