Last year, a number of staff here at The Women’s Foundation participated in the Food Stamp Challenge–living for a week on the food budget allocated to individuals on food stamps–generally about $1 per meal per person.
A year ago, our staffers and others participating in the challenge found it extremely, well, challenging. (For more of our staff blogs on the challenge, click here.)
Almost a full year later, though, the challenge of living on food stamps has become even more difficult, as Chris Jenkins outlines in yesterday’s Washington Post article, "Rising Prices Hit Home for Food Stamp Recipients."
It’s no surprise that the woman interviewed in the article is a working single mother–a divorced mother of two. She had her salary cut in half when she was laid off as a receptionist and had to take a job as home health aid. She says in the Post, "Our life has changed…My kids notice the changes, there’s no doubt about it. There are things I can’t buy anymore, little things like desserts, or if I say we have to be careful how much we eat. It’s not just them; we all feel it. We all notice."
Earlier this month, CNN documented a similar story about another local woman who skimps on her own food to feed her young daughter.
The rising costs are a national issue, but in the Washington metropolitan region, families are feeling it even more than in most places around the country. The article explains that food prices in this region are eight percent higher than the national average. For example, a pound of ground beef averaged $3.33 for a Washington area shopper, compared with $2.64 nationally. That’s a difference of 26 percent. A dozen eggs were 10 percent higher, while a 10-pound bag of potatoes cost 40 percent more.
As costs rise and food stamp allocations fail to keep up, more families face the consequences of food insecurity–poor nutrition, a decreasing ability to focus at school, work and other activities, and overall poorer health–not to mention the added mental stress of worrying and calculating to try to get the family food budget to stretch as far as possible.
And who is affected?
According to Capital Area Food Bank, half of all households in Washington, D.C. receiving food stamps report at least one working adult in the household. In 2005, 50 percent of all participants in the food stamp program were children, and 65 percent of them lived in single-parent households. Thirty-four percent of households with children were headed by a single parent, the overwhelming majority of whom were women. Forty-six percent of participants were white, 31 percent were African-American and 13 percent were Hispanic. The average gross monthly income per food stamp household is $648.
However the stats break down though, the reality remains the same, that food insecurity is becoming an increasing issue in our region and nation as prices climb and families find wages dropping or face job loss.
Last year, staff member Sherell Fuller took an international lens to her experience on the food stamp challenge.
An interesting lens when one considers that there are an estimated one in three people in the world living below the poverty line–defined as living on less than $1 a day.
In the United States currently, one in 11 Americans receives food stamps of about $1 per meal.
In either scenario, that’s a lot to ask of $1.
