Food stamps benefit everyone in Missouri

By Christine Woody

Missouri's representatives in Congress left Washington early in August to spend a few weeks back home with us, their constituents. As citizens, we have a patriotic duty to let the men and women of our delegation know what we think about the issues and how we expect them to represent our wishes.

So, if you're listening -- particularly senators Claire McCaskill and Kit Bond -- I want you to know how important it is for the Senate to pass the 2007 Farm Bill as approved by the House in July, with its increase of $4 billion over five years for the Food Stamp Program.

It is obviously important to nearly 800,000 Missourians who participate in the Food Stamp Program and to thousands of other households that are "food insecure," the new federal government term for "hungry." The increases mean a long-overdue increase in benefits.

In May and June, many Missouri public officials and citizens, including U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of Cape Girardeau, took the Food Stamp Challenge, which involved living on the average food stamp benefit and demonstrated why an increase in the Food Stamp Program is necessary. They discovered through personal experience how difficult it is to feed a body on the average food stamp benefit of $1 per meal per day.

Clearly, as they found, the benefit provides a household with some food to fill bellies cheaply, but not enough to provide healthy meals with all the nutrition individuals need to do their best at work or school. Without an increase in the benefits to adequate levels, low-income households often have to consider nutritious foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables as luxury items.

The House farm bill's nutrition title will begin to address the inadequacy of benefit levels that have been eroding over time. For the first time in 30 years, many elderly who receive only the $10 minimum monthly benefit would get a raise in their allotments to $16. Moreover, many low-income families with children would get slightly higher allotments because of improvements in the standard and child care deductions. Moreover, the House bill allows more low-income people to access benefits. It also allows families to have food stamps without exhausting all of their savings for retirement and education. The bill exempts such savings accounts from the limits on households assets and begins to index the limits on assets households can have.

But food stamps perform another important function for all of us, in addition to providing a vital safety net for 271,000 "food insecure" households. The Food Stamp Program also pumps more than $1.3 billion into the state economy each year. Food stamp recipients currently receive $740 million in benefits -- all new money brought into the state from the federal government, with minimal cost to the state. Those benefits are spent at local groceries, giving local economies a strong shot in the arm. Economists calculate that every $5 in food stamps generates $9.20 in total community spending, which brings the economic impact for Missouri, at today's benefit levels, to more than $1.3 billion. And if the 2007 farm bill becomes law as written, those numbers will all increase significantly.

It is ironic that in this wealthiest of all nations, 26 million people are "food insecure." The poverty would only be worse if it were not for the Food Stamp Program, one of those federal programs that does what it sets out to do, and continues to do it well. It is also a program that works well as a federal-state partnership. In our state, particularly, state government has an admirable track record for making the Food Stamp Program work. In Missouri, 84 percent of those eligible to receive food stamps are enrolled in the program -- the highest percentage in the nation. Our state administration has also won recognition, and extra funding, for accuracy.

From both the state and federal perspectives, the Food Stamp Program is a perfect example of a well-designed, well-administered government program that helps the people it was designed to help in ways that benefit everyone. Now, if the Senate and the president are willing, the program will have the funding it needs to provide aid that is truly adequate to the need.

I hope that the Senate will improve on the House bill by restoring the full value of the minimum monthly benefit (to the $32 needed to account for inflation since the $10 minimum was set in 1977) and by making more significant improvements in the asset tests.

I urge McCaskill and Bond to support the best interests of all Missourians by supporting and strengthening the nutrition title of the 2007 Farm Bill.

Christine Woody coordinates the statewide task force on hunger for the Missouri Association for Social Welfare in Jefferson City, Mo.