doing what works to end u.s. hunger

8/7/2019 Doing What Works to End U.S. Hunger

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Doing What Works to End U.S. Hung

Federal Food Programs Are Efective, but Can Work Even Better

Joel Berg March 2010


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Doing What Works to EndU.S. HungerFederal Food Programs Are Efective,

but Can Work Even Better

Joel Berg March 2010

This publication is a product o CAPs Doing What Works project, which promotes government reorm to

eciently allocate scarce resources and achieve greater results or the American people. Doing What Works

specically has three key objectives: (1) eliminating or redesigning misguided spending programs and tax

expenditures ocused on priority areas such as health care, energy, and education; (2) boosting government

productivity by streamlining management and strengthening operations in the areas o human resources,

inormation technology, and procurement; and (3) building a oundation or smarter decision making by

enhancing transparency, perormance measurement, and evaluation. Doing What Works publications andproducts can be viewed at http://www.americanprogress.org/projects/doing_what_works.


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1 Introduction and summary

3 A history of success

3 Howthefederalnutritionsafetynetendednear-starvationconditions

7 Contemporary examples of federal food program succes

7 HurricaneKatrina

7 TheGreatRecessionandthestimulusactof2009

10 Doing What Works 10 Makingthesafetynetsmarterandmoremodern

14 Conclusion

15 Endnotes

16 About the author

17 Acknowledgements

Contents


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1 enter for American Progress | Doing Wat Works to nd u.. hnger

Introductionandsummary

In this era o both soaring budget decits and escalating poverty, there is a great need or

the ederal government to ensure it is spending its resources as wisely and efectively as

possible on the needs o those Americans who require a helping hand during hard times.

Tis objective ts within the mission o the Center or American Progresss Doing What

Works project, which was inaugurated by CAP earlier this year to ensure that each dollar

government spends advances ambitious and careully selected progressive goals.

Tere is no question that government must address the most basic o human needs

hunger and nutrition. Some ederal programs ocused on these needs are already very cost

efective, among them the SNAP (ormerly Food Stamp) and school meals programs, but

they could be run even more eciently.

Tese and other ederal ood programs are critical to millions o low-income Americans who

are in crisis because o longstanding structural problems with the U.S. economy alongside

existing holes in the nutrition and antipoverty saety nets. Both sets o problems are now

exacerbated by the devastating consequences o the Great Recession. As recently as 2008

(beore the worst o the economic downturn), 49.1 million Americans, including 16.6 mil-

lion children, lived in households that sufered rom ood insecurity or hungerunable to

ully aford the ood their amilies needed.1

Tis number exceeded the combined populationso the states o Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Iowa, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Wisconsin.

Combating hunger and ood insecurity is an important goal in itsel. But it is also a sound

investment. Voluminous data proves that hungry children learn less efectively, hungry

workers work less productively, and ood insecurity costs the nation tens o billions o

dollars annually in health care costs. A 2007 study by the Harvard School o Public Health

ound that domestic hunger and ood insecurity cost the American economy $90 billion

annually.2 Given the massive increase in ood insecurity since then, this paper calculates

that the cost o domestic hunger to our economy now likely exceeds $124 billion. Te

price we pay or ood insecurity in children alone is at least $28 billion.3

Make no mistake, the ederal nutrition saety net has saved countless lives and provided

much-needed assistance to millions. Its creation and expansion in the 1960s and 1970s all

but wiped out severe hunger in America. Tis same saety net greatly reduced the sufering

caused by the Great Recession and other events such as Hurricane Katrina.


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But it is also clear that the saety net is in desperate need o reorm. Te current saety netis a conusing array o programs, with 15 diferent nutrition assistance programs run by

the U.S. Department o Agriculture alone, each o which have diferent eligibility require-

ments, application procedures, and physical locations that people must visit to apply. Tis

system requires ar-reaching bureaucracies and vast mountains o paperwork to adminis-

ter, discouraging many low-income Americans rom seeking the benets they are entitled

to, and costing the government billions o dollars in unnecessary administrative costs.Meanwhile, antiraud measures, inspired more by misguided ears than actual evidence o

widespread cheating, cost the government more to implement than they save.

Tere is a ar beer way. Tis paper reiterates a previous proposal or the ederal govern-

ment to combine all these programs into one streamlined, seamless entitlement program

available to all amilies at 185 percent o the poverty line or below.4 Tis means any amily

o three with a yearly income below $33,873 would be eligible. My colleague, Tomas

Z. Freedman, suggested calling this idea the American Family Food, Opportunity, and

Responsibility program, or AFFORD. Doing What Works embraces that title as emblem-

atic o the recommendations contained in this paper.

In the pages that ollow, this paper will look at the 20th century history o hunger and

ood insecurity in the United States alongside the key reorms that led to signicant gains

against these two scourges by the end o the 1970s. Well then briey examine how these

programs ailed to keep pace with a changing U.S. economy but also highlight how well

they worked during recent crises, specically Hurricane Katrina and the Great Recession.

We will then detail our recommendations.

Whatever reorms we choose to implement, there is no question that ederal nutrition

programs must be modernized and their bureaucracies must be streamlined. Especially

in these dicult economic times, when more and more amilies must rely on the nutri-tion saety net or ood security, America cannot aford ineciency. We owe it to hungry

amilies to spend every dollar allocated to this saety net on ghting ood insecurity, not

on unwarranted paperwork or burdensome hurdles to receiving benets.


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Ahistoryofsuccess

Howthefederalnutritionsafetynetendednear-starvationconditions

A short history o the ederal nutrition saety net demonstrates why it is so important that

each ederal dollar spent ghting hunger and ood insecurity is put to good use. When this

unding actually reaches the low-income Americans they are intended to serverather

than being squandered on paperwork or bureaucracythey have the power to transorm

what it means to be poor in the worlds richest country.

Exactly one century ago, in 1910, long beore any ederal nutrition assistance programs

existed, a young Frances Perkins (who would later go on to become the nations rst

emale U.S. cabinet secretary, serving as President Franklin D. Roosevelts secretary o

labor and helping write the Social Security Act) wrote a masters thesis at Columbia

University entitled A Study in Malnutrition in 107 Children rom Public School (P.S.)

51.5 She ound that, during the recession o 1907-1908, there were pathetic cases o lile

boys and lile girls ainting in school rom sheer lack o ood. Te doctor working with

her ound such symptoms as pallor, emaciation, and dark circles under the eyes in 107

children who were bona de malnutrition cases.

Tree-quarters o the children had or breakast nothing more than bread, or bread andcofee, or tea: In some cases buer is used with the bread in the morning, but this is very

rare, or buer is costly. A typical lunch was soup, possibly (but not always) with meat,

and tea. A typical supper was bread and tea, some polenta, and, on some occasions, sand-

wiches. Eggs, buer, and resh milk are conspicuous by their absence rom most amily

diets, Perkins ound. Very lile resh ruit and ew resh vegetables enter into the diets.

Perkins summed up her ndings this way:

Te sigh o many litle children wih he bligh o hunger se upon heir uure made i

impossible or he invesigaor and wrier o gaher ha he maerial here reaed in a cold,

impersonal manner is neverheless a mass o human documens ull o human misery.

While exact statistical comparisons o ood insecurity in 1910 versus today are not pos-

sible, it is stil l clear that low-income children then were ar hungrier then than they are

todayeven given the increasing hunger in America since the 1980slargely because

no government saety net at all ex isted in 1910. Nor did ood insecurity improve until the

middle o the 20th century.


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When World War II arrived, General George C. Marshall and others noticed that

American conscripts arrived at boot camp too malnourished to adequately ght.

Consequently, President Harry ruman and ultraconservative Georgia Senator Richard

Russell (chairman o the Senate Armed Services Commiee and later, or whom the

Russell Senate Oce Building in Washington, D.C. was named) teamed up to create the

National School Lunch Program. While the program wasnt required in all schools and

many students still had to pay some reduced ee or lunch, it was a gigantic leap orward.Decades later, Russell said: I I had to preserve one ederal program above all others,

I would sti ll choose the School Lunch Program.6

In 1967, a team o doctors headed by Dr. Robert Coles and unded by the Field

Foundation traveled to the Mississippi Delta region to study hunger there. Discovering

Tird World-style malnutrition, their ndings startled the nation:

we saw children whose nuriional and medical condiion we can only describe as

shockingeven o a group o physicians whose work involves daily cononaion wih

disease and sufering. In child aer child we saw: evidence o viamin and mineral

deciencies; serious, unreaed skin inecions and ulceraions; eye and ear diseases, also

unatended bone diseases secondary o poor ood inake; he prevalence o bacerial and

parasiic disease, as well as severe anemia, which resuling loss o energy and abiliy o

live a normally acive lie; diseases o he hear and lungsrequiring surgerywhich

have gone undiagnosed and unreaedand nally, in boys and girls in every couny we

visied, obvious evidence o severe malnuriion, wih injury o bodys issuesis muscles,

bones and skin as well as an associaed psychological sae o aigue, lislessness, and

exhausion...We saw homes wih children who are lucky o ea one meal a day...We saw

children who don ge o drink milk, don ge o ea ui, green vegeables, or mea.

Teir parens may be declared ineligible or he ood samp program, even hough hey

have lierally nohing.We do no wan o quibble over words, bu malnuriion is noquie wha we ound.Tey are sufering om hunger and disease and direcly or indi-

recly hey are dying om hemwhich is exacly wha sarvaion means.7

Following up on the Field Foundations study o Mississippi, the Citizens Board o Inquiry

on Hunger and Malnutrition in the United States conducted a study in 1968 in order to

prove that such conditions existed throughout America and to motivate the media to

ocus on the issue. Te report ound chronic hunger and malnutrition in every part o the

United States, and that people were going without ood or our or ve days in a row or

subsisting on powdered milk or a week at a time. Substantial numbers o newborns were

dying, rom causes that can be traced directly and primarily to malnutrition.

Only 5 million o the 29 million then-eligible Americans were participating in the two

major existing government ood programs (commodities and ood stamps) and, the

majority o those participating [were] not the poorest o the poor. Te reason: Te poor-

est o the poor could not aford to meet the requirement that they purchase ood stamps,


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which were then essentially a discount coupon program. Te report concluded: We nd

ourselves somewhat startled by our own ndings, or we had been lulled into the com-

orting belie that at least the extremes o privation had been eliminated in the process o

becoming the worlds wealthiest nation.8

As a result o these reports, and the grassroots activism and media aention that they

ueled, Sens. Bob Dole (R-KS) and George McGovern (D-SD) orged a congressionalconsensus across party and ideological lines and gained support rom Presidents Richard

Nixon and Jimmy Carter to create the modern nutrition assistance saety net over the span

o less than a decade.

In 1971, Congress passed legislation that limited the purchase requirement or ood

stamps and, in 1972, authorized the Women, Inants and Children, or WIC program.

In 1973, Congress passed a law requiring states to expand the Food Stamp Program to

every jurisdiction. Te biggest advance was the passage o the Food Stamp Act o 1977,

which created the program as we know it today. Te act completely eliminated the original

purchase requirement or ood stamps, making them ree on a large scale or the very

rst time. It also established national income eligibility guidelines at the poverty line and

required outreach to enroll more people into the program.9

In 1978, Congress permanently authorized the Child and Adult Care Food Program,

which provides ood to low-income children in child care and to low-income seniors

in certain institutional seings. Overall, between

1969 and 1979, as the chart below demonstrates,

the expansion o existing programs and the start

o new ones resulted in a dramatic increase in the

percentage o low-income Americans who received

ederal help obtaining ood.10

Participation in the Food Stamp Program increased

six-old, rom 2.8 million to 17.6 million people. Te

number o children receiving ree and reduced-price

lunches tripled, rom 3.9 million to 11.7 million

children. Te number o children receiving ree sum-

mer meals increased even more dramatically, rom a

small pilot program eeding 99,000 kids to a major

national program serving 21 million. Neither the

WIC program nor ree and reduced-price breakasts

paid or by the ederal government even existed in1969; by 1979, there were 4 million people benet-

ing rom WIC and 2.7 million children geing ree

and reduced-price breakasts.

The growing federal food safety net

Federal ood programs serving Americans, 1969 and 1979

Participants, in millions

20

18

16

14

12

10

8

6

4

2

0

Source: USDA Food and Nutrition Service.

Food Stamps Free and

reduced price

school lunches

Free and reduced

price school

breakasts

Women,

Inants, and

Children (WIC)

Sum

me

chi

1969

1979


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Te benets o these changes were clearly evident. For example, in 1999, then-U.S.

Secretary o Agriculture Dan Glickman said in a speech to the National Association o

WIC Directors: Without WIC, 22 percent o the our million children entering high

school this year could have been saddled with handicaps and disabilities sufered as the

result o low birth weights but the intervention o the WIC program helped prevent this

rom happening. And, without WIC, an estimated 113,000 babies would have died at

birth.11 Tis report urther calculates that, as o 2009, the number o babies saved romdying at birth by WIC exceeded 200,000.

Te ood program expansions also succeeded spectacularly in achieving their main goal:

ending starvation conditions in America. In 1979, the Field Foundation sent a team o

investigators back to many o the same parts o the United States ound to have high rates

o hunger in the late 1960s. Tey ound dramatic reductions in hunger and malnutrition,

and concluded:

Tis change does no appear o be due o an overall improvemen in living sandards or

o a decrease in joblessness in hese areas. Te Food Samp Program, he nuriional

componens o Head Sar, school lunch and breakas programs, andWIC have made

he diference.12

Tese initiatives showcased government programs that actuallyworked and efective col-

laborations between political rivals. Had the nation built upon this progress by urther

expanding and strengthening these programs, it could have easily ended hunger entirely.


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Contemporaryexamplesoffederalfoodprogramsuccesses

Beginning in the 1970s, when the American economy began replacing living-wage manu-

acturing jobs with poverty-wage service sector jobs, the ederal antipoverty saety net also

began to erode. Tese developments combined with ederal nutrition programs that did

not evolve as much as necessary to reect changes in American society and technology. As

a result, hunger in America spiked. Te problem, however, would be unimaginably worse

today i the saety net didnt exist at all. Some recent examples illustrate this point.

HurricaneKatrina

Aer Hurricane Katrina, when most ederal government programs ailed, the Food Stamp

and School Lunch Programs were notable islands o success. In September 2005, ood

stamp participation nationwide rose by 1,771,404 people, largely due to the nutrition

relie received by victims o Hurricane Katrina. Four states with large numbers o hur-

ricane survivorsLouisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and exasaccounted or more than

1.51 million o that increase. Tus, the program reacted exactly as it was designed to do,

rapidly providing additional ood purchasing power to disaster victims. 13

Similarly, the School Lunch Program was able to immediately respond via provisions thatallow children experiencing homelessness to automatically enroll in the program without

application or proo income, as well through the quick action o the USDA in issuing guid-

ance to school districts throughout the country.14 Children who were displaced rom their

homes had a long list o other worries but geing ood in school was not one o them.

TheGreatRecessionandthestimulusactof2009

As U.S. hunger spiked during the recent economic downturn, the nations ood programs

demonstrated success in responding. Te SNAP-Food Stamp Program, a countercyclical

entitlement that is designed to be an economic stabilizer that expands when the economyworsens, worked exactly as planned. Te number o participants rose rom 26.4 million

in ederal scal year 2007 to 33.7 million in scal year 2009a 28 percent increase in just

three years.15


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In contrast, other ederal antipoverty programs were ar less responsive to the economic

downturn. For instance, participation in the emporary Assistance to Needy Families

Program actually dropped over those three years, rom 4.1 million to 4.0 million Americans,

even as the jobs necessary to no longer need ANF became considerably scarcer.16

Further, due to the $21 billion in additional antihunger spending that was included in

the stimulus packagethe American Recovery and Reinvestment Act o 2009there issignicantly less hunger and ood insecurity in America today than there otherwise would

have been. Te law included these additional unds:

$20 billion to increase Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP,

benets (ormerly known as Food Stamps) or each o the tens o millions o

Americans in the program $300 million to help states administer the increased SNAP caseload $500 million or WIC to support an increased caseload and an improvement in WIC

inormation systems $100 million or competitive grants to schools or the purchase o school ood

service equipment $150 million or the Emergency Food Assistance Program to purchase commodities or

ood banks, ood pantries, and soup kitchens to rell emptying shelves and to assist with

administrative unctions $5 million or the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations or acility

improvements and equipment upgrades17

Tanks to these unds, there is signicantly less hunger and ood insecurity in America

today than there otherwise would have been.

Te New York City Coalition Against Hunger (the organization the author o this papermanages) documented that the number o New Yorkers orced to use the citys soup kitch-

ens and ood pantries grew by 21 percent in 2009. Yet because ederal antihunger spend-

ing in New York City increased by more than $500 million during the same period, ewer

charities ran out o ood than the year beore. Although the report showed that 55 percent

o emergency ood programs still lacked enough ood to meet the growing demand, it was

a signicant improvement over 2008, when ully 69 percent o the pantries and kitchens

lacked sucient ood.18

Te increase in ederal unding provided a ood lie ra or struggling amilies. But the

increased demand or ood assistance only highlights the need to maximize the value o

each ederal antipoverty dollar. As Recovery Act unds run out, it is likely that the remain-ing nutrition saety net will be even urther taxed in their absence.


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When the American people were asked in 2007: How much o the time

do you think you can trust the government in Washington to do what is

right? only 36 percent answered just about always or most o the time.

Due to that belie, many people alsely assume that charities providemore ood than government, and that they provide it more eciently

and economically.

Perhaps i they knew the truththat government eeds more people

and does so more cost efectively than charitiesthey surely would eel

diferently about governments ability to do the right thing.

While it is oten a great burden to enroll in the SNAP-Food Stamp Pro-

gram, once someone receives the benets it is usually relatively easy to

use them, especially since paper coupons have long ago been replaced

by easy-to-use electronic benets transer or EBT cards. The government

merely transers the money electronically onto EBT cards and then, at

virtually no additional cost to the government other than the benets

themselves, recipients are able to use the money solely or ood. Thats

why the vast majority o money in the Food Stamp Program-SNAP goes

to ood, not to administrative overhead.

In FY 2009, out o total Food Stamp Program-SNAP costs o $53.6 billion,

the ederal government spent $50.3 billion on benets and only $3.3 bil-

lion on administrative overhead. While the ederal government pa

100 percent o benets, state and localities paid roughly 50 percen

administrative costs, which means that they spent approximately

billion as their share o the overhead. So out o the $56.9 billion spall levels o government on the Food Stamps Program-SNAP, $50.3

went directly to ood benets and $6.6 billion to administrative co

Consequently, 93 percent o all spending went directly to benets

only 7 percent went to administrative overhead, an improvement o

2007, when 15 percent was spent on overhead. I government red

even more o the unnecessary barriers to application and recertic

the overhead costs would be even lower.

In contrast, some ood banks have overhead rates o up to 20 perc

When you add in the overhead o a national organization that dist

utes to ood banks as well as the overhead or local community-b

pantries and kitchens that directly eed people, the total overhead

the entire systemrom original donation to nal distribution

greater than 20 percent.

Case closed: The Food Stamp Program-SNAP is more cost ecient

charities.

Cost effectiveness of the safety net vs. charity


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DoingWhatWorks

Makingthesafetynetsmarterandmoremodern

Te ederal nutrition saety net is a remarkable success story, but it is not geing the best

possible bang or the buck. Federal antihunger programs are oen too slow to respond to

changing conditions and improved technology. Tey require beneciaries to jump through

unnecessary and expensive-to-administer hoops in order to receive benets. And they

are organized into a maze o overlapping programs when one overarching program would

perorm beer.

Tere are three concrete steps the ederal government can take to improve the eciency

and efectiveness o our nations ood saety net:

Remove burdensome participation requirements Improve the use o new technologies Reorm overly complicated bureaucracies

Lets consider each o these steps in turn.

Removeburdensomeparticipationrequirements

Participation requirements or amilies and individuals are ripe or reorm. One misguided

assumption o the Food Stamp Program is that most recipients also receive cash welare

and ew have any earned income. In act, between 1989 and 2008, the percentage o ood-

stamp households receiving cash welare ell to 11 percent rom 42 percent, while the

percentage with income rom work increased to 29 percent rom 20 percent.19

Te ailure to recognize this shi is placing a hardship on the working poor. In order or

people to receive cash assistance through the emporary Assistance or Needy Families

program, they are generally required to make multiple visits to government social serviceoces to meet with ANF caseworkers. Under ederal law, amilies who only receive

SNAP or Food Stamps are required to have ewer visitsand in some cases no physical

visitsto a government oce to receive benets. Yet some o these ood stamp-only par-


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ticipants are still required to make a greater number o visits as i they were in the ANF

program. Tat makes no sense. For working amilies especially, they oen dont need to be

case managed by a social worker. Tey simply need their benets.

Further, in order to receive benets, many participants must rst provide a mountain o

paperwork and physically visit government oces to meet with a government ocial.

Tey must repeat the process at least once a year to keep their benets, even though thereis lile evidence that such repetition achieves its intended purposepreventing ineli-

gible recipients rom receiving benets. Case in point: Several states and localities require

applicants to be ngerprinted beore they can receive certain ederal nutrition benets,

even though there is no evidence that ngerprinting is an efective way o catching raud.

Te relatively limited raud in the Food Stamp-SNAP Program is more efectively and

more cheaply caught by other systems that dont add paperwork and visits or applicants

or treat them like criminals; more efective systems include ones that electronically match

applicants nancial inormation rom computer records.

Te ederal response to Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the benets o processing

applications in a streamlined manner. Te School Lunch Program reacted exactly as it was

designed to do, rapidly providing ood to school children.20 Yet or routine benets claims

across ood programs, our current system clings to inecient and redundant processes

that signicantly burden beneciaries at great government expense.

In the end, change should be welcomed by the ull range o the political spectrum.

Advocates o smaller government should embrace eforts to reduce government waste.

Struggling amilies will no longer be denied the aid they are entitled to by unwarranted

administrative hurdles. And American taxpayers will take comort in the knowledge

that their tax dollars are being spent to provide much-needed services, not to maintain a

bloated and costly bureaucracy.

Improvetheuseofnewtechnologies

Federal, state, and local governments should also work together to revamp antiquated

social services inormation systems. Giving participants the option to complete applica-

tion orms online would be less burdensome especially i computer access is available

through public libraries, public schools, acilities at nonprots, and other locations. It

would save government the cost o processing orms by hand that could be automatically

processed by a computer.

Te governments should also work together to create a centralized document commons

so that applicants or programs need to submit key documentsbirth certicates and

proo o citizenshiponly once. O course, there must be strict protocols to protect the

privacy o such inormation.


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Beer inormation technology should also speed the application process. Te 30-day

deadlines that states have to process ood stamp applications (a deadline they oen do

not meet, at least partly due to old inormation systems) should be reduced to ve days.

In some states, such as Oregon, applicants receive their benet on the rst day they apply;

that should become the national standard.

Reformoverlycomplicatedbureaucracies

Te sheer complexity o the ederal nutrition saety net is another source o ineciency.

While the SNAP, School Meals, and WIC programs are the largest, they are only part o

the 15 diferent ederal nutrition assistance programs run by the USDA. And that universe

does not even include senior nutrition programs run by the Department o Health and

Human Services and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program run by the Department o

Homeland Security. Maintaining so many programs wastes money on redundant stang,

paperwork, and other administrative costsmoney that should be spent on nutrition

assistance or the hungry and ood insecure.

Perhaps the greatest problem with the current nutrition assistance saety net is that each pro-

gram has diferent eligibility rules, diferent application orms and processes, and, quite oen,

diferent oces (sometimes across town or across the county rom each other) to which

people must physically travel to apply. Families must generally earn below 130 percent o the

poverty line to receive SNAP benets and ree school meals, but they must earn below 185

percent o the poverty line to obtain WIC benets and reduced-price school meals.

Similarly, some schools have school breakast programs and others dont. Whether kids

are eligible or ree aer-school snacks or ree summer meals can depend either on their

amilys income or on the income o the people in the neighborhood in which they live.Baing, right?

Tis tangled web o requirements is why hungry Americans are so conused about how to

get help and why they oen are unable to get the vital assistance their amilies need. It is

no wonder that about a third o amilies eligible or SNAP benets do not receive them,

and that nearly two-thirds o the children who receive school lunches do not receive

school breakasts.

Tis paper reiterates the importance o a previous proposal to combine all o the ederal

antihunger programs into one streamlined, seamless entitlement program available to

all amilies at 185 percent o the poverty line or below (meaning any amily o three witha yearly income below $33,873 would be eligible). My colleague, Tomas Freedman,

suggests calling this new arrangement the American Family Food, Opportunity, and

Responsibility, or AFFORD program. Doing What Works embraces that name because it

is emblematic o the reorms recommended in this paper.


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Many more low-income Americans would be eligible or this new initiative than the

existing, separate programs. Te simplest approach would enable eligible amilies who

successully le with the Internal Revenue Service or Earned Income ax Credits to also

automatically receive AFFORD benets i they check a box on the orm electing to do so,

thereby eliminating the need or most o the application bureaucracy.

Not only would this program be ar easier or low-income amilies to access, but it wouldalso be ar easier or the ederal, state, and local governments to administer. Te new

program would still allow women and children in the WIC program to get the extra special

nutritional and medical help that has made that program so successul, but amilies would

generally have a lot more exibility about how to use the AFFORD benets than they

currently do. AFFORD benets could be used or hot and prepared oods, as well as at

armers markets, community-supported agriculture projects (in which people buy shares

in local arms), ruit and vegetable carts, and arm stands.

Te program would reach ar more people than the current SNAP program and would

especially help working amilies struggling just above the poverty line. Raising eligibility

levels to 185 percent o the poverty line (rom the current 130 percent) would expand

coverage by tens o millions o people who are not now eligible or ood stamps. Tis is

especially important since ully 16 percent o the amilies in America with children who

directly sufer rom ood insecurity earn between 130 percent and 185 percent o the

poverty line, or between $22,321 and $31,764 annually or a amily o three, making them

ineligible in most states or SNAP-Food Stamp benets.21 Te revised benet would sig-

nicantly reduce hunger and would be such a large supplement to wages that it could also

help the nation decrease the number o people living in poverty.

Yet even i President Obama and Congress chose to keep the various ederal nutrition

assistance programs legally and programmatically distinct, and even i they neverthe-less agreed to allow eligible amilies to use one combined application (either in paper or

online) to apply or all the benets, they could still make it ar easier or applicant amilies

and achieve signicant costs savings as well.


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Conclusion

Large-scale reorms can be dicult. Some progressives might believe that the only major

thing wrong with our existing nutrition assistance programs is that they are underunded.

Tats air enough. It is true that programs such as ood stamps, the Women, Inants and

Children Program, and school lunches have nearly wiped out large-scale starvation in

America. Tis is a vital accomplishment that should not be understated, but i they were

signicantly expanded they could urther decrease hunger. Yet certain reorms would lead

to greater eciency and even beer results, including:

Reducing unnecessary administrative burdens such as requent visits to government

oces or the completion o a mountain o paperwork in order to receive benets Beer utilizing technology to manage and process program applications Streamlining and consolidating the vast array o ederal ood programs Expanding eligibility to more amilies who are experiencing ood insecurity

Te best approach is orward thinking and takes the middle ground, achieving massive

change through mainstream values and common-sense approaches. Federal policy should

combine more resources with serious reorm. Tis is the road to smarter government and

an end to U.S. hunger and other orms o ood insecurity.


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Endnotes

1 Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, and Steven Carlson, Household Food Security inthe United States 2008 (U.S. Department o Agriculture, 2009).

2 J. Larry Brown and others, The Economic Cost o Domestic Hunger: EstimatedAnnual Burden to the United States (Maryland: Sodexho Foundation, The PublicWelare Foundation, and Spunk Fund, 2007).

3 Ibid; This study concluded the ollowing: The cost burden o hunger inthe United States is a minimum o $90 billion annually. This means that onaverage each person living in the United States pays $300 annually or thehunger bill. On a household basis this cost is $800 a year. And calculated on alietime basis, each o us pays a $22,000 tax or the existence o hunger. Andbecause the $90 billion cost gure is based on a cautious methodology, weanticipate that the actual cost o hunger and ood insecurity to the nation ishigher. Dr. Browns extrapolations rom that data suggests that our nationpays at least $28 billion to $34 billion a year or the negative impact o hunger

among children alone.

4 Joel Berg and Tom Freedman, Ending U.S. Child Hunger by 2012: How AmericaCan Break the Political Logjam (Washington: Democratic Leadership Council,2006), available atttp://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&sbsecID=143&contentID=253861.

5 Frances Perkins, A Study in o Malnutrition in 107 Children rom Public School51, submitted in partial ulllment o the requirements or the degree o mastero arts in the aculty o political science at Columbia University, April 15, 1910,chapter III, p. 17.

6 George McGovern, The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time (New York:Simon and Schuster, 2001).

7 Raymond M. Wheeler, Hungry Children: Special Report (Atlanta: SouthernRegional Council, 1967), p. 4-6.

8 Ibid, p. 9-17.

9 U.S. Department o Agriculture, A Short History o the Food Stamp Program(Food and Nutrition Service, 2008), available at http://www.ns.usda.gov/sp/rules/Legislation/about_sp.htm (last accessed December 2006).

10 U.S. Department o Agriculture, Federal Nutrition Assistance ProgramParticipation Data, 1969 and 1979 (Food and Nutrition Service), available athttp://www.ns.usda.gov/ns/data.htm (last accessed August 2008).

11 Remarks as prepared or delivery by U.S. Secretary o Agriculture Dan Glickman,National Association o WIC Directors, New Orleans, Louisiana, April 6, 1999.

12 Nick Kotz, Hunger in America: The Federal Response (New York: FieldFoundation, 1979).

13 Food Research and Action Center, Hurricane Relie Pushed Food StampParticipation Levels Up Dramatically in September 2005: More than 1.5 Milliono 1.8 Million New Participants Were in States Hardest Hit by Hurricane Katrina(2005), available at http://www.rac.org/html/news/sp/05.09_FSP.html.

14 Carol Calee and Patricia Julianelle, A McKinney-Vento Toolbox: Constructinga Robust and Rigorous Homeless Education Program, In Case o Disaster andEvery Day (U.S. Department o Education, 2007).

15 U.S. Department o Agriculture, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Participation and Costs (Food and Nutrition Service, 2010), available at ttp://www.fns.sda.gov/pd/APsmmary.tm.

16 U.S. Department o Health and Human Services, ACF Caseload Data, January28, 2010, available at ttp://www.acf.s.gov/programs/ofa/data-reports/caseload/caseload_crrent.tm.

17 U.S. Department o Agriculture, American Recovery & Reinvestment Act o 2009(Food and Nutrition Service, 2010), available at ttp://www.fns.sda.gov/fns/recovery/defalt.tm.

18 New York City Coalition Against Hunger, NYC Hunger Catastrophe Avoided (ForNow); Soaring Demand at Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens Counter- Balancedby Food Stamps Surge and Extra Recovery Bill Funding (2009).

19 U.S. Department o Agriculture, Characteristics o Food Stamp Households:Fiscal Year 2005 (Food and Nutrition Service, 2006); U.S. Department oAgriculture, Characteristics o Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program: FiscalYear 2008 (Food and Nutrition Service, 2009).

20 Food Research and Action Center, Hurricane Relie Pushed Food StampParticipation Levels Up Dramatically in September 2005: More than 1.5 Milliono 1.8 Million New Participants Were in States Hardest Hit by Hurricane Katrina(2005), available at http://www.rac.org/html/news/sp/05.09_FSP.html.

21 Mark Nord,Food Insecurity in Households with Children: Prevalence, Severity,and Household Characteristics (U.S. Department o Agriculture, 2009).
http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecID=143&contentID=253861http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecID=143&contentID=253861http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecID=143&contentID=253861http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecID=143&contentID=253861http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htmhttp://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htmhttp://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htmhttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/data-reports/caseload/caseload_current.htmhttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/data-reports/caseload/caseload_current.htmhttp://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/recovery/default.htmhttp://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/recovery/default.htmhttp://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/recovery/default.htmhttp://www.fns.usda.gov/fns/recovery/default.htmhttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/data-reports/caseload/caseload_current.htmhttp://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/data-reports/caseload/caseload_current.htmhttp://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htmhttp://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htmhttp://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecID=143&contentID=253861http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?knlgAreaID=114&subsecID=143&contentID=253861


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Abouttheauthor

Joel Berg is a nationally recognized leader in the elds o hunger and ood security,

national and community service, and technical assistance provision to aith-based and

community organizations. He is also author o the book, All You Can Ea: How Hungry is

America? Te book challenges the president and Congress to make hunger eradication a

top priorityand ofers them a simple and afordable plan to end it or good.

Since 2001, Berg has led the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, which represents

the more than 1,200 nonprot soup kitchens and ood pantries in New York City and the

more than 1.4 million low-income New Yorkers who are orced to use them. Te coalition

works to meet the immediate ood needs o low-income New Yorkers and to enact innova-

tive solutions to help them move beyond the soup kitchen to sel-suciency.

Prior to his work with the coalition, Berg served or eight years in the Clinton administration

in senior executive service positions at USDA. For two years, he worked as USDA coordina-

tor o community ood security, a new position in which he created and implemented the

rst-ever ederal initiative to beer enable aith-based and other nonprot groups to ght

hunger, bolster ood security, and help low-income Americans move out o poverty.

He worked as USDA coordinator o ood recovery and gleaning the previous two years,

working with community groups to increase the amount o ood recovered, gleaned, and

distributed to hungry Americans. Also while at the USDA, he served as director o national

service, director o public liaison, and as acting director o public afairs and press secretary.

From 1989 to 1993, he served as a policy analyst or the Progressive Policy Institute and a

domestic policy staf member or then President-elect Bill Clintons transition team.

Berg has published widely on the topics o hunger, national and community service, andgrassroots community partnerships, including a recent white paper on ood jobs or the

Progressive Policy Institute.

A native o Rockland County, New York, and a 1986 graduate o Columbia University,

Berg now resides in Brooklyn. He is the past winner o the U.S. Secretary o Agricultures

Honor Award or Superior Service and the Congressional Hunger Centers Mickey Leland

National Hunger Fighter Award.
http://www.nyccah.org/http://www.nyccah.org/


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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the generous contributions made by the Walmart

Foundation and the Rockeeller Foundation.

Some o the ideas in this paper originally appeared in a May 2006 Democratic Leadership

Council report, Ending U.S. Child Hunger by 2012. How America Can Break thePolitical Logjam, by Joel Berg and om Freedman and in Joel Bergs book All You Can

Ea: How Hungry is America?, published in November o 2008 by Seven Stories Press.

Ms. Lori Azim, a volunteer or the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, helped with

research and editing or the original dra o this paper.


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The Center or American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute

dedicated to promoting a strong, just and ree America that ensures opportunity

or all. We believe that Americans are bound together by a common commitment to

these values and we aspire to ensure that our national policies relect these values.

We work to ind progressive and pragmatic solutions to signiicant domestic and

international problems and develop policy proposals that oster a government that

is o the people, by the people, and or the people.

doing what works to end u.s. hunger

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