Food Stamps Buy Less; Families Are Hit Hard

[UpInArms]

Source: New York Times

<snip>

Ms. Johnson, 44, who works in customer service for a medical firm, knows that buying food this way is not healthy, but she sees no other choice if she wants to feed herself and her 1-year-old niece Ammni Harris and 2-year-old nephew Tramier Harris, who live with her.

“I live paycheck to paycheck,” said Ms. Johnson, as she walked out of a market near her home in Hackensack, N.J., pushing both Ammni and the week’s groceries in a shopping cart. “And we’re not coping.”

The sharp rise in food prices is being felt acutely by poor families on food stamps, the federal food assistance program.

In the past year, the cost of food for what the government considers a minimum nutritional diet has risen 7.2 percent nationwide. It is on track to become the largest increase since 1989, according to April data, the most recent numbers, from the United States Department of Agriculture. The prices of certain staples have risen even more. The cost of eggs, for example, has increased nearly 20 percent, and the price of milk and other dairy products has risen 10 percent.

<snip>

The more than one million New Yorkers on food stamps receive on average $107 a month in assistance, which is slightly higher than the average for the rest of the country. But it is not enough to close the gap in food costs, experts say.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/nyregion/22food.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[CoffeeCat]

1. The government is lying about food prices...

I am so sick of seeing these complete lies from "The United States Department of Agriculture" which indicate that the prices of eggs has
increased "20 percent" and "the price of milk and other dairy products has risen 10 percent."

Baloney!!!!

18 months ago, I could get a dozen eggs for under a dollar. Eggs on average, in my area (Iowa) are $1.50-$2.00 a dozen. A gallon of milk was
just under $2. Milk is now just over $3 a gallon. Don't get me started on cheese. Those 8 oz bags of shredded cheese are now near $3. I used
to be able to get them on sale for $1.25--and almost always under $1.75.

The list goes on and on. Produce prices are off the map.

I'm sure BushCo is screwing with the numbers again. I guess they want us all in shock, due to the prices--but feeling stupid because
we're making such a big deal over a lousy "10 percent increase."

Why are they lying about this?

Do they think that people like me don't know how to figure out basic percentages?

[geckosfeet]

2. It's the democratic congress - they won't give stubby shrubby what he wants.

Really, it's cause the bastard is still in office and Pelosi thinks it's some kind of victory to sign away the constitution bit by bit instead of handing it over in one piece.

[Lindsay]

3. They're lying about this

because it's what they do. They lie about everything. The corporate media quotes them. Then they cite the corporate media as The Truth in Print.

And you don't even need to be able to calculate percentages. It doesn't take a genius to know that when you're now paying $2 for what six months ago was $1, you've got a problem. Nor are we blind to the way package sizes get smaller as prices get bigger. People know; they just don't know what to do about it.

[geckosfeet]

4. There are government agencies that are supposed to protect consumers

from fraud, price fixing and gouging.

These agencies have been gutted and disabled by the shrub mis-administration.

Expect it to get worse before it gets better.

[CountAllVotes]

12. gouging is what I see

Example: I went to the store and bought a 7-1/2 oz. bag of tortilla chips. They cost $1.65.

I went back the next day to buy something else I needed and checked the price (day after the flooding) and all of the tortilla chips (same batch) were marked $2.65.

I have also noticed things like smaller amounts of whatever for more in cost.

:argh:

Can't win for * in this economy muchless eat!!

:mad:

:kick:

[kestrel91316]

14. You can AFFORD cheese????

And don't get me started on produce. They grow it all practically nextdoor, and yet I swear produce across the board is up 100-200% from a year or two ago. SERIOUSLY.

[TechBear_Seattle]

22. I don't think it is lying so much as averaging

Items that have been inexpensive in one area (like eggs in your part of Iowa) have seen a much sharper increase than in areas where prices for the same items have been high for some time (like eggs in Seattle.) Then again, to quote the incomparable Samuel Clemens, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics" so you are not too far off. :hi:

[varelse]

5. Someone is sure to weigh in soon

with advice on how this woman can grow her own vegetables in discarded soup cans, raise chickens in the bathroom, and bargain-hunt at the local farmer's markets, presumably the ones that accept food stamps.

*sigh*

[bread_and_roses]

7. yep. and how nutritious organic beans and rice with a few bitter greens can sustain life

indefinately, too. I'm guessing that you and I are on the same page when it comes to the advice given the poor for nutritious eating. I'm all for gardens, organic, non-processed food, etc. too, but the barriers to poor/low-income households eating well are mostly systemic, and I find such advice not only ludicrous but condescending.

[varelse]

10. Yup

and that's if they pay any attention at all to the poor. Either ignore poverty, or patronize and condescend to the poor seems to be the pattern :/

I love organic beans & rice with greens (especially if one of the greens is cilantro) but the fact is, even those foods are out of reach for most urban poor.

Also, gardening works better when you have space in the sun and out of reach of kids, dogs, neighbors, the city "homeless task force" and other assorted garden pests. Container gardening requires potting soil, fertilizer, a reliable source of water, shelter from extremes of temperature, and time to care for the plants. And yes, potting soil and fertiliczer are not "optional" - the dirt you dig up from the vacant lot near your rented 3rd-story apt is likely turn into sterile concrete, yielding dead seedlings and a lot of frustration, rather than bumper crops of luxury organic veggies.

[CountAllVotes]

13. try buying organic foods with food stamps

they don't allow people to buy a lot of things with food stamps, esp. WIC vouchers (if they still exist). I find this to be disgusting beyond belief!

[kestrel91316]

15. When the suggestion to grow one's own food where possible is

considered an insult, this nation is truly TOAST.

Anybody too lazy to even try, if they have a patch of ground or a patio and two hands to plant a seed with, can frickin' starve. If you try and fail, I'll pick you up any day of the week. If you need seeds, and need to borrow a spade, come see me. It's the refusal to put out the effort, and considering the use of muscles God gave you beneath your dignity, that torques my jaw.

And yes, for many years I virtually lived on beans, rice, and what vegetables and small fruits I could grow for myself. Amazing what one does to survive - actual physical WORK.

[bread_and_roses]

16. Oh, sigh. How many urban poor have "a patch of ground or a patio?" Or can afford seed, if they do?

If you are rural, the cost of seed/seedlings is still an issue if you are trying to feed a family on Food Stamps, believe me. When you're income is low enough that you qualify for Food Stamps, the cost of soap, toilet paper, become a problem, much less seed/a hoe, containers, some form of fertilizer (organic or not), some form of pest control, ditto. Nor is it a matter of laziness, as you seem to assume. There is knowlege, time, energy, as well as money at issue.

There is nothing wrong with living on beans and rice, but children raised on processed food are not going to eat it unless they are about starving. Not all at once, anyway. Besides, children have nutritional needs not easily met by such a diet. Nor should people be FORCED to live on that diet in a country of abundance, most especially those who are lucky enough to be able to find work - their profiteering employers should have to pay them enough to have food CHOICE.

Your "lazy" and "actual physical work" comments reveal your mind-set. Low income and poor people are like the rest of us - some lazy, and most not. But food insecurity is a systemic, not an individual problem, and indivduals can't solve it.

[kestrel91316]

18. "Individuals can't solve it." Well, then, DON'T EVER BOTHER TRYING.

And don't ever bother encouraging others to try, either. Just throw up your hands and say I CAN'T. There is no such thing as "I can't". There IS such a thing as "I won't bother trying". And don't even get me started on the trend to actively discourage others from trying by making up BS about how hard and time-consuming it is. Google square foot gardening, for starters.

My disgust is directed, not at the urban poor as a class, but at anyone and everyone who HAS A PATCH OF DIRT and TWO WORKING HANDS and yet bemoans the cost of food while refusing to attempt to produce their own.

BTW, before you can feed yourself you are seriously gonna have to work on your READING skills.

Americans seem to have plenty of time to watch TV and type away on the internet. They can MAKE the time to garden. Soon, they will be forced to if they wish to eat.

[bread_and_roses]

19. I am talking about systems. I don't subscribe to the idea that it is up to ME to dictate what

what other individuals SHOULD do. And if some exhausted mother at the end of the day wants to spend her time in front of the TV, I don't think that I have the right to judge her in any way.

"Disgust" at individuals solves nothing. Neither you nor I control (nor, in my ethical system, should we) how other individuals live their lives, what they eat, how they spend their food dollars, or what they do with their recreational time.

What society CAN, if it chooses, control, is whether or not employers are forced to pay their employees a wage that feeds them, and how we provide a safety net for those who lack the means to care for themselves.

There are organizations springing up to "green" city spaces with urban gardens in cooperative ventures in neighborhoods. This is a wonderful thing, and in a sane world would be subsizized all over the country with the money from a few less bombs.

They are a systems approach to a systems problem, not a demand that individuals solve the problem with personal behavior changes in a complicated world with an exponential increase in factors beyond individual control as one goes lower down the economic ladder.

[Pastiche423]

20. I have no patch of ground nor a patio

plus I am paralyzed. The building I live in is a 99 year old hotel that was renovated in the 80's to apartments. We do not have patios, nor do we have balconies.

To prevent being lazy, would you please explain how we are to grow food here?

[Trillo]

6. Working folks aren't paid enough to eat and have housing?

Then why, pray tell, are we working?

[pacalo]

25. Not when everything but the paycheck goes up.

Yearly cost-of-living raises are practically non-existent for the middle class workers, yet the cost for living within a no-frills budget continues to get more & more expensive due to upper-management corporate, anything-for-profit greed.

[bread_and_roses]

8. Meanwhile, we allow - even subsidize cheap-wage employers who tap the public till to keep their

workers alive, refusing to legislate wages that would allow a person/household to buy their own food and allowing the union-busting that keeps workers from organizing to raise their own wages to a livable level.

The public is encouraged to bash those who must use Food Stamps and other safety-net programs to live, while supporting cheap wage employers who rob the public till to enhance their own profits by sending their workers to Food Stamps, Medicaid, etc.

[rashotte]

9. kenzee13 you are DEAd on...

As union goes buh bye..wages WILL and ARE suffering...prices soar..pooor gets DIRT poor...middle class has fallen inot the poor mark...SIgh..


What shall we do?

[Lars39]

11. Welcome to DU, rashotte!

:toast:

On edit: need more:donut:

[ThePowerofWill]

17. I know it!

I have donated large sums of fresh produce from my farm to many locals having a hard time. I have even thought of allowing many to use some of my land to help grow their own food. I figured i could divide 20 acres up into 40 1/4acre plots for use next year. Kinda the teach a person to fish thing, by giving them a means to help themselves.

Whats really disgusting is some are seeing their benefits lowered. The guy across the street works but only makes like $11hr for a family of 4. He has saw his benefit decrease from $419 to $330 with the same income. It's appalling really.

[1Hippiechick]

21. And food prices are going to continue to rise due to flooding in the midwest....

[knitter4democracy]

23. It's not just food costs. It's transportation costs, too.

If you live in a smaller city or rural area, gas is costing a ton. First of all, they charge more to get it to the stations in rural areas, and then it's miles to anything. Miles that cost big bucks. If you can take the bus, more and more places are raising the rates to keep up with fuel costs. Also, if you take a bus, you can't load up on the sale stuff unless you go to the store several times a week, since you can't have more than a cart or couple of bags.

Add that to the food costs, and people are really hurting. Our farmers markets take food stamps, but you have to get on the bus or get in the car to get there. Add in higher costs at least for the meat (eggs are about the same), and it's not worth the trip.

To keep our food costs down, I shop at seven different stores in a month, one of which is half an hour away. I combine trips and put off until I have a big enough list to make it worth it, but I have a car and time to shop in. Not everyone can get to the bakery outlet on one side of town, get back on the bus (after waiting for an hour) to get to Meijers, and carry it all home in time to collapse into bed--I mean, make dinner, clean up, make sure the kids' homework is done, start a load of laundry, and then collapse into bed.

[midnight]

24. The sharp rise in everthing has put the vulnerable ,those living

pay check to paycheck, at risk.

[bread_and_roses]

26. "Turning Your Lawn into a Victory Garden Won't Save You -- "

- Fighting the Corporations Will

I didn't mean to lead anyone down the garden path. Adding my small voice to those urging Americans to replace their lawns with food plants wasn't, in itself, a bad idea. But now that food shortages and high costs are in the headlines, too many people are getting the idea that the solution to America's and the world's food problems is for all of us in cities and suburbia to grow our own. It's not.

Don't get me wrong: Growing food just outside your front or back door is an extraordinarily good idea, and if it's done without soil erosion or toxic chemicals, I can think of no downside. Edible landscaping can look good, and it saves money on groceries; it's a direct provocation to the toxic lawn culture; gardening is quieter and less polluting than running a power mower or other contraption; the harvest provides a substitute for industrially grown produce raised and picked by underpaid, oversprayed workers; and tending a garden takes a lot of time, time that might otherwise be spent in a supermarket or shopping mall.

...I've played a part in the promotion of domestic food-growing, and I now I seem to hear daily from people who believe that it's the best alternative to industrial agriculture (as in, "I'll show Monsanto and Wal-Mart that I don't need their food!"). Even though most prominent home-lot food efforts, like the "100-Foot Diet Challenge," also try to draw attention to bigger issues, the wider message can get lost in the excitement. Whatever its benefits, replacing your lawn with food plants will not give Big Agribusiness the big poke in the eye that it needs, nor will it save the agricultural landscapes of the nation or world.

I am reminded of the anti-smoking and second-hand smoke campaigns, which, howerver worthy in themselves, seemed to have sucked all the life out of the clean-air movement. One can see mothers waiting for the bus on an urban sidewalk, glaring at the occasional smoker and snatching their child out of his/her way, while they suck up exhaust from the endless cars driving by....

With land and wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands (and with more prisoners than farmers in today's America) we have actually reached a point at which land reform is as necessary here as it is in any nation of Latin America or Asia. Only when we get more people back on the land, working to feed people and not Monsanto, will the system have a chance to work. Most home gardeners know that the root of the problem is political, but the agricultural establishment would like nothing better than to see us spend all of our free time in our gardens and not in political dissent.

(emphasis added)
http://www.alternet.org/environment/86943/
(edit to add link)