Governor’s Goal: Food on the Table of Low Income Working Families

June 1, 2007

Author: Barbara Weiner

The food stamp program is a good program.  It provides low income people with a monthly financial boost designed specifically to help families meet their nutritional needs, although, with an average benefit level of about $1 per person per meal, food stamp benefits are not really quite enough to provide an adequate diet.  That is why legislation has been introduced this year in both the House and the Senate to bring the food stamp benefit level much closer to the amount necessary to meet the real cost of a healthy and truly nutritious diet.  However, even though currently food stamp benefits often run out before the end of the month, they are still a critical supplement to the monthly income otherwise available to low income households to meet their bills.

Nevertheless, Government statistics show that in New York State, up to 40 percent of eligible households are not receiving this vital assistance.  The proportion of working households that are eligible but do not participate is even higher - well over half.  So why don’t all eligible households apply to participate in the program?

Study after study has shown that low income working families do not participate in the Food Stamp Program because of the overly bureaucratic and time consuming application process.  Applying for benefits usually requires several visits to the local social services district, with each visit often including long waits to be seen. One national study of a few years ago observed that it’s much easier and quicker to get a gun license than it is to apply for food stamp benefits.

For most low wage working people, one consequence of taking time off from work to apply for food stamp benefits is a loss of income.  Low wage jobs don’t usually provide paid “personal leave” to enable an employee to take care of personal business.  For some workers the consequence of taking time off from work can be even more severe - loss of the job altogether.  It is these working families who stand to benefit enormously from the program changes announced by Governor Spitzer on June 5, in conjunction with National Hunger Awareness Day.

The Governor’s plan, titled the Working Families Food Stamp Initiative, eliminates these bureaucratic barriers to working family participation in the federal Food Stamp Program by waiving those aspects of the application procedures that require people to come into the social services district in person.  Eligible applicants will bypass the face to face interview at the social services office and will not be subject to finger-imaging.  They will be able to submit all the documents needed to verify their eligibility by mail.

It is estimated that the Governor’s Initiative will bring as many as 100,000 additional New York households into the federal Food Stamp Program. The plan will do so not only by eliminating the requirement that working households  appear in person at the local social services district office to apply for benefits but also by eliminating the strict food stamp resource limits that exclude many households with modest retirement or other savings from qualifying for benefits.  This improvement applies to all food stamp households and implements a federal option long available to the states but which New York is only now taking advantage of, under this new Administration. As a result, families whose income is below the federal poverty level and who are otherwise eligible for food stamps will be able to get such assistance without first liquidating their retirement savings or depleting savings meant to send a child to college or to buy a first home.

Increasing the number of households in New York getting federally funded food stamps not only helps the families themselves, it is a boon to the low income communities in which the food stamp households live.  Government estimates are that every $5 in new food stamp benefits generates about $9 in total community spending.  Governor Spitzer is to be congratulated  not only for helping low income families to gain easier access to the nutritional assistance to which they are entitled but also for bringing a much needed economic stimulus to New York’s poorer communities.