Latest News for May 2008

May 27
Rising Prices Hit Home For Food Stamp Recipients

Christina Hall, divorced mother of two, must get by each month spending only $219 on food, and it doesn’t ever seem to go as far as it used to. Despite receiving full food stamp benefits, Hall has to try hard to make sure she and her two children get enough to eat each day. The reason: Inflation continues to rise, but food stamp benefits has so far stayed the same. And though Congress is acting to partly make up the difference with their veto-overridden farm bill, the new benefits won’t arrive until October—and even then, it will only be 13% of the inflation increase, far too little to make up much of a difference.

May 27, 2008
Chris L. Jenkins
Washington Post

FAIRFAX, Virginia - Christina Hall’s weekly grocery shopping ritual begins Thursday night in the kitchen of her cramped mobile home in Fairfax County, with the low hum of the refrigerator and the steady drip of the faucet in the background.

“Shredded cheese, bagels, milk … Maybe we can do two gallons this week,” she says hopefully, scribbling the grocery list on a sheet of notebook paper. She goes through a cabinet, looks in the freezer, checks a shelf behind the linoleum-covered table. “Yogurt, crackers, bananas.” She jots down a dozen or so more items: salad dressing, frozen vegetables … “That should keep me at about $50 for the week.”

A divorced mother of two, Hall receives $219 a month in food stamps; the fastidious inspection of her cupboards and the dollar-by-dollar addition she does in her head are the only way she can make the allotment last through a month.

At a time when food prices are soaring, a growing number of Americans are struggling financially and local social service agencies are seeing record numbers of applicants, advocates are concerned that the purchasing power of food stamps has shrunk since 1996, when Congress recalculated benefit levels. The result slowed the value of food stamps relative to inflation. If benefits had kept pace with inflation over 12 years, a family with one working parent and two children would be receiving an additional $37 a month, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based think tank.

To qualify for food stamps, recipients must have an income below 130 percent of the federal poverty level, or less than $22,880 for a family of three.

“An extra $37 a month,” Hall said, chuckling. “That would be nice. Might be able to splurge every now and again.”

Hall, 38, who lives in a scruffy, tree-lined cul-de-sac of mobile homes in Hybla Valley, one of the poorest sections of one of the country’s richest counties, knows that the monthly payment doled out on a blue plastic debit card is meant only to supplement her food budget. The federal government’s guidelines make that clear.

But her $8.75-an-hour home health aide job — about $1,200 after taxes during a good month — stretches only so far, with rent ($550), utilities ($100, sometimes much more), gas ($180, even in her fuel-efficient Honda Civic), a car payment ($288) and car insurance ($163). That doesn’t include other expenses that come with raising a 13-year-old son and a 7-year-old daughter. The stamps are the family’s entire food budget. Skyrocketing food prices and the declining value of the government benefit has made feeding the family a daily struggle for Hall, a first-time food stamp recipient.

Hall wrestled with the challenge the next day as she tried to manage the family’s weekly food needs and squeeze in a few extra items for her daughter’s birthday party that weekend. Her son had lost his school meal card, which allows him to eat a free breakfast at school every day, so she has to make him breakfast at home until the end of the month, adding an unexpected expense.

“Okay, we can get one package of potato chips and one package of popcorn, okay?” Hall said to her daughter, Rosita, who was having a tough time containing her excitement about the party.

Hall shops at the Aldi on Route 1, a discount supermarket along the frayed commercial strip, where many shoppers go to save money on store brand items that can be as much as 50 percent cheaper than other chains’. The week’s dinner plan called for spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, sloppy Joes, tacos and chicken nuggets, plus mixed vegetables with each meal. As she shopped earlier this month, though, she was feeling lucky. Her mother had given her some ground beef and pork earlier in the week. And her son, Richard, was going on a Scout trip, so she wouldn’t need as much food over the weekend. (As it turned out, Richard came home a day early, so she had to “wing it for Sunday dinner,” she said later.)

Hall made her way through the store using her shopping list as a guide: two gallons of milk, $3.08 each; one package of macaroni and cheese, 59 cents; two quarts of yogurt for her lunch, $1.29. She picked out a box of yellow cake mix and chocolate frosting for Rosita’s birthday cake, only to put them back later. Her mother would buy them. Into the cart went vegetables, frozen orange juice and hoagie buns. Bacon and ground turkey, initially on the list, would have to wait. “This! This!” Rosita squealed, pointing to a stack of bagel pizzas at $5.99 apiece.

“No, Grandma’s going to order pizza tomorrow for the party,” Hall answered, checking the price on a package of frozen french fries before throwing them back. Looking over the shopping cart, which included a package of Fruit Roll-Ups and a few other items that Rosita requested, Hall said, “we’re almost at $50, anyway.”

Later, in the comfort of her small trailer, festooned with Barbie-themed birthday decorations from Wal-Mart, she looked over the receipt — $48.06. She looked satisfied.

“Well, this allows me to get away with spending $55 for next week,” she said.

For the working poor of the Washington region, stretching the monthly food budget in a sagging economy is particularly difficult, because food prices in the area are consistently higher than the national average, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research, an Arlington County-based group that tracks the cost of living in hundreds of places across the country.

During the first part of this year, the group said, the region’s food prices were 8 percent higher than the national average. For instance, a pound of ground beef averaged $3.33 for a Washington area shopper, compared with $2.64 nationally. That’s a difference of 26 percent. A dozen eggs were 10 percent higher, while a 10-pound bag of potatoes cost 40 percent more.

The consumer price index for food has increased faster than in two decades, and it is especially grim news for people who rely on government subsidies.

“Food stamps aren’t meant to supply all of a family’s food, but for many people, it’s become a way of life… . It’s a struggle to make them last,” said Reuben Gist, director of advocacy and outreach for the Capital Area Food Bank. He cited a 2006 study by America’s Second Harvest, a hunger-relief organization, that found that only 16 percent of food stamp recipients said the allotment lasted them an entire month. “People on food stamps are calling us saying they have no idea what they are going to do.”

Food stamp benefits, which average about $1 per person per meal, are based on a plan set by the federal government designed to represent a very low-cost but nutritionally adequate diet. For a family of four, the cost of the diet, known as the Thrifty Food Plan, was $567 a month in April. But, under the benefit rate set in October, which was based on June 2007 food prices, a family of four receives about $542 in benefits. Last week, Congress overrode President Bush’s veto of the $300 billion farm bill, which includes $200 billion for nutrition programs such as food stamps, school lunches and emergency food assistance. The legislation will help bring food stamp benefits in line with inflation and stop the erosion, according to national experts. But the new regulations won’t kick in until October and will only make up, on average, $5 of the $37 gap. “Next year will be the first year in the modern history of the food stamp program when food stamp value is the same as the year before,” said Dorothy Rosenbaum, a senior policy analyst for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Hall said she has had to adjust her expectations. “I think I first noticed when I bought what I usually buy — eggs, milk, you know, the basic stuff — and it cost me over $60 for a week. I thought there was a mistake,” she said.

It wasn’t always like this for Hall. For several years, she had a job as a receptionist, making $15 an hour. The difficult times started when she was laid off and took the home health aide job soon afterward for nearly half the wage.

She has employed a few tricks to save here and there: picking up food from food pantries, grilling meat and vegetables on the porch to keep the gas bill down; rationing the medication that manages her Crohn’s disease by only periodically taking pills that she is supposed to take daily. She and her ex-husband agreed, through a mediator, that he would pay for Rosita’s after-school care, clothes and other essentials for the children.

“Our life has changed… . My kids notice the changes, there’s no doubt about it,” she said, sitting on her porch. “There are things I can’t buy anymore, little things like desserts, or if I say we have to be careful how much we eat. It’s not just them; we all feel it. We all notice.”

What You Can Do

• Read the full article
• Help others’ food stamp benefits go as far as possible with Operation Frontline

May 14
Heavy rains head toward cyclone-devastated Myanmar

Heavy rains and another potentially powerful storm headed toward Myanmar’s cyclone-devastated delta Wednesday. The U.N. warned that inadequate relief efforts could lead to a second wave of deaths.

May 14, 2008
AP Wire

YANGON, Myanmar - Heavy rains and another potentially powerful storm headed toward Myanmar’s cyclone-devastated delta Wednesday. The U.N. warned that inadequate relief efforts could lead to a second wave of deaths.

A new estimate that the death toll may already be between 68,833 and 127,990 — considerably higher than the government’s latest official count of 38,491 dead, announced Wednesday night on state television.

The Red Cross said it made the estimate by adding figures gathered in affected areas by other aid groups and organizations and extrapolating the total.

An estimated 2 million survivors are still in need of emergency aid, but U.N. agencies and other groups have been able to reach only 270,000 people affected by Cyclone Nargis so far.

The junta told visiting Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, however, that it was in control of relief operations and doesn’t need foreign experts.

Samak went to a government relief center in Yangon and told reporters after returning to Bangkok that the junta has given him the “guarantee” that there are no disease outbreaks and no starvation among cyclone survivors.

“They have their own team to cope with the situation,” Samak said, citing Myanmar Prime Minister Lt. Gen. Thein Sein. “From what I have seen I am impressed with their management.”

International agencies say bottlenecks, poor logistics, limited infrastructure and the government’s refusal to let in foreign aid workers have left most of the delta’s survivors living in miserable conditions without food or clean water. The government efforts have been criticized as woefully slow.

Rain has been pounding the delta all week, and more is expected in the coming days, compounding the difficult task of moving supplies over ruined roads. It also poses significant health risks to survivors of the May 3 cyclone.

“The weather will exacerbate humanitarian conditions for the homeless, many of whom are living under an open sky,” said Elizabeth Griffin, a director of Catholic Relief Services from Baltimore. “Thankfully, no serious outbreaks of bacterial, water or mosquito-borne diseases have been reported, but this could change.”

What You Can Do

• Read the full article
• Make a donation to the Myanmar Crisis Relief Fund

May 9
Food crisis in Colorado

Learning to cope with the food crisis in Colorado.

Colorado Public Radio and local NBC affiliate spotlight program’s goals and strategies.

Operation Frontline’s ability to teach families how to get the most nutrition from a limited budget — even budgets that were once quite adequate—is making headlines in Colorado as food prices continue their mile-high climb. Colorado Public Radio and 9NEWS.com post interviews and news-you-can-use about how the program is helping Colorado families cope.

May 7
Squeezed by Rising Food Costs

Nearly every food staple has seen double-digit price increases over the past year, some of it due to skyrocketing energy costs

Pallavi Gogoi
BusinessWeek
April 14, 2008

Twice a month, Kathy Nuthall does the math on food vs. gas costs: Shop for groceries near home in Warwick, N.Y., or drive nearly an hour round-trip to a Wal-Mart Supercenter (WMT) in Monroe, a village in the Catskill Mountain foothills. With food prices surging, Wal-Mart has been winning that decision. “I just think that it’s smart. The food is the same, but I’m saving more here,” says Nuthall, who concedes that even with Wal-Mart’s pricing muscle her grocery bill has been creeping higher in recent months.

The cost of food has become a headline story the world over, from food-related riots in Haiti and Egypt to some Asian governments mulling whether to restrict rice exports. In the U.S., grocery bills are surging: Nearly every food staple has seen a double-digit percentage increase over the past year, including a 38% hike for a dozen eggs, to $2.16, and a 19% jump, to $1.78, for a loaf of white bread, according to American Farm Bureau data. With Americans spending 15% of their household income on food and drinks, rising prices in the grocery aisles have spurred consumers to hunt savings. Of that spending, only half goes to grocery stores, with restaurants collecting the rest.

Food is the most visible expenditure on the typical shopping list: After all, most people eat at least three times a day. As prices keep rising, it’s hardly any wonder that Americans seem to be losing their appetite for discretionary purchases (BusinessWeek.com, 4/9/08). “When you buy the same thing week after week it’s easy to see prices marching up, and the two items that people purchase most often are gasoline and food, both of which have seen a runup in prices,” says David Wyss, chief economist of Standard & Poor’s, which, like BusinessWeek, is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Cos. (MHP).

Stores Expanding the Food Aisles

Plus, when it comes to the weekly or biweekly shopping list, people tend to scrutinize more closely how much they spend with a Kroger (KR), Wal-Mart, Safeway (SWY), or Supervalu (SVU) than on casual dining with friends or a quick bite grabbed on the way home from work. On a recent wet, chilly day, Natalie Medina was pushing her 4-year-old son around the store, explaining that she has consolidated her shopping from weekly to every other week in a strategy to save money. Even though the store is farther from her home in Wallkill, N.Y., Medina says the reduced trips save money.

The price tally in the latest American Farm Bureau market basket survey of 16 basic groceries was $45.03 in the first quarter, up 9% from the same period last year. Many of the price increases are eye-popping—a five-pound bag of flour cost $2.69, 26% more than last year. Volunteers in 32 states participated in the survey, with the 76 shoppers paying 23% more for fryer chicken at $1.37 per pound, while the average price for a gallon of whole milk was $3.81, up 10% from last year. Cheddar cheese was 27% higher, to $4.71 per pound, and corn oil rose 9%, to $3.01, for a 32-ounce bottle.

In this environment, some stores are responding by expanding their food aisles. For instance, Family Dollar Stores (FDO), which has 6,500 stores in 44 states, recently boosted its space for food in an additional 2,700 stores; 1,500 stores now accept food stamps. “We have strengthened our everyday assortment of quick prep and ready-to-serve products in all stores, introducing larger family sizes and emphasizing private-label and value brands,” says Howard Levine, CEO of Charlotte-based Family Dollar, where food has been the biggest driver of sales in recent quarters.

Farmers Growing Corn for Ethanol

The surge in food costs has been attributed to several factors, including the increasing number of American farmers who now grow corn to supply the ethanol industry instead of food companies. In turn, they have reduced the amount of land farmed for wheat and soybeans, leading to a huge strain on food processors such as ConAgra Foods (CAG), Kraft Foods (KFT), General Mills (GIS), and Kellogg (K).

Corn prices have soared, hitting $6 a bushel, up 50% from 2007 and triple the price of three years ago. Corn is the main ingredient in livestock and poultry feed, so prices of milk, chicken, and meat are also higher. “It is important to note the contribution of runaway energy prices to the retail cost of food,” says Jim Sartwelle, an economist with the American Farm Bureau. “Transportation, processing, and packaging cost significantly more now than in prior years.” According to a survey by AAA, the average price of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.365, up 20% from last year, with many expecting $4 per gallon in some places this summer.

Supplies Dwindling at Food Pantries

In many parts of the world, extreme food price increases and shortages have led to riots. In America, while the effects of high food prices are felt widely, they are especially hard on the lowest-income consumers. Many food banks around the country are reporting empty shelves even as the ranks of hungry people coming in have risen. The BedStuy Campaign Against Hunger, a nonprofit food pantry in one of the poorest sections of Brooklyn, N.Y., is feeding as many as 6,000 people a month, up 15% from last year, with children comprising half of the visitors.

“I’m sorry to say that the families who came in to pick up food last Tuesday found that we didn’t have any milk, rice, juice or pasta,” says Reverend Melony Samuels, who runs the pantry and is also a pastor at the Full Gospel Tabernacle of Faith church. Samuels says it has become harder for private donors to supply food because costs have gone up. Her group also depends on the federal government, which distributes surplus commodities to thousands of food banks. However, these surpluses have dwindled. Samuels’ pantry now receives only half what it did from Uncle Sam in 2007.

Those who can afford the $45-$50 annual membership fee for a warehouse club are saving their money by buying in bulk at Costco (COST) or BJ’s Wholesale Club (BJ), where sales are humming. On Apr. 10, Costco reported same-store sales growth of 7% in March, while BJ’s sales rose 6%. After reporting a 31% increase in profits in its last quarter, Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti noted that sales of fresh foods and deli food have helped lift sales overall. Wal-Mart saw a 0.7% increase in March sales, falling short of expectations of a 1% increase. But that didn’t dampen the ebullient mood of Wal-Mart executives who raised the company’s guidance for first-quarter earnings. As prices of food continue to be pressured, retail executives expect the parking lots like the one at the Wal-Mart in Monroe to remain packed.

May 6
$3mm ConAgra Grant to Double Operation Frontline

ConAgra Foods Foundation is now the national sponsor of Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline.

ConAgra Foods Foundation is now the national sponsor of Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline. Within days of receiving the Foundation’s support, two new Operation Frontline program partners — The Queens Galley in New York’s Hudson Valley and Inter-Faith Food Shuttle in Raleigh, N.C.— held their first classes. Now that’s impact!

The two-year partnership between Share Our Strength and the ConAgra Foods Foundation will nearly double Operation Frontline’s capacity to teach low-income families how to prepare nutritious and tasty foods on a limited budget. This grant will allow Operation Frontline to launch programs in nine additional locations (for a total of 25) and increase the capacity of existing program partners through stronger course materials and support.

The Foundation selected Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline to receive the $3 million grant because it matches so well the goals of the Foundation’s new initiative, “Nourish Today, Flourish Tomorrow,” which seeks to end child hunger and promote nutrition education programs and services.

There will be much more to report over the coming months. And, if one of the new programs is in your community, they’d love you to get involved as a volunteer.