Cutline: Summer Pulliam and her daughter Niyan Niun Win. Pulliam has created her own Plan B for coping with the new food stamp funding cuts.
Drastic Food Stamp cuts hurt poor
By Karin Eagle
Native Sun News Staff Writer RAPID CITY – Summer Pulliam, a young mother from the Pine Ridge Reservation has experience feeding her children on a budget. “What helps is if grocery stores have better deals. I follow the store sales and manage to provide sufficiently for my boys,” explains Pulliam” I make meals from what was on sale and manage to get by on about $40 in groceries a week.” “It doesn’t bother my boys at all...they get to help with the shopping and preparing the meals.” One of the ways people like Pulliam, are turning is at-home and community gardening. “This year I planned ahead and started canning from my garden...every little bit helps!” said Pulliam. “And it’s nice once you get to know others in your community who do these things as well.” “We barter and trade for other things, like eggs and chickens and canned goods. It sounds a little ‘hillbilly’, but once the cuts happen, I won’t be sweating it.” Pulliam is referring to the severe cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as Food Stamps, has millions of Americans expecting to suffer a monthly decrease in the assistance they receive. Many Native Americans are facing the same cuts, but how they are preparing is often quite different from their non-native counterparts. Americans who receive food stamps through SNAP are expected to suffer an average of $36 a month from a $275.13 per household benefit. With a near record 47.6 million Americans who represent 23.1 million households, on the program the cost of the program is expected to hit $63.4 billion in 2013. SNAP allocations built into President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill which are coming to an end has led to the cut that will siphon $5 billion out of the program. The Republican House of Representatives is calling for an additional $40 million cut and their persistence is holding up the all-important Farm Bill. Most South Dakota ranchers are furious over the delay after Blizzard Atlas wiped out nearly 50,000 head of cattle. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) increased SNAP benefits across the board as a way of delivering an economic stimulus. ARRA increased the SNAP maximum monthly benefits by 13.6 percent beginning in April 2009. ARRA provided that SNAP benefit levels would continue at the new higher amount until the program’s regular annual inflation adjustments to the maximum SNAP benefit exceeded those set by ARRA. The maximum SNAP benefit levels for each household size, which are set each October 1, are equal to the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan (TFP) from the preceding June scaled to each household size. In August 2010, Congress passed and the President signed P.L. 111-226, which accelerated the sunset of the ARRA benefit increase to April 2014 and used the estimated savings for state fiscal relief through additional federal funding for school districts to maintain teachers’ jobs and maintaining a higher federal match for Medicaid costs. Four months later, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (P.L. 111-296), which reauthorized Child Nutrition programs, further accelerated the sunset date of ARRA to October 31, 2013, to offset the cost of the legislation. As a result, beginning on November 1, 2013, SNAP benefit levels will be based on the cost of the June 2013 TFP, which is lower than the ARRA levels. On August 1, 2013 USDA published the June 2013 TFP, announcing a $36 decrease from the current maximum monthly benefit for a family of four under ARRA The total size of the cut will be approximately $5 billion in fiscal year 2014 and, based on the Congressional Budget Office’s May 2013 projections for food inflation in coming years, an additional $6 billion across fiscal years 2015 and 2016. Over the past few years, a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans have voted in favor of the cuts in exchange for increased education funding and school nutrition programs. At a recent protest on Capitol Hill a group of Democratic lawmakers who opposed the cuts to food stamps demanded that the funding be reinstated. "It was a piece of legislation that said let's change nutrition standards, let's get junk foods out of our schools, and let's make sure that our kids can have those fruits and vegetables," Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro “There was no money for it (the nutrition bill).” “The price of it was $2.2 billion. That came from the food stamp program and all of us here complained," the congresswoman said. "And we were opposed to that but we knew that it was a good first step in getting the Hunger-Free Kids Act." 22 million children in 2014 are expected to be affected by the SNAP cuts (10 million of whom live in “deep poverty,” with family incomes below half of the poverty line) and 9 million people who are elderly or have a serious disability. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) this cut will be the equivalent of taking away 21 meals per month for a family of four, or 16 meals for a family of three, based on calculations using the $1.70 to $2 per meal provided for in the Thrifty Food Plan. The CBPP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization and policy institute that conducts research and analysis on a range of government policies and programs. It is supported primarily by foundation grants. USDA research has found that the Recovery Act’s benefit boost cut the number of households in which one or more persons had to skip meals or otherwise eat less because they lacked money — what USDA calls “very low food security” — by about 500,000 households in 2009. For some tribes, the pain of the recent government shutdown has been sharpened by federal budget restrictions this year, known as sequestration, that have imposed 5 percent cuts to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “You’re already looking at a good number of tribes who are considered the poorest of our nation’s people,” said Jacqueline Pata, the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians. “When you are dealing with cutting off food supply programs and even nominal payments to tribal members, it creates a dangerous impact immediately.” Kevin Washburn, Assistant Secretary for Indian affairs, said the shutdown could have long-term effects on tribes and tribal members. Financial deals and economic programs have been suspended. Environmental reviews of tribal projects will be delayed. In face the impact on the thousands of Bureau of Indian Affairs employees who have been furloughed is compounded because many support poor relatives, he said. In Hardin, Mont., Presina Grant, Crow, had been reimbursed $8 an hour as part of the tribe’s health care program for the care she provides to her injured family member. After the health care program was suspended because of the shutdown, Ms. Grant, 43, found herself in a long line of other tribal members applying for food stamps. With money tight, she often worries about how she will provide nutritious meals for her three children. “Everyone was just sad, you could just feel it,” Ms. Grant said, recalling the day this month when she collected her final paycheck from the tribe. “People are worried. We’re praying every day.” “The cushion that tribes might have had to help them get through tough times is gone because of sequestration,” Mr. Washburn said. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, which provides a vast sweep of services for more than 1.7 million American Indians and Alaska Natives, has kept essential programs, like federal police and firefighting services, running. But it has stopped financing tribal governments and the patchwork of programs and grants that form the thin blanket of support for reservations racked by poverty and other ills. This added to the cut to the SNAP benefits is creating a great concern among the tribes and Native communities across America. Many tribes are taxing the already over stretched resources such as food banks and food pantries set up to assist immediate need for food assistance. Feeding America is one of the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charities. Their mission is to feed America's hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks. In a statement released when the cuts went into affect the organization expressed concern about their own ability to cover the impending need: “The crisis for Americans struggling with hunger still looms. The House passed a bill that cuts nearly $40 billion from SNAP, resulting in more than 1.5 billion meals lost in fiscal year 2014. This is on top of impending cuts that impact all SNAP participants starting November 1. The combined cuts would lead to more than 3 billion meals lost, exceeding what the Feeding America network of food banks secures and distribute in an entire year. We need your help more than ever to help families facing hunger. Please consider making a gift today to show your support. We need your support now more than ever! Help make a difference in your community and across the country.” Rosebud Sioux Tribe member, Dawn Sierra who resides in Rapid City with her family does not see the budget cuts becoming a real issue to her family, but that is only due to the priorities in food budgeting she adheres to. “I budget my meals and buy only what I need,” says Sierra” I'll get sweets and chips if I have enough left over, which I usually don’t.” “I think everyone that gets SNAP needs to buy what they need and not just what they want from now on. I realized that a long time ago. I'll buy $200.00 on meat and essentials, but others I know get around $500.00 and they just buy a lot of junk food,” stated Sierra” At the end of the month I will still have meat to last and they don't.” One of the issues that is arising due to both the sequestration and the SNAP cuts is how the country’s veterans will be affected. For low-income veterans, who may be unemployed, working in low-wage jobs, or disabled, SNAP provides an essential support that enables them to purchase nutritious food for their families. Many veterans returning from service face challenges in finding work. While the overall unemployment rate for veterans is lower than the national average, the unemployment rate for recent veterans (serving in September 2001 to the present) remains high, at 10.1 percent in September 2013. About one-quarter of recent veterans reported service-connected disabilities in 2011, this can impact their ability to provide for their families. Households with a veteran with a disability that prevents them from working are about twice as likely to need held accessing adequate food as households without a disabled member. Veterans who participate in SNAP tend to be younger with many under the age 30, while 9 percent are aged 60 or older. They served during many conflicts, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Vietnam, and in some cases, Korea and World War II, as well as in peacetime. This benefit cut, which will reduce benefits to each of the veterans who rely on SNAP, takes effect the same week that the House and Senate Agriculture Committees begin their conference committee negotiations on the Farm Bill, which includes a reauthorization of and additional proposed cuts to SNAP. The House version of the bill would cut SNAP by nearly $40 billion over the next 10 years, denying benefits to about 3.8 million people in 2014 and an average of 3 million people each year over the coming decade. The Feeding America website is www.feedingamerica.org, and The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities can be found at www.cbpp.org. (Contact Karin Eagle at staffwriter@nsweekly.com) Copyright permission by Native Sun News
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