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. Senate Committee Spares Food Stamps from Cuts
2. House Republicans Postpone Plan for Budget Cuts
3. Senate Rejects Proposals to Raise Minimum Wage
4. Three Fourths of American Workers Struggle in Low-Paying Jobs Without Benefits, Report Says
5. Relentless Poverty in U.S. Gives Little Hope
6. Obesity Grew More Slowly Among Low-Income African Americans, Study Finds
7. Study: Nearly One Third of Food Stamp Recipients Lived in Rural Areas; Cuts Would Harm Rural Poor
8. Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities Opposes Low-Income Program Cuts and Tax Cuts for Rich
9. Op-Ed: Republicans’ Priorities “Diametrically Opposed” to Those of Most Americans
10. Op-Ed – Georgia: Indifference to Poor in Congress Interferes with Efforts to Fight Poverty
11. Editorial: Do Not Cut Food Stamps When So Much Need Still Exists
12. Editorial – Virginia: Claim That Tax Cuts for Wealthy Will Help Poor is Shameless Pretense
13. Editorial: Stop Reckless Tax Cuts and Reductions in Basic Programs
14. Maine: Advocates, State Spokesman Oppose Food Stamp Cuts
15. Op-Ed – Maine Congressman: Making Poor Pay for Tax Cuts for Affluent is Wrong
16. Editorial – Maryland: President Bush and Congress Should Abandon Tax Cuts for Rich and Food Stamp Cuts for Poor
17. Editorial: “Bush Must Keep His Promise to America of Bold Action to Address Poverty”
18. Soft Drinks in Schools: Beverage Industry to Promote Its New Plan
19. “5 A Day” Fruit and Vegetable Advertising Dwarfed By Beverage, Candy, Restaurant Ads
20. Op-Ed: Time to Launch Multi-Year Campaign to End Poverty in California
21. Editorial – California: Governor’s Wife Should Look at Poverty in California, Not Virginia

1. Senate Committee Spares Food Stamps from Cuts

(“Senate Plan to Cut Food Stamps Dies,” washingtonpost.com, October 19, 2005)

Senate Republicans abandoned plans to cut the Food Stamp Program as part of the $35 billion spending reduction required by the budget plan of April 2005. Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) dropped more than $500 million in food stamp cuts from a farm and food subsidy. If the cuts were implemented, 300,000 low-income working families would have lost their food benefits.

2. House Republicans Postpone Plan for Budget Cuts

(“House GOP Leaders Postpone Vote on Reductions in Spending,” washingtonpost.com, October 19, 2005)

In an attempt to salvage a new spending reduction plan, House Republican leaders delayed a vote on deeper cuts. The House and Senate are working on cutting $35 billion in mandatory spending over five years, and House GOP leaders had intended to vote last week to increase the total to $50 billion. However, the GOP proposal did not find support either from conservatives, who wanted bigger cuts, or from moderate Republicans, who refused to further trim programs such as health care for the poor and elderly, student loans, and food stamps. Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA), one of the House leaders trying to save the steeper reductions, said "everything is on the table" now – even defense and homeland security spending. Democrats pointed out that the cuts are only one-half of a two-part budget process, the second part being a new slate of tax breaks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902169.html

3. Senate Rejects Proposals to Raise Minimum Wage

(“Senate Again Fails to Raise Minimum Wage,” washingtonpost.com, October 20, 2005)

Senate proposals to raise the minimum wage were rejected last week. Now it is unlikely that the wage, stuck at $5.15 per hour since 1997, will rise in the near future. Sen. Edward Kennedy’s (D-MA) proposal would have raised the minimum to $6.25 over an 18-month period. A Republican counterproposal would have given the same $1.10 increase combined with various breaks and exemptions for small businesses. The Kennedy proposal went down 51-47, and the Republican alternative 57-42. Either proposal needed 60 votes for Senate approval. Sen. Kennedy pointed out a single parent with two children working at minimum wage earns $10,700 a year, $4,500 below the poverty line. He called "absolutely unconscionable" the Senate’s refusal to increase the minimum wage. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia now have minimum wages higher than the national level.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102000424.html

4. Three Fourths of American Workers Struggle in Low-Paying Jobs Without Benefits, Report Says

(“75% of American Workers Lack Decent Wages and Benefits,” cepr.net, October 18, 2005)

Seventy-five percent of American workers are struggling in jobs that do not provide solid middle-class wages, health insurance and a pension, according to a new report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Despite strong economic growth and great improvements in the average educational level of the American workforce, the share of workers in good jobs – those that pay at least $16 per hour, or $32,000 annually, with employer-paid health insurance and a pension – remained unchanged at about 25 percent between 1979 and 2004. Even though inflation-adjusted GDP per person increased 60 percent from 1979, the economy has failed to produce more good jobs. The study found that 26.6 percent of the workforce are in “bad” jobs – low-paying and without benefits, which is close to the share in bad jobs in 1979 (27.9 percent).

http://www.cepr.net/pressreleases/2005_10_18.htm (CEPR press release)

http://www.cepr.net/publications/labor_markets_2005_10.pdf (CEPR report, “How Good is the Economy at Creating Good Jobs?”)

5. Relentless Poverty in U.S. Gives Little Hope

(“Katrina Uncovers the Forgotten Queues at America's Soup Kitchens,” October 17, 2005)

The summer months are the busiest for the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit that serves 800 people daily for lunch, including swelling numbers of the working poor. "I drove in here yesterday and I saw all these people streaming in to the soup kitchen, and I thought 'there is so much suffering in this city'," said Brother Jerry Smith, who runs this kitchen. In the winter, numbers fall. Some people risk frostbitten feet if they make the trip. Others find places at shelters and would rather go hungry than lose them. “This is the America most don't see. It has taken a catastrophe [like Hurricane Katrina] to rekindle the national debate on poverty.” But “the conditions exposed by the hurricane are not confined to the south” and since Mr. Bush took office, an additional 5.4 million people have slipped below the poverty level. "What the president says doesn't mean much to me," says Genevieve Clark at the Hunger Action Coalition in Detroit. "He is speaking for the moment to make people feel warm and fuzzy today and then he will move on to something else." Proposed cuts to services like food stamps and Medicaid and new tax breaks for the wealthy provide “a good reason for cynicism.” Inequality promotes greater inequality, because the progeny of a disenfranchised generation face ever higher barriers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1593715,00.html

6. Obesity Grew More Slowly Among Low-Income African Americans, Study Finds

(“Income Disparities in Body Mass Index and Obesity in the United States, 1971-2002,” archinte.ama-assn.org, October, 2005)

Although obesity is frequently associated with poverty, recent increases in obesity in the United States may not occur disproportionately among the poor, according to this study published by Internal Medicine , the journal of the American Medical Association (Vol. 165, No. 18, October 2005). The study showed that, over the course of three decades, obesity has increased at all levels of income, and usually it is not the poor who have registered the largest weight gains. Among black women, the absolute increase in obesity is 27 percent (1.05 percent per year) for those at middle incomes, but only 14.5 percent (0.54 percent per year) for the poor. Among black men, the increase in obesity is 21.1 percent for those at the highest level of income, but only 4.5 percent for the near poor and 5.4 percent for the poor. Moreover, all race-sex groups exhibit income differentials on body mass index, but patterns show substantial variation between groups and consistency and change within groups over time.

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/165/18/2122 (abstract)

http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/165/18/2122 (full text; full access to subscribers; restricted access with a quest registration)

7. Study: Nearly One Third of Food Stamp Recipients Lived in Rural Areas; Cuts Would Harm Rural Poor

(“New Report: Food Stamp Program Provides Critical Safety Net to Low-Income Rural Families,” carseyinstitute.unh.edu, October19, 2005)

A new analysis by the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire shows that 22 percent of Americans and a full 31 percent of the nation’s food stamp recipients lived in rural areas in 2001. Three in five rural residents who received food stamps lived in the South. “Many of America’s rural families struggle to make a living,” said Cynthia M. Duncan, the director of The Carsey Institute. “In these rural communities, as in many of our cities and suburbs, food stamps provide crucial supplements to low income families’ budgets.” In 2001, 7.5 percent (4.6 million) of all rural residents received food stamps, compared to 4.8 percent of residents of urban areas. Nevertheless, 10.6 million rural residents were living in poverty. The lower number of food stamp recipients indicates that many eligible people did not participate in the program. Among other important findings, children accounted for 43 percent of the rural population that depend on food stamps, but only one fourth of rural residents. The Carsey analysis stresses the importance of food stamps to rural America and says that Congressional cuts would likely have significant adverse effects on the lives of poor rural Americans.

http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/documents/Food%20Stamp%20Release.pdf (press release)

http://www.carseyinstitute.unh.edu/documents/Carsey_Brief%20Food%20Stamps.pdf (report, “Rural America Depends on the Food Stamp Program to Make Ends Meet”)

8. Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities Opposes Low-Income Program Cuts and Tax Cuts for Rich

(“AFSCME, Allies Kick Off Mass Campaign Against Bush/GOP Spending, Tax Cuts,” ilcaonline.org, October 14, 2005)

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and allies kicked off a mass campaign, the Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities, against the cuts in programs for the poor and against tax cuts for the rich. “[M]isplaced priorities are threatening American families,” said AFSCME President Gerald McEntee. “Even before Katrina, they were wrong....But now they’ll cut the public programs that the Katrina victims need the most.” The Campaign includes grass-roots mobilizing, town hall meetings, rallies and marches in the congressional districts of swing lawmakers, radio advertising in Maine, Rhode Island, Illinois and other states, and electronic petitions to be delivered to Congress.

http://tinyurl.com/cr7ro

The Food Research and Action Center is a partner of the Emergency Campaign for America’s Priorities. View a partner list at http://www.actnow.org/# by clicking on the link that reads, Who We Are, to find a link to the Partial List of ECAP's Organizing Partners.

9. Op-Ed: Republicans’ Priorities “Diametrically Opposed” to Those of Most Americans

(“Gunning for the Poor,” washingtonpost.com, October 19, 2005)

“Congress is back in session, and it's gunning for the American poor,” writes Harold Meyerson in The Washington Post. “A revolt of House conservatives has persuaded that body's Republican leadership to offset the increased federal spending going to rebuild the Hurricane Katrina-devastated Gulf Coast by reductions in Medicaid, food stamps and other programs for the indigent. . . . The emerging Republican response to Katrina, apparently, is to comfort the drenched poor and afflict the dry.” An earlier attempt to enact across-the-board spending cuts was dropped because this measure would reduce money for defense contractors and the highway industry and other contributors to congressional Republicans' campaigns. Now some Republicans are demanding a new $70 billion in tax cuts, including the permanent repeal of the estate tax. Republicans' post-Katrina priorities are “diametrically opposed” to those of most Americans, argues Meyerson. By a margin of 67 percent to 24 percent, the respondents of a recent poll believed cutting Medicaid and similar programs by $35 billion and cutting taxes by $70 billion was the wrong priority.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/18/AR2005101801219.html

10. Op-Ed – Georgia: Indifference to Poor in Congress Interferes with Efforts to Fight Poverty

(“Congressional Hurricane Relief Comes at Expense of the Poor,” news.yahoo.com, October 15, 2005)

“Suddenly, congressional leaders have rediscovered fiscal restraint,” an epiphany which occurred “only after they were asked to help the desperate victims of Hurricane Katrina,” writes Cynthia Tucker, editorial page editor of The Atlanta Constitution. Congress may “provide assistance to Katrina's victims (much of it through handouts to business), but they will make up for it by cutting Medicare, food stamps and other programs designed to boost the most vulnerable Americans.” There is little hope that the Katrina devastation will produce “an outpouring of help for those who are barely getting by.” The right-wing “claptrap” that the poor are “lazy or stupid or undeserving” and only hurt by government programs has persuaded many Americans, but “that just isn’t so.” The promise of widespread prosperity spurred by President Bush’s tax cuts did not materialize. Poverty has grown. “If we're not going to tackle poverty again . . . so be it. But we ought to stop saying it's because trying to help the poor would only make them worse off. We ought to just come right out and tell the truth: We either lack the will to try or we simply don't care.”

http://tinyurl.com/dp7tn

11. Editorial: Do Not Cut Food Stamps When So Much Need Still Exists

(“Stamping out Hunger,” baltimoresun.com, October 17, 2005)

Baltimore is one of many other cities where rates of household food shortages have grown. A recent study of urban food stamp participation by the Food Research and Action Center found that while 22 of 25 largest urban areas had higher poverty rates than the rest of the country, only 62 percent of their residents who are eligible for food stamps participated in the program. Particularly working poor and elderly people are left out. Even as USDA seeks to encourage participation, lawmakers are pushing for cuts in food stamps based on claims of abuse or lack of need. Baltimore and other cities prove they are wrong, says this editorial in The Baltimore Sun.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept

Also see FRAC report, “Food Stamp Access in Urban America: A City-by-City Snapshot": http://www.frac.org/pdf/cities2005.pdf

12. Editorial – Virginia: Claim That Tax Cuts for Wealthy Will Help Poor is Shameless Pretense

(“Poor Priorities,” roanoke.com, October 16, 2005)

Conservative lawmakers want to cut funds for anti-poverty programs, including food stamps and Medicaid, but – ironically – profess that it is only to help the poor. Congress authorized $70 billion in tax reductions last spring on top of two tax cuts to take effect in January that will benefit the wealthiest Americans. This editorial in The Roanoke Times says, sarcastically, “Someone's going to have to pay for it. Best be the poor, who won't be creating any jobs with the food stamps they get, anyway, but only using them to stretch their wages to feed their kids.” After prior tax cuts, the economy grew, but so did the poverty rate every year since 2001. “If this program has been tried and not only failed to eradicate poverty, but actually been accompanied by its growth, is it not time to abandon tax cuts for the wealthy as a means to help the poor? Or at least to abandon that shameful pretense?”

http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/wb/wb/xp-36444

13. Editorial: Stop Reckless Tax Cuts and Reductions in Basic Programs

(“Budget Cowardice in the Capitol,” nytimes.com, October 13, 2005)

“Prodded by self-proclaimed budget hawks, the House speaker, Dennis Hastert, suddenly wants to up the ante in Congress' budget plan – to $50 billion from $35 billion – for five years of cuts in basic programs,” writes The New York Times. This would cut billions from foods stamps, Medicaid, and other programs. The same congressmen who approved President Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy and created “mammoth debt” are trying to become “responsible budgeteers.” Wasteful revenue sources in highway and Pentagon spending bills have been identified, “like the bridge to nowhere and the inoperable anti-missile shield,” but Congress is not in a hurry to find savings there. “For a starter, the next bout of upper-bracket tax-cut extensions should be indefinitely shelved. And Congress should return to the pay-as-you-go discipline that produced the surpluses of the 1990s,” argues this editorial.

http://tinyurl.com/asget (cost is $3.95)

Free access to this story available at http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/oped/ci_3116405

14. Maine: Advocates, State Spokesman Oppose Food Stamp Cuts

(“Food-Stamp Cutbacks Are Feared,” seacoastonline.com, October 12, 2005)

Portsmouth’s workers who fight hunger are worried about proposed cuts to the Food Stamp Program. "Food stamps is a government program that works, so if they’re cut, it’s bad for kids," said Denise Wheeler, of the local Share Our Strength organization. Research shows children who receive food through public assistance are healthier and do better in school. "What does it say about our country when it cuts funding to families in need? It’s not about food or money; it’s about politics," Wheeler noted. Maine Health and Human Services spokesman Mike Norton stressed that food stamp cuts could mean more work for the states, more money spent, and more hardship for people who no longer are eligible. "If you are trying to get (people) back on their feet, food stamps is the first step," said Norton. "Any major change in the basic safety net would impact them."

15. Op-Ed – Maine Congressman: Making Poor Pay for Tax Cuts for Affluent is Wrong

(“A Matter of Priorities,” villagesoup.com, October 16, 2005)

“It has seemed that the priority of Washington leaders is to cut taxes mostly for the wealthiest, causing the national debt to get bigger and bigger,” writes Maine Congressman Michael Michaud, who helped write budgets for 22 years in the Maine Legislature. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert would like to amend the FY 2006 budget resolution to include mandatory cuts in programs of $50 billion in order to offset the cost of the Gulf Coast recovery. These cuts threaten social programs helping low-income Americans. “How can we help a devastated region by cutting the very programs that many of its residents will rely on?” asks Michaud. “Now is not the time to cut Medicaid, food stamps or other important social programs . . . . [P]aying for Katrina on the backs of the poorest people in America and the very people who have already been victims of the storm is wrong.”

http://www.villagesoup.com/guestcolumns/story.cfm?storyID=62164

16. Editorial – Maryland: President Bush and Congress Should Abandon Tax Cuts for Rich and Food Stamp Cuts for Poor

(Spoiling the Poor,” baltimoresun.com, October 12, 2005)

There is “an enormous disconnect” between the needs of the storm-devastated Gulf areas and the desire of Republicans in Congress to cut programs for low-income people while pushing tax cuts for the rich, argues The Baltimore Sun. The idea that giving a tax break to affluent taxpayers will produce jobs in the Gulf region is “more than highly suspect.” Moreover, the Bush administration’s plan to cut $600 million from the Food Stamp Program, even though “food stamps have been especially valuable to hurricane victims,” is wrong. “Mr. Bush and those Congressional Republicans who would spare the rich while trying to wring more savings from programs that serve low-income people should imagine themselves homeless, jobless and hungry – and just say no,” urges this editorial.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-ed.katrina12oct12,1,7525330.story

17. Editorial: “Bush Must Keep His Promise to America of Bold Sction to Address Poverty”

(“Bush Must Back up Words,” jsonline.com, October 12, 2005)

A new report from the Brookings Institution shows that Milwaukee and some other big cities are similar to New Orleans in terms of their concentration of poverty. This report serves as a reminder of President Bush’s promise to take “bold action” in the war on poverty in his speech from New Orleans a month ago. His promise has yet to be fulfilled. “The president must make his word good and present a bold anti-poverty strategy to Congress. His chief tactic to date – tax cuts mainly for the wealthy – has not worked. The ranks of the poor have widened under that policy,” writes Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel. Moreover, “cruelly, Congress is talking of moving in the opposite direction, cutting programs for the poor to pay for hurricane relief.”

http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/oct05/362635.asp

18. Soft Drinks in Schools: Beverage Industry to Promote Its New Plan

(“Sugary-Beverage Industry to Fire Back With Ads,” statesman.com, October 13, 2005)

The beverage industry will soon start a multi-million dollar ad campaign to publicize its new policy on soft drink sales in school vending machines. Pilot TV commercials will feature parents talking about the policy. Susan Neely, president of the American Beverage Association (ABA), said that the ads are designed to raise awareness about the industry's efforts "to contribute to the larger societal challenge" of childhood obesity. This year, many state legislatures considered, and in some cases passed, legislation banning or restricting soft drink sales in schools. The new ABA policy allows diet soft drinks in middle schools, and up to 50 percent of vending slots in high schools to have carbonated soft drinks. The Center for Science in the Public Interest urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to require the beverage industry to put a health warning on sweet carbonated soft drinks. “Neely is no stranger to issue campaigns,” reads this Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s story. “She is best known as creator of the "Harry and Louise" ads that helped kill President Clinton's health care plan a little more than a decade ago. Neely pressured beverage industry leaders to adopt a voluntary policy to try to head off stricter government regulations.

http://tinyurl.com/bu4so

19. “5 A Day” Fruit and Vegetable Advertising Dwarfed By Beverage, Candy, Restaurant Ads

(“Out of Balance: Marketing of Soda, Candy, Snacks and Fast Foods Drowns Out Healthful Messages,” consumersunion.org, September, 2005)

Healthful dietary messages from government, parents, and others are barely audible next to the barrage of food and beverage commercial advertising, according to a new report by Consumers Union and the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network (CPEHN). In 2004, the food, beverage, and restaurant industries spent $11.26 billion on advertising compared to the $9.55 million spent on communications for the federal and California Five A Day campaigns to encourage eating five or more servings of fruit and vegetables daily. Although the Five A Day programs have had some success since a 1998 pilot in California, 64 percent of Americans are still unaware of the importance of eating five servings of fruits and vegetables daily. Ellen Wu of CPEHN says, “The imbalance in advertising between healthful and unhealthful messages must be addressed if we hope to stem the obesity epidemic hitting communities of color with particular force.”

http://www.consumersunion.org/pdf/OutofBalance.pdf (report)

http://www.consumersunion.org/cgi-bin/db-mt/mt-view.cgi/1/entry/2657/print_entry (press release)

20. Op-Ed: Time to Launch Multi-Year Campaign to End Poverty in California

(“California Can Afford a Renewed Effort to Fight Poverty,” mercurynews.com, October 7, 2005)

“The time has come to launch a sustained, systematic and serious campaign to end poverty in California” by building on the support and generosity of spirit from all sectors of society in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, write Assemblywoman Sally Lieber (D-San Jose), the Assembly chair for the Joint Committee on the Status of Ending Poverty in California, and Steve Phillips, the president of California-based PowerPAC.org. California generates more than $1.2 trillion in wealth every year, yet millions of Californians live like the poorest victims of Katrina. “The California dream of a home of our own, a college education for our children, and a doctor who will take care of our family has slipped away for far too many of us. We are rapidly approaching the point where we will have two societies – one for the rich and one for the rest of us.” To examine the needs of residents living in poverty, the Legislature's Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan to End Poverty in California held a series of hearings throughout the state during the past two years. As the first step, the Committee has proposed legislation to increase the state's minimum wage, but “the work needs to continue and expand,” argue Lieber and Phillips.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/12841175.htm

21. Editorial – California: Governor’s Wife Should Look at Poverty in California, Not Virginia

(“Psst, Maria: Want to help the poor? Talk to Arnold,” sacbee.com, October 17, 2005)

California’s first lady, Maria Shriver, traveled to Virginia and Kentucky to interview families living in poverty for the “Oprah” show. While she was learning about poverty from a Virginia woman grocery shopping with food stamps, she might have done better to stay home to learn about food stamps. Unlike Virginia, California still requires fingerprinting for food stamp applicants. Californians who receive food stamps have to apply for this assistance every three months instead of the typical twice-a-year requirement elsewhere. Both requirements contribute to low food stamp use in California. “Did the first lady know that her husband vetoed a bill that would have jettisoned the humiliating and error-prone finger imaging?” asks this editorial in The Sacramento Bee. “The next time the first lady wants to interview poor people, she can stay at home. She might even want to invite her husband to go with her.”

http://www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/13727993p-14570863c.html

For news tips, suggestions, comments, contact Olga Doty at odoty@frac.org

Subscribe to the weekly FRAC News Digest