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America's Second Harvest Urges Congress to Increase Support for the Food Stamps Program

Contact:
Sue Hofer, 312-263-2303, ext. 127
Ellen Vollinger, Food Research and Action Center, (202) 986-2200, x3016
Elaine Ryan, Acting Executive Director, APHSA, (202) 682-0100

Washington, D.C. -- July 24, 2001 -- America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest hunger relief charity, the Food Research and Action Center, a leading national anti-hunger organization, and the American Public Human Services Association, the nation's principal association of state and local government human services professionals joined today in calling for substantial improvements in the federal Food Stamp Program. The changes the three groups recommend would increase benefit levels, expand program access, and simplify program administration. The groups believe these changes are necessary to help the program better meet the needs of such groups as the elderly, the disabled, and working poor families with children and would significantly reduce hunger in the United States.

The three organizations urged the Administration and Congress to enact and appropriately fund these comprehensive legislative changes during the 107th Congress, and said that the program's reauthorization must include the new policies. The call for action came during the Washington meeting of APHSA's National Council of State Human Service Administrators, the policy-making body of the nation's public human service administrators.

The Food Stamp Program has played an important role in significantly reducing hunger in the United States. The program is the cornerstone of the nation's domestic food assistance programs and is the largest non-categorical federal low-income support program. The Food Stamp Program serves an average of 17 million needy Americans a month, serving only 60 percent of those eligible for the program despite continued need for food assistance. "Food stamps are critical to helping the poor stave off hunger and become self-sufficient. Congress should use this reauthorization opportunity to provide an adequate and overdue investment in food stamps to help the program work better, serve more needy people, and put us back on the road to ending hunger in America," said Doug O'Brien, the policy director for America's Second Harvest.

"In reauthorization new resources, well-structured simplification, and preservation of what's already strong in the Food Stamp Program are essential to make benefits more adequate, to restore eligibility to vulnerable legal immigrants, and to simplify access, especially for low-income working families and the elderly. Building on the strengths of this important federal entitlement program is our top priority in the fight against domestic hunger. The Food Stamp Program must receive a fair share of resources, including a fair share of the more than $70 billion in new ten-year funding available for the farm bill," stated Ellen Vollinger, FRAC's Legal Director.

"The Food Stamp Program's complexity and red tape have created unacceptable barriers for working families, the elderly, and the disabled. Those eligible should receive food stamp benefits, without the excessive paperwork and multiple interviews now required under the present outdated system. Congress now has an opportunity to make fundamental reforms that will correct these problems and assure access for those who need food stamp help," said Elaine M. Ryan, APHSA's Acting Executive Director.

The joint statement arose out of concern that the Food Stamp Program's current rules and regulations often hamper understanding by both recipients and caseworkers, that its bewildering requirements discourage participation, and that its excessive red tape has raised administrative burdens and costs to unacceptable levels. Unlike other low-income support programs such as Medicaid and State Children's Health Insurance (SCHIP) programs, food stamp policies often do not promote participation by low-income working families in the nation's most basic safety net program.

The groups said that Food Stamp Program reauthorization should include the following reforms:

  • Increase program benefits to all beneficiaries, simplify the program's eligibility process, and streamline requirements for reporting changes and recertifying households;
  • Eliminate or streamline confusing and burdensome income verification rules and other required practices related to eligibility;
  • Make eligibility for the elderly and disabled automatic, with their food stamp eligibility being determined at the Social Security office without an additional application, and increase the minimum benefit to at least $25 per month;
  • When recipients leave the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, allow transitional benefits to be continued for at least six months at the level authorized prior to closure of the cash assistance case;
  • Restore federal food stamp eligibility for legal noncitizens by reinstating the noncitizen eligibility policies in effect prior to August 1996;
  • Replace the program's outmoded error rate calculations with a new system of outcome measures to assess goals appropriate for working families and other program recipients; and
  • Exempt from the asset test one vehicle per working person (a minimum of one vehicle per household) and simplify the program's other asset tests.

America's Second Harvest, FRAC, and APHSA said that these reforms will achieve several urgent Food Stamp Program goals: increase program participation by needy people; increase access to the program by working families, the elderly, and the disabled; increase the adequacy of benefits; and better enable the program to serve as the primary tool for ending hunger in the United States.