New York City – The sharp rise in food prices is being felt acutely by poor families on food stamps, the federal food assistance program.
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But food stamp allocations, intended to cover only minimum needs, have not changed since last fall and will not rise again until October, when an increase linked to inflation will take effect. The percentage, equal to the annual rise in prices for the minimum nutritional food basket as measured each June, is usually announced by early August.
Some advocates and politicians say that this relief will not come soon enough and will probably not be adequate to keep pace with inflation.
Stacy Dean, the director of food assistance for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington social issues research and advocacy organization, estimates that the rising food prices have resulted in two fewer bags of groceries a month for the families most reliant on the program.
“We know food stamps are falling short $34 a month” of the monthly $576 that the government says it costs a family of four to eat nutritional meals, she said. “The sudden price increases on top of everything else like soaring fuel and health care have meant squeeze and strain that is unprecedented since the late 1970s.”
The declining buying power of food stamps has not gone unrecognized in Washington. In May, Congress passed a farm bill that would raise the minimum amount of food stamps that families receive, starting in October. The bill, which was passed over President Bush’s veto, will also raise for the first time since 1996 the amount of income that families of fewer than four can keep for costs like housing or fuel without having their benefits reduced.
Families on food stamps have been hit hard across the nation, but perhaps not as hard as families in New York, where food costs are substantially higher than prices almost everywhere else, including other urban areas, according to the Food Research and Action Center, a research and advocacy group in Washington.
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.
NEBACH! let them cancle thier cable tv, that will solve the problem.
I guess my neighbor will keep his 8 kids at the shobbos-nuchi’n davenen kiddish for an extra 10–15 minutes to cut costs just a little more!
-L dafka
Lavdaka, your comment is disgusting!
if you never been on food stamps you have no idea!
after paying for tution and clothing for 6 kids whats left????
pepole ho could do please do yiden needing gelt
to Anon 10:33, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be offensive I do the same with my 3 kids 😉
-L dafka
bizt a shagets lav davka remember the velt is a galgal hachozer
I think this is the FIRST time I saw s/o apologize for a comment,
yasher koach lav dafka!
Those on govt assistance have the world handed to them. Most live better than I ever did with our two incomes. They shouldn’t complain !!!!
To: Sara 1:50 Pm
Don’t be a cow. Maybe if you had higher Education
rather than a H.S. degree. You’d make more salary.
Sara, we’re talking about large families. You probaly have only 2-3 children.
And, And Public assistance does NOT give Food Stamps to cover the FULL MONTH. Only for the first 20 DAYS.
READ THE ARTICLE! Leave the complaining Sara to those who are on Public Assistance.
I know someone who receives Foodstamps. The program is run niclely, however there is one major problem.
If the receiver’s income goes up by even $10 per month they system cuts you off without any warning!
This threshold is not posted or listed anywhere. The recepient is unaware! Even supervisors don’t know the answer!
They government would never do this to the rich!
In America the working poor and poor are discriminated against!
Sam, you have no idea who I am, what level of education my husband and I have, or the size of my family. You can apologize now !
Sara I think the guy got really offended to begin with when you mentioned that it was easy for him.
Maybe people should be buying the “staples” and not potatochips/nosh/cake with the card. Or better yet GET A JOB to pay for food for the family.
People just take take and take and have no idea that the money is coming from other “frum” jews working for a living (and paying yeshevah tuition).
I saw a frum women with fancy shaitel and nice clothing and jewelery paying for hamantashen with the benifit card. Can you imagine tax payers paying for “shabbos parties” and $75 of hamantashen.
I am frum, educated and paying for this. I am upset..I am sorry but, I don’t feel sorry for people getting things for free because they fudged some numbers on a tax return or nebach they can’t work because Yoily learns all day and night and they are home with the clan.
I feel sorry for people like myself that are paying for this!!!
Balabusta, I agree with your comments, but you made one mistake. Most Yoilys don’t take food stamps because they “learn all day and night.” The satmar community (which, btw, I don’t belong too) has a strong tradition of men going to work soon after marriage to support their families. In fact, many are quite successful in business. It’s in other circles, as well as yeshivishe communities, where the men rely on govt. aid and their wives to sit and learn.
Another balabusta,
I did not know that about the Satmar..Kol Hakavod to them fot that :-). Shame on those who are able bodied in the frum and/or chasidic communities that do not have enough seichel/pride to work for a living.
to Ba.12:15, we are our own worst enemy and have created a culture that looks down on the ‘working boy’..so you cannot criticize or blame anyone else..my hubby works, as do I, and my kids are trained from day one to go to college..can you say the same for these poor ppl? They are the victims, not the ‘takers’..they are what we have created…
Balabusta 1 ; and Balabusta 2 !
You’re getting yourself way too excited and aggravated for nothing … you’re working yourself all up…. These programs are federal and are very little influenced overall by a few frumies who milk it. The vast majority -95% and up are milked by other minority populations who may be prone to an overall bad work ethic . Now: You are throwing out all that hate on your own people ( when in all fairness 95% of your abhorrence should be directed to all the other minorities , I don’t imagine you will even bother to feel or say anything about those poor souls! SHAME ON YOU BALABUSTA 1 ; AND BALABUSTA 2 !