Biden policy on hunger under fire

CHICAGO — Grace Melt made her first visit to the Nourishing Hope food pantry on Chicago's North Side in August. Throughout the pandemic, she used food stamps issued by the federal government to buy groceries while out of work with a knee injury.

But this summer, the food stamps couldn't keep up with the grocery store's rising prices, sending her in search of a food donation for the first time.

"It's definitely not enough. It never lasts 'till the end of the month," she said of the food stamp benefits. "And now they've increased prices ... So now you have to resort to coming here to a food pantry, to fill in."

Rising hunger is a problem for US President Joe Biden as he gears up to host the first White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health in more than 50 years and pledges to eliminate hunger in the United States by 2030.

Voters may punish his Democratic Party for inflation in November's midterm elections in a year the economy has been top in the mind of voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

The Biden administration increased funding for food stamps nearly a year ago, but at the same time has purchased about half as much food as the Trump administration did in 2020, for food banks, schools and indigenous reservations, according to data obtained from a source of the US Agriculture Department, or USDA.

Escalating food prices are eroding the reach of food stamps, which average around $231 per person per month in 2022, according to the US Agriculture Department, sending more people to food banks, that are in turn receiving less food from the government.

The Consumer Price Index for food at home climbed to 13.5 percent year-over-year in August, the largest 12-month increase since 1979, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Rising rate

Hunger rates this summer also rose to levels not seen since early in the pandemic when lockdowns threw supply chains into chaos.

"This is a problem that started to get better in 2021 and then rapidly got worse," said Vince Hall, chief government relations officer for Feeding America, the nation's largest network of food banks. "Most of America's food banks are seeing the lines grow with each passing week."

Some advocates argued for spending more on food stamps or cash distribution, which give people more choice than food handouts and also benefit local businesses.

Food insufficiency for families with children climbed to 16.21 percent by July 11, when nearly 1 in 6 families reported sometimes or often not having enough to eat, according to the US Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey, the highest since December 2020.

Hunger among children had fallen to a pandemic-low of 9.49 percent in August 2021, due in part to the child tax credit payments, according to the US Census Bureau.

The agency bought just 2.43 billion pounds of food last year. The USDA endeavored to offset the fall in outright food purchases with additional Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, or food stamps, adding nearly $31 billion from 2020 to 2022.

But that additional aid has been limited by higher food costs, states letting emergency pandemic declarations expire and strict criteria on who qualifies.

The Greater Chicago Food Depository, one of the nation's largest distributors of food to local food pantries, expects this year to get just over a third of the food it received from the USDA during the 2021 fiscal year (July 2020 to June 2021).

In August 2022, the agency announced a cost-of-living adjustment beginning Oct 1, increasing maximum monthly SNAP allotments for a family of four from $835 to $939 a month.

But many who visit food pantries still work or are on social security, disqualifying them from food stamps, like Michael Sukowski, a retired college administration employee whose SNAP benefits were cut due to a monthly pension he receives from the state.

"Social security and a small pension of $153 a month. It doesn't go very far," he said. "Half of that goes to paying my rent. Then there's utilities."

Agencies Via Xinhua