Critical hunger for reform

Budget hawks are criticizing efforts to expand a welfare program that many people decline to use, even though the government has spent millions of dollars to tout its benefits.

The House voted last month to add $4 billion to the granddaddy of America’s domestic nutrition programs for the poor: the Food Stamp Program.

The measure, part of the farm bill that passed by a vote of 231-191 on July 27, also would ease the program’s eligibility rules and increase food stamp benefits.

Anti-hunger advocates are pleased with many of the changes to the program, which provides about $33 billion a year in assistance.

“These investments represent real progress in addressing hunger in the U.S.,” the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), an anti-hunger advocacy group, said after the bill passed.

But Jeffrey M. Jones, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative-leaning think tank, said now is not the time for the government to cajole poor people into using a federal entitlement program.

“The drive to reduce entitlement spending while simultaneously expanding participation [in the Food Stamp Program] is tantamount to having two trains racing toward each other on the same track — catastrophic,” Mr. Jones wrote in December.

“It’s one thing to offer a program to people in need,” said Chris Edwards, a tax-policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute. “But I don’t think we should be beating them over the head with a bat, saying you’ve got to take federal welfare. I mean, c’mon. My taxpayer money is being used to encourage people to cost me even more tax money? I have a problem with that.”

High hassle, low value

As of 2005, 35 percent of eligible low-income households did not use food stamps, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the program.

Stigma is often cited as a reason for not using food stamps, but several people at a faith-based anti-poverty program in Maryland gave more pragmatic reasons for nonparticipation.

“You have to give your life history, and they give you $10? That don’t make sense,” said Willa Mae Meal, who was handling the sign-in sheet on a recent Friday morning at the Community Ministry of Prince George’s County. The group gives away produce and food twice a month at its headquarters in Seat Pleasant.

“You have to be dirt poor to get [food stamp] assistance,” said LaTonya Bell, a working married mother of three who was one of about 100 people in line.

A few people near her chimed in: “They take all your information, and then they deny you,” one woman said.

“If you have one penny over the scale, you can’t get them,” another woman said. “And who wants $21 a month or $13 a month [in food stamps]?” she added, as others nodded in agreement. “What can that buy? You can’t hardly get a pork chop with $13 a month.”

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