FOOD INSECURITY AND HUNGER IN THE WAKE OF WELFARE REFORM

A number of recent studies¹ highlight continuing unacceptable levels of hunger and "food insecurity"² in the wake of welfare reform. Even as many families move off assistance and into the workforce, low wages and unstable employment leave many of them without adequate access to food. At the same time, emergency food providers report continued long lines and requests for food, particularly among working families and households with children. The following are key food insecurity/hunger findings from recent welfare reform and emergency food studies. While some of these data are from 1997 before federal welfare law was fully implemented, they reflect both the beginning of implementation and, in a number of states, fuller implementation of work demonstration projects that were approved before 1996.

National/Multi-State Studies of Hunger/Food Security

The Urban Institute's "Snapshots of America's Families,"³ based on over 44,000 interviews, found that nearly half of low-income families (with family incomes below two times the federal poverty line) reported in 1997 that the food they bought ran out before they got money to buy more, or they worried the food would run out, or adults ate less or skipped meals because there wasn't enough money for food. Four out of five of these families with food problems reported suffering actual food shortages; one out of five worried about shortages. More children than adults lived in families that worried about or had trouble affording food, so that 54 percent of low-income children experienced the problem. In the 13 states studied, the percentage of low-income children experiencing the problem ranged from 47 percent in Wisconsin to 60 percent in Texas. (Alabama—53%; California—59%; Colorado—55%; Florida—55%; Massachusetts—55%; Michigan—52%; Minnesota—50%; Mississippi—57%; New Jersey—55%; New York— 57%; Texas—60%; Washington—54%; Wisconsin—47%).

In a 1997 study of families no longer receiving TANF assistance in ten large states4 (California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas), 36 percent of families surveyed reported that their children were eating less or skipping meals due to cost.

National Studies of Emergency Food Requests

Seventy-eight percent of cities surveyed in the United States Conference of Mayors' Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness in American Cities,5 1998, reported increases in requests for emergency food in 1998; on average, demand for emergency food increased by 14 percent. Eighty-four percent of cities surveyed reported increased demand for emergency food among families with children. Thirty-seven percent of persons requesting emergency food assistance were employed.

Second Harvest National Food Bank's study of emergency food clients in 19976 found more than one in eight persons requesting emergency food had been cut from cash assistance in the prior two years. Nearly 40 percent of client households had one or more adults working.

State Studies

Wisconsin

A recent study of TANF leavers7 under Wisconsin's W-2 program found that more than one-third of former welfare recipients had problems paying for food, despite a high incidence of employment among former recipients. Fewer than half of the former recipients reported having more money than when they were receiving cash assistance; 68 percent reported that they were "barely making it."

South Carolina

A South Carolina Department of Social Services survey8 found 17 percent of former welfare recipients having had no way to buy food some of the time since leaving TANF. This is twice as many families as reported such difficulties while receiving cash assistance.

Massachusetts

A 1998 statewide study by Project Bread and the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Tufts University9 found that 35 percent of emergency food clients are children. Forty-nine percent of emergency food providers saw an increase in need among families with children over the previous year. Twenty-seven percent of adults requesting emergency food assistance were employed.

New Jersey

A survey by the New Jersey Statewide Emergency Food Assistance Network10 found a substantial increase in demand for emergency food between 1996 and 1997 despite a booming economy and an unprecedented low unemployment rate.

Virginia

A survey of emergency food providers in Virginia11 found that half the people relying on food pantries and soup kitchens had held a job in the past six months. The survey found that over 60 percent of persons requesting emergency food were receiving no food stamp assistance and over 85 percent were receiving no TANF assistance.

Michigan

A small state study in Michigan12 found that 27 percent of persons cut from the TANF program for failure to comply with work requirements had a problem providing adequate food for their families.

¹ Additional information on many of the studies cited in this paper and additional welfare reform studies can be found in Welfare to What? Early Findings on Family Hardship and Well-Being, Children's Defense Fund and National Coalition for the Homeless, November 1998.