- The buying hour, By Anne D’Innocenzio and Dena Potter (AP), October 7, 2010, Eugene Register-Guard: “Once a month, just after midnight, the beeping checkout scanners at a Walmart just off Interstate 95 come alive in a chorus of financial desperation. Here and at grocery stores across the country, the chimes come just after food stamps and other monthly government benefits drop into the accounts of shoppers who have been rationing things like milk, ground beef and toilet paper and can finally stock up again. Shoppers mill around the store after 11 p.m., killing time until their accounts are replenished. When midnight strikes, they rush for the checkout counter…”
- Millions in federal food aid goes unused, By Peter Passi, October 3, 2010, Duluth News Tribune: “Kobreina Carlson doesn’t know how she and her 2-year-old daughter would make ends meet without food stamps. A single mother living in Duluth, Carlson works part time providing home care to seniors, but she doesn’t earn enough to pay rent on her modest apartment and still keep food on the table. To fill the gap, she relies on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – the proper name for the federal aid most people know as food stamps. Use of federal food aid has soared 48 percent locally in the past five years, with more than one in eight Duluthians receiving assistance through the program as of June. But a recent study indicates almost one-third of Duluthians are probably eligible to receive federal food aid. The SNAP Utilization Study published in April found that only 42 percent of people who would qualify for food stamps in St. Louis County actually received them. That compares with a statewide utilization rate of 45 percent for the program…”
- New York asks to bar use of food stamps to buy sodas, By Anemona Hartocollis, October 6, 2010, New York Times: “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought federal permission on Wednesday to bar New York City’s 1.7 million recipients of food stamps from using them to buy soda or other sugared drinks. The request, made to the United States Department of Agriculture, which finances and sets the rules for the food-stamp program, is part of an aggressive anti-obesity push by the mayor that has also included advertisements, stricter rules on food sold in schools and an unsuccessful attempt to have the state impose a tax on the sugared drinks…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty