Childhood Hunger
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Summary:
As part of the stimulus package, the federal government also expanded access to benefits by temporarily lifting a time limit imposed by Congress under welfare reform that gave able-bodied adults without children three months of benefits for every six months unless they work 20 hours a week. The time limit is lifted until September.
April 27
Not on food stamps but still stuck with a stigma
KOMO News - Seattle, Washington
Amy Roe
Elizabeth Beckett of Bellevue was consumed by food. Unemployed and short on cash, she was always thinking about what she ate, what it cost and how much she had left.
But Beckett didn’t feel good about going on food stamps, so she didn’t sign up until she learned she was pregnant: “I was like, ‘look, OK, I need help.’”
About 374,000 Washington households are on the “food stamp” program, which in Washington State has been distributed via debit cards since 1999. That’s about 70 percent of those who are eligible.
But food banks say demand for food has increased in recent months. So what’s keeping hungry people from getting benefits?
In a word: pride.
“There’s a pride thing against receiving,” said a 35 year-old Seattle woman who asked that her name not be used. She never went to the food bank, either, for the same reason, she said.
Fear of being labeled a “freeloader”
“I think that in an affluent society there are too many people who think that people who receive handouts are freeloaders,” she said.
That’s why, for months after she lost her job, the woman, let’s call her Kate, waffled on whether to apply for food stamps.
Fed up with living on peanut butter sandwiches and “way too much bread” to fill her up, she finally Googled “Washington food stamps” and signed up online.
With the $200 per month she receives she can afford to buy produce and make more nutritious meals.
“My only regret is that I didn’t sign up sooner,” she said.
Beckett, 31, believes no one should have to be worried about food, or be embarrassed to ask for help.
“I think the stigma of who uses food stamps and why they use them needs to be smashed a little,” she said. “I’m an educated individual, I have two college degrees, I’ve done AmeriCorps.”
Putting it on plastic
The switch to debit cards has helped to make using food benefits less conspicuous.
When it was food stamps, “people would roll their eyes and stuff. Now you can pretty much whip out your card,” said Jennifer McCormack, who has used both systems.
In October 2008 the state broadened the gross income limit to 200 percent of the federal poverty rate. A family of three could have a gross income of up to $3,052 per month and be eligible.
Not just for the “poorest of the poor”
Despite these changes, many still believe federal food assistance is for “the absolutely poorest of the poor,” said John Camp, who administers the program at the state Dept. of Health. “They assume that the program isn’t available to them.”
The average Washington household on food stamps receives nearly $215 per month and is comprised of two people, he said.
As part of the stimulus package, the federal government also expanded access to benefits by temporarily lifting a time limit imposed by Congress under welfare reform that gave able-bodied adults without children three months of benefits for every six months unless they work 20 hours a week. The time limit is lifted until September.
Now that more people need help affording food, will food stamps lose their stigma?
Kate, the anonymous food stamp recipient, said she hopes so.
“I read the blogs and responses to articles in the paper, and there are people who write in and still have jobs who are pretty damn mean,” she said.
She has a theory about why.
“Some of it has to be driven by fear,” she said. “In the back of their minds, they are worried.”
