The Weekly Food Research and Action Center 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. Summer Nutrition Programs Continue to Fall Short in Reaching Eligible Children
(Youth Today, July 31, 2008)

Youth Today featured FRAC’s 2008 summer nutrition report, “Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation” in their online update. According to FRAC, the summer nutrition programs were feeding fewer than one in five eligible children in July 2007. The story featured quotes from FRAC President Jim Weill and a chart showing 2007’s top ten and bottom ten participating states (ratio of children in summer nutrition programs per 100 children receiving school lunch during the regular school year.) Boosting participation in the program would bring an estimated $222 million in federal reimbursements to states – particularly useful for low-participating states like Alaska (6.3 students receiving summer meals per 100 children receiving school lunch during the regular school year), Mississippi (5.0 children), and Oklahoma (4.9 children).
Link to report: http://frac.org/pdf/summer_report_2008.pdf

2. Food Stamps are First Line in Maryland’s Defense Against Hunger
(The Washington Post, August 3, 2008)

With the average cost of food continuing to rise, Maryland residents living from paycheck to paycheck are in crisis mode as they spend more on gas and energy costs which are rising too. In this commentary, Maryland Hunger Solutions Director Kimberley Chin and Kevin McGuire, executive director of the Family Investment Administration, Maryland Department of Human Resources, report that close to one in 10 Maryland households battle hunger, and more Marylanders are signing up for food stamps, as enrollment has increased 13.8 percent over the past year. While food stamps are the first line of defense, the program falls short of adequately and nutritiously battling hunger. Chin and McGuire experienced firsthand the program’s shortcomings when they participated in the Food Stamp Challenge, living for a week on the average daily food dollar amount - $3 – available to food stamp recipients. “Living on such a budget,” write the commentators, “meant meals consisting of peanut butter on white bread, night after night of pasta and drinking enormous amounts of water in an effort to fend off hunger.” Families are particularly hard hit when having to create meals on such a low amount of money, with many parents eating less “so their children have more,” which “can sap the adults’ energy, making them less efficient at work and more likely to get sick.” The $10.4 billion increase in food stamp benefits in the recently-passed Farm Bill will help when the provisions go into effect October 1, and Marylanders can help by spreading the word “about the importance of food stamps and…make sure our fellow Marylanders survive the challenge of this economic downturn.”

3. McGovern Says Hunger Can Be Fought Through Two Simple Steps
(TC Daily Planet, July 30, 2008)

A “modest increase in the minimum wage” coupled with a “modest increase” in food stamp benefits are the two simple steps Congress can take to reduce hunger in America said former U.S. Senator George McGovern, speaking recently at an event hosted by Hunger Solutions Minnesota in St. Paul. These two steps could reduce by 85 percent the number of people who can’t afford food, McGovern explained. “There are still 35 million Americans who do not have enough to eat,” noted the former Senator; he also praised anti-hunger efforts by fellow former Senator Bob Dole, saying “…if you want a solution to [an] issue, you need a bi-partisan effort.” He also praised efforts in the U.S. to improve eating habits and reduce the obesity epidemic.

4. U.S. Senator Gives Voice to Constituents’ Dire Stories
(www.sanders.senate.gov, June 7, 2008)

Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders sent a request to his email list of constituents asking them how skyrocketing food and fuel prices have affected their lives. Expecting a few dozen responses, he was surprised to find his staff receiving 600 from across the state, and a few from other states. Senator Sanders compiled their responses into an online booklet, which, he feels, effectively demonstrates, “in flesh and blood terms,” what the “dry economic statistics which describe the collapse of the American middle class” means to “ordinary Americans. With median household income of working-class Americans falling by $2,500 over the last seven years, and the residents of the U.S. now having a zero personal savings rate for the first time since the Great Depression, Sen. Bernard gives voice to the individual trials of families “who…thought they were economically secure, but now find themselves sinking into desperation and hopelessness.” Such stories include:

“We have at times had to choose between baby food and heating fuel… We’ve run out of heating fuel three times so far and the baby has ended up in the hospital with pneumonia two of the times.”
“By February we ran out of wood and I burned my mother’s dining room furniture.”
“My husband and I are very nervous about what will happen to us when we are old.”
“I am just tired… I work 12 to 14 hours daily and it just doesn’t help.”
“I buy just enough to get us through the week and I can’t afford to make sure we have seven wholesome meals to eat every night of the week – some nights we eat cereal and toast for dinner because that’s all I have.”
“We would like to not have to worry about where our next meal will come from.”

5. Food Stamp Replacement Approved for Hurricane-Damaged Texas
(KRGV News Channel 5, July 29, 2008)

Food stamp families affected by Hurricane Dolly in a number of Texas counties (Brooks, Cameron, Jim Hogg, Willacy) as well as the Weslasco area can have a portion of their food stamps replaced by the state’s Health and Human Services Commission. USDA approved Texas’ request to put the Disaster Food Stamp Program into effect in the wake of the hurricane, and additional time has been allotted for food stamp recipients to apply for replacement benefits. USDA also extended the time from 10 to 20 days for recipients in other Texas areas to report hurricane-related food loss and receive replacement benefits.

6. Summer Slide More Damaging for Low-Income Children
(InsideBayArea.com, July 16, 2008)

The achievement gap between well-off and low-income children peaks during the summer, when children forget the math and reading skills they acquired during the school year. Termed “summer slide,” it’s a phenomenon in which “…the rich get richer and the poor get poorer… There's no other time of year where inequality is greater then the summer, and it has a huge impact on the achievement gap,” said Ron Fairchild, executive director of the Center for Summer Learning at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Low-income children, who can receive free and reduced-price school meals, one-on-one tutoring, and afterschool programs during the regular school year, often face the summer months with few resources to carry them through. Children from more affluent families can take advantage of academic enrichment camps – part of a “new world” of businesses providing academic opportunities during the summer months – and buck the research trends showing the loss of reading and math skills among children not involved in summer programs. It’s a cumulative effect, devastating to children over the years, according to Johns Hopkins sociology professor Karl Alexander.

7. Utah Sees Rise in Summer Food Participation
(The Salt Lake Tribune, July 21, 2008)

The Salt Lake City School District served 10 percent more lunches this summer than last, and the Ogden City School District served 10 to 12 percent more during June 2008 than in June 2007. High food and fuel prices are forcing many parents, including Britney Visser, who used to fix lunch for her children in the past summers, to take their children to summer food locations, where, according to Visser “I know…they’ll eat healthier because I can’t afford healthy food at home.” Kathy Iverson, Salt Lake district’s nutrition manager, helped hand out lunches at Liberty Park and said “A lot of people really need it at this point with the economy the way it is,” and noted that some children line up at the park a half hour before lunch is served and that some seem overly hungry. “For some of the kids here,” Iverson said, “this might be the only meal they’re getting.”

8. Summer Programs Cutback Because of Economy
(Minneapolis Star-Tribune, July 14, 2008)

Summer learning programs for low-income children – many of which include free or low-cost meals – are experiencing economy-related cutbacks across the country. Children are in danger of losing academic skills during the “summer slide,” particularly in Florida and California where budget cuts have been most pronounced. California’s cuts prompted a strong bipartisan debate, with Democrats blaming Republican leaders for fiscal policies that forced the cuts, “…which will cost us more in the long run than we could ever save short term,” said Democrat state Sen. Darrell Steinberg. Florida’s Brevard County cut $1.8 million from their summer programs, including the important transportation component, negatively affecting low-income families disproportionately; students are now forced to find their own way to summer classes. The County’s free summer enrichment programs – which served 1,700 children last year – were also cut. Other programs cut across the country include a kindergarten summer program in Bethel, Conn., and summer school classes in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

9. Schools Targeted to Offer Free Breakfast
(Atlanta Journal-Constitution, July 30, 2008; Herald-Mail, July 31, 2008)

Fulton County, Georgia schools not meeting yearly progress targets or evaluated as “needs improvement” offer free breakfast to help students focus on their classroom studies. Parents and students who are interested in participating in the four-year-old program aren’t required to fill out forms – all that’s required is the children show up to school during the regularly scheduled breakfast hour.

Maryland’s Washington County will begin offering free breakfast to all students in 17 of the county’s public schools starting this fall, through the Maryland Meals for Achievement (MMFA) program. Across the state, more than 200 schools will participate in the program, which will utilize $3 million in state funds to pay for the breakfasts. The top five counties for schools participating in MMFA are Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Montgomery, and Prince George’s, with Washington County occupying the fifth slot. State law requires that, for a school to qualify for the MMFA program, 40 percent of its students must be eligible for free and reduced price lunch.

10. Teens Find Summer Jobs Hard to Come By
(Christian Science Monitor, July 18, 2008)

Facing competition in the job market from unemployed adults applying for the summer jobs that usually went to them, teens are currently unemployed at record rates. The sluggish economy is contributing to the June teen unemployment rate of 18.7 percent, the highest since 2002. The current teen employment rate is the lowest it has been in 60 years – 37.1 percent, 2.5 percentage points lower than the year before and 14.3 percent lower than the peak in the 1990s. Economic downturns are usually tough times for teens looking for work, “because they are the first people to get fired and the last to get hired,” said Harry Holzer, a labor-market studies professor at Georgetown University. What makes these low statistics unusual is that they come “on top of a long-term trend that was already fairly negative,” Holzer added. He said the trend “is hitting low-income and minority teenagers especially hard.” The federal government cut back its summer employment program in 2000, with a fraction of job slots open than in years past and many more teens applying for positions. City officials across the country are concerned that teen violence might rise with so many teenagers left with nothing to do, and labor economic experts are worried are future employability of these teens, who aren’t getting the experience in the workforce now. Said Holzer: “If kids don’t get jobs…they don’t get job experience, training, and they are more likely to stay in mediocre jobs their whole life.”

11. City Council Attempts Fast Food Ban in South LA
(Los Angeles Times, June 30, 2008)

In a move to encourage businesses serving healthier foods to move into South LA, the Los Angeles City Council approved a one-year ban on fast-food restaurants from opening in the city’s impoverished area. Fast food companies say they’re being unfairly targeted, and asserted that they now offer healthy food choices as well as provide valuable jobs. The ban would cover 32 square miles, with a population of 500,000 residents, and would give the city enough time to develop incentives and craft zonings rules for sit-down restaurants to move into the area; businesses intent on opening fast food establishments can apply for a “hardship exemption” to open during the moratorium, which could last up to two years.

12. GAO Criticizes Labor Department for “Dropping the Ball” on Minimum-Wage Labor Violations
(The New York Times, July 15, 2008)

The U.S. Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division was criticized by the General Accountability Office (GAO) for a significant drop in numbers of labor enforcement actions it takes each year. In 2007 the Wage Division pursued 29,584 enforcement actions, a 37 percent decrease from 1997’s 46,758 actions. GAO is also critical of the Wage Division’s mishandling of overtime and minimum-wage complaints as hundreds of cases have been delayed by a year or more. In one case, a homeless woman who worked in an assisted living facility did not get paid for more than a year; the employer claimed the employee got room and board and said the facility was so economically troubled that it couldn’t pay the $4,500 in back wages the Division found was owed to the woman. The Division investigator dropped the case, but the GAO pointed out in its report that the company is still in business today. The GAO also had recommended a decade ago that the Division switch its focus to low-wage industries where this kind of abuse is common, yet the Division continued to focus on the same industries in 2007 as it had in 1997. An upcoming House Education and Labor Committee hearing will be the forum for GAO’s release of its report; Representative George Miller (D-CA), committee chair, states in his prepared remarks “Although the Department of Labor currently has the necessary tools to fight wage theft, the GAO investigation suggests that the problem of wage theft is only getting worse because of weaker enforcement.” The Wage and Hour Division claims their numbers are down because of more efficient complaint screening which eliminates non-violations, and that back wages collected through their investigations rose from close to $97 million in 1997 to more than $220 million in 2007, representing 341,624 employees receiving back wages in 2007 (up from 189,244 in 1997.)

13. Working Poor Hit Hard by Day Care Funding Cuts
(Newsday, July 14, 2008)

While demand for subsidized day care spiked, New York’s Suffolk County Department of Social Services stopped enrollment in its program for the working poor, sending waiting list registration forms to at least 85 families. Families unable to enroll include single mother Fran Falkowski, who needed help paying the $150 child care cost for her daughter. Making $300 a week as an animal shelter caretaker, Falkowski said “When I found out…I was completely at a loss… I can't afford the day care." Funds are tighter at the state’s Office of Children and Family Services. The Suffolk County program is hit hard as more families are seeking subsidized child care services at the same time costs for those services are skyrocketing. The number of children in the program rose 10 percent during 2008’s first quarter as compared to the same time in 2007, with the average cost of a child care voucher rising 14 percent since 2006. One child care operator in the area, Nancy Picart, said of the cuts “The working poor won’t be able to afford it. Between the weak economy, the lack of jobs, the lack of money for gas, this is the worst possible time that something like this could have happened.”

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