1. News Release Calls for Specific Action in Next Stimulus Package
(Iowapolitics.com, May 28, 2008)

Temporary increasing food stamp benefits, along with expanded unemployment insurance benefits, are the two most effective ways of boosting the sagging economy, according to the Iowa Citizen Action Network (ICAN). The group was one of 20 organizations calling for “initiatives that provide real and sustainable economic stimulus” in a letter delivered to Iowa’s Congressional delegation. Additional package elements supported in the letter include aid to states to prevent Medicaid and SCHIP cuts, and infrastructure investments creating jobs and “critical services.” Iowans did not benefit from the last economic recovery, with incomes falling since 2001 and food and fuel prices rising. Expanded unemployment benefits will help the state’s 3.5 million residents avoid “serious hardships” when their assistance runs out at the end of the year. Increased food stamp benefits will support the increased numbers of family receiving the assistance. Food stamp benefits can be quickly added to participant EBT cards, and this money will be spent on food. Sue Dinsdale, organizer for ICAN, notes these additions are necessary because Iowans “realize that our families and our economy need more than a rebate check to ensure lasting relief,” and “…need sensible solutions and a plan to get our economy back on track.”

2. Unemployment Figures Highest in Two Decades
(The New York Times, June 7, 2008)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released figures recently showing a rise in the unemployment rate to 5.5 percent in May, as the workforce lost 49,000 jobs during the month. This monthly increase is the highest surge in two decades. Of the 8.55 million unemployed, 1.55 million have been unemployed for six months or longer. Commenting on the number, U.S. chief economist for Lehman Brothers, Ethan Harris, said “…you can’t dismiss a five-tenths of a jump in the unemployment rate, even if you figure there’s some flukiness to the data,” caused by teenagers who look for jobs in May after school gets out. “The report suggests the trends in the labor market are quite weak,” he continued. Consumer spending may weaken in light of the report. Employed Americans are under stress also, with wages barely growing while salaries shrink in light of inflation, which runs at approximately four percent a year. Hourly earnings for the past year rose only 3.5 percent.

3. Experts Forecast Food Prices Will Continue Rising to 2012
(Reuters, May 29, 2008)

Bill Lapp of Advanced Economic Solutions, a consulting firm in Omaha, Nebraska, projects that food prices will rise nine percent each year through 2012, the largest increase since 1979. Lapp’s increases are higher than USDA projected numbers, which show a five percent increase for 2008. At a telephone news conference, Lapp said “When I do that analysis and look at the relationship between that and food prices, I get a 2008-12 average annual rate of increase in the consumer price index for food of 9.0 percent.” According to USDA, food prices rose by four percent in 2007, but Lapp places it slightly higher with an increase of 4.9 percent. His initial forecast for 2008 was 7.5 percent. At the teleconference, former USDA chief economist Keith Collins noted “There is virtually no cushion” to offset a poor harvest. Currently, American spending on food (groceries, snacks, and restaurants) totals more than $1 trillion a year.

4. Significant Numbers of American Homeowners Facing Mortgage Problems
(The New York Times, June 6, 2008)

According to a report recently released by the Mortgage Bankers Association, one in eleven American homeowners with a mortgage either faced foreclosure in the first three months of 2008, or fell behind in their payments during the same period. An indicator of the collapsed housing market, the figure is also the highest rate of foreclosures and late payments since 1979. Owners who took out subprime loans suffered the worst, but many other mortgage borrowers have had problems. Eighty-nine percent of foreclosures were centered in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada, with subprime mortgages representing 39 percent of foreclosures.

5. Hunger Growing in Ohio Suburbs
(Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 2, 2008)

Northeast Ohio’s suburban families have turned to government programs like food stamps as well as food banks due to the “harsh economy.” Statewide, more people are on food stamps now than since 1994, when welfare reform began moving people off assistance, and the number of children receiving free and reduced-price lunch has increased. According to Joseph Gauntner, director of Cuyahoga County Employment and Family Services, poverty is growing significantly among suburban residents. Even Amish families are visiting food banks as their usual self-sufficiency is strained by the cost of food and fuel. Area assistance providers say that more and more people are living paycheck to paycheck, with many just two paychecks away from hunger. While many of these families “never dreamed of needing assistance,” Julie King, executive director of the United Way of Medina County, said “We have to let people know that there is not judgment …. They need to keep food on the table and a roof over their kids’ heads.”

6. Rural Pennsylvania Provides Look Into Americans’ Needs and Federal Reponsibility
(PR Newswire, May 30, 2008)

Manufacturing job losses brought an unusual amount of national attention to a small town in rural Pennsylvania during the presidential primary, and this release investigates the numbers behind the news. Asking “Is the economy of small-town and rural Pennsylvania depressed?” the piece notes that the answer is complex and lacks a simple answer. Economists from the Keystone Research Center (KRC) say that for 15 years, rural job growth exceeded urban job growth, with population growth following the same division; “That runs counter to what most people believe,” said KRC economist Mark Price. And KRC economist Stephen Herzenberg notes “Since the late 1980’s, the unemployment rate in rural Pennsylvania has gradually fallen towards the same rate as in urban Pennsylvania.” The bad news:

the region “has not recovered the economic ground it lost in the 1980’s;
decreases in rural wages and income require urban Pennsylvania to help out through government programs like food stamps and Social Security;
rural areas are affected harder by disappearing employer-provided pension and health benefits.

But the gap between the richest and poorest in rural Penn. is not as great as in the urban areas. This “smaller income gap can lead to a common interest in economic policies that benefit people across the spectrum,” and lead rural residents to feel more “in it together” than urban residents.

7. Food Stamp Numbers Rise as Welfare Numbers Fall
(The Coloradoan, June 1, 2008)

Food Stamp numbers in Colorado’s Larimer County have risen along with the poverty rate, although Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) numbers have dropped 69 percent since 2003. Food stamp average monthly participation for households over the same period rose 21 percent. And between 2000 and 2006, Census Bureau data reveals that, in the Fort Collins area, the number of residents living in poverty rose 62 percent; research also indicates a 14.8 percent drop in the city’s median household income. According to Ella Gifford-Hawkins, , manager of the Larimer County Works program, the amount of time and energy that goes into staying enrolled in the program makes the program overly burdensome for many low-income residents. The downward trend in TANF is “not surprising,” according to Ginny Riley, director of the Larimer County Department of Human Services, who noted that the numbers have been falling statewide.

8. Technology Eases Food Stamp Application Process
(Watertown Daily Times, June 6, 2008; News10Now.com, June 5, 2008)

More New York counties are making it easier for residents to apply for food stamps by offering the application process online. Jefferson County offered the first online access and ten other counties will go online in the fall. Jennifer Lambert was the first state resident to apply online for food stamps at the North County Children’s Clinic last week. Personal computers still cannot be used to apply, but state agencies are providing staff assistance at their locations, and the state is working to make the application available on all home computers with internet access within a year. It’s estimated that 5,000 to 6,000 households in the state are eligible for food stamps but have not applied; offering the online process is one way of helping decrease those numbers. Application stations at local workplaces are planned in order to help low-income working families apply without having to take time off from work; evening appointments for assistance are also being planned. Food stamp outreach efforts are also focused on senior citizens – approximately 1,600 in all – who applied for Home Energy Assistance Program benefits, as they may also be eligible for food stamps. Residents can also determine their eligibility for benefits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and free and reduced-price school lunch through the online “myBenefits” service recently launched by the state.

9. Food Desert Gets New Farmers’ Market
(San Jose Mercury News, May 30, 2008)

Residents in East Palo Alto, California, can now spend their food stamp dollars on fresh vegetables and other healthy foods at the area’s first certified farmers’ market. Market organizers hope easier access to nutritious foods will help change diets and improve the health of East Palo Alto school children, 28 percent of whom are overweight. The town has not had a grocery store for twenty years, and most residents have had to drive out of town to shop for food. The city council and a number of churches have tried to interest supermarket developers to open a store in the area since 1970. Vendors at the new farmers’ market accept EBT cards, and offer a wide variety of foods, including yams, okra, black-eyed peas, cilantro and peppers. In addition, organizers worked with the market to make sure prices are reasonable.

10. State Aims to Increase Food Stamp Use
(Clanton Advertiser, June 2, 2008)

About 400,000 Alabama residents who could benefit from food stamps have not signed up for the program, according to Marilyn Colson, director of Chilton County Department of Human Resources. Many of these people are not aware they qualify, and the state is beginning an outreach campaign to sign them up. In spite of the high number of possible participants who haven’t enrolled, the state saw food stamp participation increase every month since the start of 2008. "Food stamps have a wonderful economic impact on the state," Colson said. "We want to get food to people who need it." The article ends with a link to the USDA food stamp eligibility calculator, which can tell people whether or not they may be eligible for assistance.

11. Food Banks Struggle To Serve Community
(WIVT/WBGH, June 2, 2008)

As more families are forced to make the choice between buying gas for their cars or buying food, increasing numbers are turning to food banks and pantries for help. Now those pantries in Binghamton, New York are running low on food due to the increased demand. The area’s Catholic Charities organization has seen a 20 percent rise in the number of people requesting assistance from their food banks. Steep food prices are blamed as the main culprit, and as schools let out for the summer, families, some of whom used to be food bank donors, are faced with feeding children who usually get fed through school lunch programs. Catholic Charities currently does not have restrictions on the amount of food a family can pick up per visit, but may have to institute them if the numbers seeking help continue to rise.
(Contact news outlet for text of story.)

12. Editorial Explains Link Between Hunger and Obesity in Children
(Kansascity.com, May 30, 2008)

“We usually think of a hungry child as an underweight child,” writes Laura Scott in this editorial. But “…lower-income children do not regularly get nutritional food, particularly fresh fruit and vegetables, because their families cannot afford these items,” she adds, citing research information from nutritionist Susan Roberts, director of the Food and Society Policy Fellows Program at the Thomas Jefferson Agricultural Institute in Ankeny, Iowa, that shows higher rates of overweight children in low-income families. “Overweight…is a sign of eating the wrong things and lack of exercise,” Scott explains. Exercise is typically unavailable for many low-income children, who live in neighborhoods where their parents feel it’s unsafe to let them play outside. Lack of access to grocery stores carrying healthy foods contributes to the problem, with convenience stores the only grocery outlets in these urban “food deserts,” where the most affordable food is also high in calories and fat. Rural areas also suffer, as families there must travel far to supermarkets, and may even lack transportation to get there.

13. Illinois Schools Boost Breakfast Participation
(Southtown Star, June 1, 2008)

Illinois – the lowest state in FRAC’s 2007 survey on school breakfast participation – has implemented policies to get more children eating breakfast at school. Cook County School District raised their school breakfast participation to 80 percent of students by offering in-classroom breakfast instead of serving it before classes start in the cafeteria. Most of the participating students qualify for a free meal according to federal poverty guidelines, and serving breakfast during the first 10 minutes of class “reduces the stigma for kids – that only poor kids get a free breakfast before school,” according to FRAC policy analyst Madeleine Levin, quoted in this article. The 10-school district has also reduced the amount of wasted food. The state has implemented policies to increase participation, offering additional reimbursements to school districts that can show measured, increased growth. The state’s incentives are encouraging, according to Levin. School superintendent Mike Korsak said that, while it’s too soon to see if test scores are up because more kids are eating breakfast, “because of the breakfast programs…kids are getting to school on time.”

14. School Break Means Summer Meals for Children
(Las Cruces Sun-News, June 1, 2008)

Children from low-income families who count on school breakfasts and lunches throughout the school year can still receive nutritious meals from the city of Las Cruces summer food program. Organizers provide approximately 1,600 meals each day, and plan on adding an additional 1,000 meals as the summer continues. The federal program, serving no-cost breakfasts and lunches to children under 18 at various locations through July, is a joint project of the Las Cruces Public Schools, Gadsden Independent School District, Families and Youth, Inc. as well as the city of Las Cruces itself. Activities at the summer food locations - recreation centers and city pools – provided a positive youth environment in addition to the meals. For some participants, “this meal is the only balanced, nutritious meal these kids get all day,” according to Christina Rey, program director for Families and Youth, Inc.

15. WIC Participation Climbs in West Virginia
(Charleston Gazette, June 1, 2008)

Better outreach combined with the current economic slump are cited as reasons for increased WIC participation numbers in West Virginia. April’s projected participation number shows that 51,980 mothers and their children receiving the program’s benefits – up from March’s total of 51,118. Denise Ferris, director of the state’s Office of Nutritional Services, said her staff has been working to increase awareness of the program, which before now has been marketed by “word of mouth.” But she also noted that increased consumer prices have contributed to the upswing in participation. “I think people are seeing increased costs at every turn,” she said.

Subscribe to FRAC's News Digest | News Digest Archives | www.frac.org