New Report: 1 in 5 Texas Households Can’t Afford Enough Food

[TexasTowelie]

A new report released this week by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) has revealed new insight into levels of food insecurity in the United States–and the results aren’t pretty.

The report looked at hundreds of thousands of American households’ responses to a single question posed by Gallup: “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?” FRAC calls this struggle “food hardship,” and found that “Seventeen percent of surveyed households in 2014 answered ‘Yes’” to experiencing food hardship”–that translates to 1 in 6 households struggling to afford enough food nationwide. This rate isn’t just nationally, but is also in 23 states and 72 of 100 large Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).

Unsurprisingly, Texas’ rate is even worse than the national average. Texas ranks in the top 20 states with the worst rates of food hardship, with a rate of 18.4%. That means nearly 1 in 5 Texas households could not consistently afford enough food to eat in 2014. These rates were even higher in almost all of Texas major metropolitan areas, with San Antonio facing the highest rates of food hardship:

San Antonio metro – 21.3%
Dallas-Fort Worth – 18.8%
Houston metro – 18.7%
Austin metro – 15.7%

Last November, a study from Feeding Texas found that millions of Texans are forced to choose between paying for food and other necessities, such as healthcare, utilities, and transportation. With this latest report from FRAC, it’s evident that even when Texans are choosing to use their incomes for food, they are still struggling to buy enough to feed their families.

Read more: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/29973/texas-households-cant-afford-food

[yeoman6987]

1. Get rid of the word supplemental in the name

I argued with an idiot on Facebook who said that the food stamp is a supplemental program that was not meant to feed them every meal for 30 days. I said they don't get near enough to represent 3 meals a day for 30 days. We need to double the allowance at least. Oh Lord was I in trouble for using allowance. They said allowance? We are providing them more then an allowance. An allowance is something you give for extra money not provide a roof over their head, cheap heat and electricity, food, phone and money. Finally I gave up because it wasn't worth it because he will not change.

[Downwinder]

2. Allowance fits SSI.

You are allowed to receive a set amount. Anything above that from other sources they take back.

Edit to add: It fits any means tested program. You are allowed to have so much, any more means you lose support.

[Gothmog]

3. This does not surprise me

The Tea Party is in control of the Texas legislature and these people are mean and vindictive. The Texas tea party/gop have cut every program that they could so as to make life for the poor as miserable as possible