The WIC Program in the United States

The WIC Program in the United States

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, also known as WIC, is a program designed to influence nutrition and health. WIC is available for low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children. Not only does WIC assist with nutrition, but it also provides nutrition education, breastfeeding support, and referrals to health care and social services. WIC has led to healthier infants and children by providing support to families in need. Administrations and Congress have provided sufficient funding since 1977 to make sure that WIC can help all eligible women, infants, and children. 

“During the 1960s, various studies identified hunger as a major problem in this country. Physicians described young women, often pregnant, in their clinics with various ailments caused by lack of food. In Atlanta, GA, doctors, and clinic staff began to prescribe needed food, and the prescription served to needed women” (History of WIC, 2021). A decade later, the White House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health decided to focus on the problem of hunger due to many families living in poverty. Conference recommendations started focusing on the nutritional needs of low-income pregnant women and pre-school children. On September 26, 1972, the Child Nutrition Act of 1966 was signed, which led to the creation of The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). A year later, WIC made two different food packages available, one for infants and another one for children and pregnant or breastfeeding women. In 1998, The William F. Goodling Child Nutrition Re-authorization Act of 1998 required all eligible parents to be physically present, provide evidence of income, and residency. The latest change in the WIC system was in 2010, under President Barak Obama. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act was established for WIC agencies to adopt an electronic benefit transfer system. This system would introduce the debit card system in order to replace the paper vouchers, which had been used in the United States since 1968.

It is very simple to apply and become a WIC participant. The individual must contact their area’s state or local agency to set up an appointment. Usually, when an individual calls to set up an appointment, someone will inform them about the nearest office in their area and what to bring to the appointment, such as picture ID, social security card, birth certificate, proof of residency, and proof of income. At the appointment, the individual will be asked to fill out forms that will determine if the mom and child are eligible for WIC. Next, the mom and child will have their weight and height measured. After all the events above are accomplished or done, the mother will be informed about their next WIC visit, and she will receive the vouchers that fit best to her situation. The WIC vouchers provide food for mothers, infants, and children. The vouchers include foods such as, infant cereal, adult cereal, fruit, vegetables, juice, eggs, milk, cheese, peanut butter, beans, bread, baby food, and so much more. 

According to the article, WIC Works: Addressing the Nutrition and Health Needs of Low-Income Families for More Than Four Decades by Steven Carlson, there is strong evidence that supports the impact that WIC has done on low-income families. “WIC supports healthier diets, promotes breastfeeding and better infant feeding practices, and may improve food security among children. Since the introduction of improved food packages better aligned with current dietary guidance, WIC participants are purchasing and consuming more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat dairy” (Carlson, 2021). Healthy eating practices are essential during infancy and early childhood for children to grow and develop healthy. Good nutrition is very important during pregnancy in order to support the development of the fetus and to protect the mother from pregnancy risks, such as diabetes, excessive weight gain, iron deficiency anemia, and miscarriage. Therefore, WIC aims to improve the health and nutrition of low-income women and their children by providing help. 

WIC has been successful due to the help of Administrations and Congress. Both systems have made sure to provide sufficient funding for low-income pregnant women, infants, and young children. “Research suggests that prenatal and early childhood participation in WIC is associated with improved cognitive development and academic achievement. WIC is quite effective in reaching women during, rather than after, their pregnancy: 83 percent of new mothers participating in WIC enrolled during their pregnancy” (Carlson, 2021) Research has provided evidence determining that WIC has been efficient for low-income women and children. 

Works Cited

| By Steven Carlson[1] and Zoë Neuberger, & More from the Authors Steven Carlson Steven Carl. (n.d.). WIC Works: Addressing the Nutrition and Health Needs of Low-Income Families for More Than Four Decades. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/wic-works-addressing-the-nutrition-and-health-needs-of-low-income-families. 

History of WIC. Snap To Health. (n.d.). https://www.snaptohealth.org/wic-2/history-of-wic/. 

Food Insecurity and What to Do About It

In class, we read about food security in America. We learned that food insecurity means that households were uncertain or unable to acquire food for all of their family members because of a lack of money. Around 11% or 14.3 million homes in America were food insecure sometime during 2018. Although food security has risen, it is still sad to hear about children going without food. According to the article also, 6.0 million children lived in food-insecure households where both adults and children are insecure. It also disproportionally affects minorities: 21.2% of Black households were food insecure, and Hispanic households were at 16.2%. Also, 29.1% of families who made incomes under the 185 percent of the poverty were food insecure as well.

When looking at these statistics, I am not very surprised that many of the people who were food insecure were minority and poor. I related a lot of this article to the book $2.00 a Day. After reading that book and hearing the experiences of poor people, I was able to relate their experiences to these facts. I could not help but think about policies that could help these people who were food insecure. Even though there are programs like SNAP, WIC, and National School Lunch Program, I think there has to be more we can do to make sure not only children, but people in general are food insecure no more. In my opinion, I would not mind spending more on social programs that expand assistance for organizations such as food banks and soup kitchens. Also, as a citizen, I am for having higher taxes, so there is more money into SNAP and WIC.  

If we are going to fight child food insecurity, we should maybe expand the school lunch program. I know all the schools in Springfield, IL, have free lunch and breakfast, but I wonder how many schools in the United States have free lunch and breakfast? According to the School Nutrition Association, 20.2 million children receive free lunches, and 1.8 million children receive the reduced price of .40. 7.7 million pay the full price for their lunches. Also, according to the School Nutrition Association, 11.7 million children receive free breakfast, and 0.77 million pay a reduced amount of 0.30. 2.17 million children pay the full price for school breakfast. By my calculations, that is 31.9 million children total that receive both free breakfast and lunch. There are 56.6 million students in the public schools of America. The school that I work at has a pantry for students; they can take home food over school breaks. I also know of other schools that have pantries outside of their buildings that people voluntarily put food inside. It is for the community, not just for the students. I have also heard of school programs that wrap the unused food and send it home to students so they have a meal there. Maybe those programs could be universally applied across the board at all public schools. Not only would it benefit the children, but it would also help the parents. It would cut down on costs that parents have to pay to feed their children. It is a group effort to make sure that no child in the United States in Food Insecure. Schools and the Federal Government and fellow citizens can join together to provide for the children and people across the country that are food insecure. 

These reaction papers are only free-writing exercises, but the fact that you would find a fact sheet on food insecurity at the Department of Agriculture and go over the statistics it provided to muse over what we ought to do about a problem impresses me.

Free Universal School Lunch

Introduction

As everybody is aware, it is virtually impossible to create a policy that pleases everybody and has no flaws and/or controversies. This is because of an issue known as inevitable error, which is the idea that there will always be errors or problems with a policy that cannot be solved. Clearly these controversies about policies must be taken into serious consideration and weighed heavily, but they do not always need to make it to where policies are not enacted, but hopefully the cons can transform the policies to better suit as many people’s agenda as possible. In the following paper the basic overview of what Free Universal School Lunch will be addressed, along with the pros and the cons of this policy. 

Basic Overview of Free Universal School Lunch

Poverty in the United States is a serious issue that impacts hundreds of thousands of children every single day. These children oftentimes go hungry while at home because their parents cannot afford to feed them adequately, which is why school breakfast and lunches are extremely important for so many of these children to have at their disposal. Free Universal School Lunch allows for all children to have access to free school lunch, and sometimes even breakfast, which eliminates many issues. One key issue this eliminates, on top of ensuring hungry children are fed, is the segregation of poor children from their peers. There is much evidence that children who receive free or reduced lunches at school are separated from their peers in the lunch line, or the other children are able to see their balance and know that they are either getting their lunches free or reduced, which can cause a lot of humiliation amongst poorer children. This humiliation and segregation amongst children can lead to bullying, low self-esteem and shame.

Arguments in favor of Free Universal School Lunch

Through the free and reduced lunch system already in place, families must meet very strict and specific criteria in order to qualify for these lunches. This has recently become a bigger issue because the Trump Administration enacted a policy that would “...tighten eligibility requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that could result in hundreds of thousands of the poorest children losing automatic eligibility for free school lunches” (Chaney, 2018). In other words, hundreds of thousands of children will have lunch debt and go hungry at school because the requirements to receive SNAP benefits have been made more difficult, which directly correlates to the requirements needed to receive free and reduced lunches. This issue could be solved if every single student received free lunch. It would eliminate the issues of segregating poor children from wealthy children and alleviate the stress of parents that do not qualify for SNAP and free/reduced lunches from scrambling to pay for school lunches they cannot afford. Another pro of Free Universal School Lunch is the fact that there will no longer be free and/or reduced lunch paperwork for people to have to fill out. According to “The Benefits of Universal Free School Lunch Meals,” 

“...paper applications can yield errors, and some children who need meals can fall through the cracks due to transient families, language barriers and other communication breakdowns. When access to school meals is no longer linked to the application and income verification process, there is less room for error and all children are eligible to eat” (Levin & Hewins). 

In other words, eliminating paperwork reduces the risk of students not receiving free or reduced lunch as a result of errors beyond their control. The system sometimes fails to see where there is need, which can leave people behind, but with Universal Free School Lunches, this issue is gone. Another argument in favor of universal free lunches brought up by Levin & Hewins is that “Schools no longer have to foot the bill for unpaid meal fees or try to collect them from families. This allows school nutrition staff to focus on preparing and serving healthy meals and eliminates a significant financial burden for school districts and families.” This is such a crucial pro because it not only emphasizes the importance of healthy meals for these children, which many of them do not receive at home, but also shows how this policy would positively impact the school districts by saving them time and resources.

In essence, if persons are very concerned about children with low incomes going hungry, and they worry that children who ought to receive free meals at school are not getting those meals, they may prefer a universal free lunch program, as such a program would eliminate the problem of children being financially unable to purchase meals. Such a program totally removes the error of denying services or food to persons who should be getting those services. Such a policy would provide free lunches to many students who do not require such assistance, but if someone is not very concerned with that type of error, then the universal free lunch system may be a favored policy.

Arguments Against Free Universal School Lunch

As stated previously, with any policy, there will always be inevitable error. Free Universal School Lunch is not an exception to this, so it is important to note the injustices or inefficiencies this policy can produce. One problem presented by McDonald, is the idea that Free Universal School Lunch would make it less likely for children to bring their own lunches from home since the school lunch would be free (2019). This is an issue because school lunches are not known for being healthy, and there is significant evidence to suggest that “children who ate school lunches were more likely to be obese than children who brought a lunch from home—despite entering kindergarten with the same obesity rates” (McDonald, 2019). In other words, promoting Free Universal School Lunch, in a way, is encouraging children to not bring their own lunches to school, which means they will be eating unhealthier school lunches and the obesity rates could increase. Another argument presented by Mull, is that the Universal Free School Lunch system creates more people reliant on the government for assistance (2017). This is an issue because the more people that are living on any type of government assistance are less likely to “bite the hand that feeds them” (Mull, 2017), which then makes bigger government more likely. This then leads to the government being in control of the children’s nutrition, which takes away “parental role in a child’s nutritional development” (Mull, 2019). All in all, this is an argument that is in favor of preserving family values, and the Free Universal School Lunch hinders these values.

There are also issues of fairness to consider. The funds for universal free lunches would come from the Federal Income Tax, or perhaps state taxes on incomes, sales, and property. Everyone would pay. Free lunches would be universal, meaning all children could receive their free lunches. The implications are that wealthy children who had no need of free school lunches would be getting a benefit they didn’t need, while working-class and middle class families would be paying for the wealthy children’s lunches through their taxes. Further, if children do not pay for their lunches, they could potentially adopt an attitude that devalued their meals, and they might be more prone to wasting food. Restaurants near schools, where students might frequently go for lunches or after-school food, would possibly see a decline in their business, and the proprietors of such restaurants would certainly perceive this as unfair competition. Finally, school lunches typically include meat, and the consumption of animal flesh is deeply offensive to some persons, based on their religious or ethical values. Promoting the consumption of animals during school lunches may benefit ranchers and large-scale factory livestock operations, but this is an inefficient use of the planet’s resources, and contributes to global warming, so unless vegetarian or vegan options are available, the continuing emphasis on meat consumption during school lunches raises ethical issues for taxpayers whose convictions are ignored when the government promotes all school children to eat animals without paying for the costs of producing such food.

Conclusion

As noted, when weighing the decision to enact or not enact a policy, it is crucial to consider the pros and the cons of that policy. This is to ensure that all sides of the argument are heard and provides the means of altering the policy if need be to eliminate as many of its errors as possible. Free Universal School Lunch would create an avenue where poor children are provided meals without their parents having to worry about how they will pay for those meals, but also promotes obesity in children and is thought to make people rely more on the government. Altogether, the pros of Free Universal Free Lunches seem to outweigh the cons. 

References

Chaney, M. (2018, December 14). Making Healthy School Lunches Free for All Should Be a National Priority. Civil Eats. https://civileats.com/2018/12/14/making-healthy-school-lunches-free-for-all-should-be-a-national-priority/

Levin, M., & Hewins, J. The Benefits of Universal Free School Lunch. CFPA. https://cfpa.net/ChildNutrition/benefits_of_universal_free_meals_7_26_16.pdf

McDonald, K. (21 January 2019). It’s Clear the Federal Government Shouldn’t Be Involved in the School Lunch Business. Foundation for Economic Education. https://fee.org/articles/its-clear-the-federal-government-shouldn-t-be-involved-in-the-school-lunch-business/

Mull, T. (24 February 2017). Why cutting back “free” school lunches would be a favor to families. The Hill. https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/education/321021-why-cutting-back-free-school-lunches-would-be-a-favor-to

Reading $2 A Day makes one student concerned about inadequate policies and services

During the course so far we have spent lots of time reading the book “$2.00 A Day.” This books focuses on a few families in different situations among those in poverty, and how they are managing to survive. The authors write about a range of families consisting of one single mom and her kid to families that have up to 20 or more people living in a two or three-bedroom apartment, where sometimes there are more kids than adults. The book also tells about the welfare system in the different cities, and even states, in which these families live, and how welfare programs help, or rather do not help, them in their struggle to survive. The authors explain what resources are available for these families and what resources are not, and how these families cope with their lack of resources and lack of support. The book ends with ways that the government and the public can work to implement plans of action that could truly help these people living in the lowest form of poverty to rise above the “$2.00 a day” threshold of extreme poverty, and help them get possibly even closer to a decent and stable life. 

While reading this book, the stories from these people and the situations that they have encountered impressed me. They experienced heart-breaking misfortune and miserable instability. Thinking about the kids in these situations caused me some empathic sadness, as they will grow up not knowing anything else and thinking that this way of life is totally normal and fine. Eventually when they get old enough they will realize what kind of conditions and life they are living in, but until then they won’t even realize that they are not getting to experience the basic childhood that every child should get to experience. It was also very upsetting to think about little kids going hungry and crying themselves to sleep, and how terrible that must have made their moms feel. I cannot even imagine how much it emotionally hurt the moms to listen to their kids cry themselves to sleep from hunger and to not be able to provide for them food because she had to sell the family SNAP supply for cash to keep the heat and lights on. It was also very discouraging to hear that some moms are practically killing themselves, physically, just to give their kids the chance to go to school and wear the uniform and have school supplies so that they have at least have some time in their lives where they feel normal and feel like they belong. The unstable housing otherwise deprived them of having a place where they could belong.

When I was reading about how some of these families have been in multiple homeless shelters over the course of a few months to a year, because the shelters have a time limit in which a family can stay, it was not only very upsetting but also slightly infuriating that we as a country are allowing for this to happen and allowing for families with children to live like this. No body, especially young children who are at very crucial points in development, should have to live a life where they are always moving or getting asked to leave from places that are the only thing ensuring at least some amount of safety for them during the night. I also fully believe that if someone is still trying to find work actively, like one of the mothers in this book was doing, then they should not have to worry about being kicked out of the shelter and worried about finding a new place to stay. I can understand, however right or wrong, asking someone to leave after three or four months of staying in the same shelter if they are not actively seeking a job or trying to find a way out, but if a resident is really trying then they should be allowed to stay and not have to worry about a time limit before getting asked to leave.

Another shocking factor in this book is the amount of illegal activity that so many families have to—regretfully and not very willingly—participate in just to survive. Without partaking in some of the illegal measures discussed in this book, families risk starving to death, freezing to death, or not being able to get money for rent and therefore getting thrown out on to the street with nowhere to go. These practices also allowed for some families to have water for using the restroom, cooking, and bathing. For those who had a car, they also needed the cash from these transactions to buy gas to keep the car going. As a result of many very poor families needing cash, not just government issued debit cards, many families had to result to selling their SNAP benefits, their kids’ social security numbers for others to claim them as dependents, and even their bodies (for the women mainly) in order to bring in any cash that they possibly could. In some instances, some females would have sex with men, sometimes older or younger than them, in exchange for food because they were desperately hungry. Often times, these situations of women having sex with different men would lead to more pregnancies and therefore more mouths to try and feed and house. This, to me, is just sickening. In response to try and survive, the problem ends up growing and more problems result, such as STDs among the women and girls having sex with several men.

In response to these situations happening all over our country, we as Americans need to step up to the plate and work to improve and eventually end this vicious cycle that so many good, hard-working Americans are trapped in. Americans need to push for better funding and better programs to help those on the very bottom, as well push for stronger regulations on where the money goes and what it is actually used for. They need to make sure that states or agencies are not cheating those people who really need the money out of it for the states’ own needs, but instead that all of the government money for the welfare programs is going towards helping those who truly need it. There also needs to be greater support from the American people for the private agencies and organizations/groups working towards doing their part in ending the suppression of those on the very bottom. With more support from Americans as a whole, and across the country, the chance of eliminating severe poverty especially, and at least lessoning the number of those in poverty, will significantly grow. This is a problem that is going to take effort from at least the majority of the country’s citizens and the government in order to eliminate or at least improve.

Your reaction to the cries of the children who were sobbing because they were so hungry and there was nothing to feed them reminds me of that old Brecht musical, which has the lines:

Ihr Herrn, die ihr uns lehrt, wie man brav leben

Und Sünd und Missetat vermeiden kann

Zuerst müßt ihr uns was zu fressen geben

Dann könnt ihr reden: damit fängt es an.

Ihr, die ihr euren Wanst und unsre Bravheit liebt

Das eine wisset ein für allemal:

Wie ihr es immer dreht und wie ihr's immer schiebt

Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral.

Erst muß es möglich sein auch armen Leuten

Vom großen Brotlaib sich ihr Teil zu schneiden.

This reaction essay captures the general process of converting a person toward an attitude of greater sympathy to the plight of paupers, and eliciting from them a greater commitment to seeing improved anti-poverty policies and services, greater volunteerism, and a heightened sense of priorities related to caring for persons experiencing poverty.  You read realistic accounts of the struggles people face, and this provoked a powerful reaction, and to cope with the reaction, you are suggesting better policies and services. Bear in mind that this is an effective way to educate people to gain their support for any suggestion of improved policies (like providing stable housing assurances to the poorest of the poor); you need to let people hear stories about how harmful it is for children to live without stable housing.

Student opposes drug testing of SNAP beneficiaries

SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), also called food stamps, is for low income people and families who cannot afford their food. Without this program, millions of people in the United States would go hungry. The United States Department of Agriculture provides SNAP, and it works by giving people a certain amount of money each month that can only use on food. It is put onto a card similar to a debit card. People get a certain amount depending on how many people are in their household, how much money they make, and how much their rent and utilities are. It is a great program for helping end hunger in the United States. 

One problem we face with SNAP is that Republicans and the Trump Administration are trying to make it so certain states are allowed to drug test food stamp recipients. The wrong-headed ideal of this policy proposal is that people receiving food stamps must be forced to go through drug testing, and without drug testing they will not be able to receive food stamp benefits. This is wrong in many ways. At the surface level, it may seem like a good idea that drug addicts cannot get food stamps, but what about their children? Should children of parents who have used drugs starve and suffer because of their parents’ illicit drug use? It really is not fair at all. I don’t, and I hope most people do not want children going hungry because their parents struggle with addiction, and even if someone does not have any children and they are addicts, do they deserve to starve? I have a very strong opinion that no one should starve, no matter what. Murderers and rapists in prison don’t starve, but they are trying to make someone with a drug addiction starve when they are not harming others, just themselves. 

Another reason why it is a bad idea to drug test food stamp recipients is because of how costly it is. Seven states have already tried this, but on TANF instead of food stamps (TANF is a different welfare program that gives cash grants to some poor families) and they have already spent one million dollars on these drug tests, and they will have to spend millions more as the years go by, but it has been shown that applicants who have been drug tested have tested positive at a lower rate than the general population. Drug testing does not work to help people get treatment for their addictions. Instead of spending this much money on drug testing applicants of welfare programs, we ought to be implementing better programs to help the poor move out of poverty, and help persons with substance use issues move toward sobriety. 

Hunger in the United States is a real problem, and forcing applicants to be drug tested will not help solve the problem. More people will starve. More people will steal, so they will be able to survive. Instead of spending millions of dollars to drug test food stamp recipients, we could increase the amount of benefits hungry persons receive because a majority of people who get food stamps do not get enough to last them the whole month. They do okay for the first couple weeks, but then they end up having to go to the food pantry because they run out of food. 

The SNAP program does need to be changed, but forcing people to be drug tested has more negative consequences than positive ones. People will also be losing a sense of self determination and autonomy over their own lives, because they already have to jump through many hoops just to get help from the government, but adding drug tests as something they have to do will just make them more dependent and less self-sufficient. 

I think the most important thing is that everyone gets to have the food that they need. Family members should not hurt because they have a parent or sibling who cannot stay clean. It is not fair to either of them, and there are other programs that we should have to help people who struggle with addiction. Not giving people food is not going to magically make them stay off drugs. 

I'd like to mention a few facts here to help support your editorial. 

In the first part of 2018, the maximum SNAP benefits for families in Illinois who live with no income are as follows:
single individuals: $192 per month;
single parents with one child or two-adult households: $352;
household with three persons: $504;
household with four persons: $640;
household with five persons: $760.

According to the USDA’s March 2018 food plans:
For a thrifty food budget, a family of two adults aged 19-50 years old need $382 per month; and for a family of four with two adults and two children aged 6-8 and 9-11 years old, the monthly food budget needed is $639.  

For the low cost plan, the amount needed for the two-adult household is $490, and for the family of four with two children and two adults, the amount needed for a month is $841.

For the moderate-cost plan, the amount for the two-adult household: $583.  For the four-person household: $1048.

In 2014, when there were about 120 million American households, total spending per month on food in and outside of home was about $1.15 billion, or approximately $960 per month per household (and the average American household has about 2.5 persons).  

Clearly, the SNAP benefits are not allowing poor persons to receive such lavish benefits that they can live with food consumption that matches typical American diets.  In fact, the SNAP benefits provide less than 40% of the resources that would allow a poor household without income to consume food at a level that matches the American average.  

SNAP benefits aren’t generous.  SNAP benefits do, however, combat hunger.  SNAP benefits reduce the number of Americans living in extreme poverty (looking at consumption levels to define poverty) by about half. 

National School Lunch Programs

Without the National School Lunch Program so many children would go hungry at school. The program was established in 1946 and signed into law by President Harry Truman. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) helps plan balanced meals in public and private schools. The NSLP helps develop healthy and educational outcomes for students coming from low-income families. Students from low-income families are eligible for the National School Lunch Program. These students receive price reduced lunches or free meals at school. Families with incomes below 130% of the poverty line and receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Temporary Assistance of Needy Families (TANF) is eligible for free lunches. Families with incomes between 130-185% of the poverty line are eligible for price reduced lunches. Most of these students are also eligible for snack, breakfast, and summer lunch programs. Schools cannot charge reduced price lunch families more than 40 cents per reduced lunch. Some students are still going hungry, because their family doesn’t know about the NSLP or they don’t qualify.

The NSLP provided price reduced lunches to over 30.4 million daily in 2016 at a cost of $13.6 billion. Behind SNAP in the nation the National School Lunch Program is the second largest food and nutrition assistance program. In 2015-2016 school years, over 98,000 schools participated in NSLP. The meals must meet federal nutrition standards. The program is administered on a state and federal level. On a federal level it is through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. On a state level it is through the State Department of Education or Agriculture. 

The program enhances children’s learning ability by contributing to their physical and mental well-being. It has always been said that students who don’t eat proper meals have a harder time concentrating and learning in the classroom.

Documents are kept to prove the lunch program follows the state and federal guidelines. For example, applications submitted by families for free or reduced meals, by site and description of the follow-up actions to verify eligibility. They must keep record of income, expenditures, along with contributions received. Record the numbers of free, price reduced, and full price lunches in categories served each day. The other record that is kept is meal production and inventory records that show the amounts and types of food used. 

Schools get paid on a reimbursement basis. Agencies get paid by the number of meals served. Schools have to submit a monthly reimbursement claim to the Child Nutrition Information Payment System. The department has to then review and approve the reimbursement claim. The claim then goes to the State Controller’s office. After this the check will be issued. It takes about four to six weeks after submitting the reimbursement claim before receiving the check. 

Student Reaction to $2 per Day

The most eye opening thing I have learned in this class came from the book $2.00 A Day. I am appalled and shocked that how many adults and children are going without food. Families that have no cash safety net, because Clinton signed a welfare reform bill passed by a Republican Congress that was supposed to lower the amount of people on welfare by getting them into productive employment. He and the Congress, in reality, started an epidemic of people living well below poverty levels. How can we as Americans, not see what is right in front of our faces? Children are going days and maybe even weeks without eating. Their parents are selling SNAP cards for cash, which they need for bills, such as water and electricity. How do we give a family a card to purchase food and think this is going to help their situation? Take Rae, the mother of Azara, she lost her job at Walmart because she didn’t have enough gas to get to work, even though she had previously never missed a day. Now Rae has no job and no money for gas to go out looking for another job. It is a vicious cycle of sometimes having over $2.00 a day and than enduring spells of misery living under that.

This book helped me see, not only that I could be more appreciative of my life, but to feel more empathetic when I see people using the SNAP card in the grocery store. Reading the story of the town of Delta made me sick to my stomach. Children were turning to prostitution just to be able to pay the bills or put food on the table for their children. Clinton enacted the EITC, which is a policy that helps the working poor, however so many people are living without an income that this tax credit does nothing to help them. In this situation the policies force mothers to sell their children’s social security numbers for someone else to claim, just to receive not even half the amount the person who bought the number will be getting. Americans are so worried about the starving children on the television that need $1 a day for a meal, when we need to be worrying about the homeless children in our own neighborhoods. We need to care for children that take a shower in the library bathroom sink or move from shelter to shelter when their families time has lapsed at that location. 

In conclusion, I don’t understand why people still think that welfare was reformed? If President Trump wants to make America a better pace, he needs to start with the welfare system. We cannot have a program that has no cash safety net. We need a program that encourages people to work, however, once they do we cannot just take away their benefits; intern leaving them poorer that before they were working. I don’t know the solution, but something must be better than what we are doing now.

I think that outrage is the appropriate emotion when we read $2 a Day, or consider the lifestyles and hardships of any of the Americans who are trying to survive at the lowest 2% or 3% of the income distribution. These people really are suffering at a level that approximates what people endure in much poorer societies, and the emotional costs of this poverty are probably greater in North America, since by comparison the rest of our society is so affluent.  I do want to caution you about the moral issue of “why do we worry so much about X, when we should be worrying about Y” statements. Compassion and altruism are universally good.  Most ethical or religious teachings suggest that humans ought to feel compassion and altruistic concern for all other persons, and perhaps even all other manifestations of Life.  The persons you don’t know, who live far away from you, and have different experiences than you have, are not less valuable than the people you do know, who live near you, whose life experiences are shared in common with you.  So, in this sense, we “owe” people far away and people yet to be born just as much as we owe the people in our immediate families.  But, on the other hand, ethical thinkers and moral philosophers have generally reached a sort of consensus that there is just too much suffering and need out there in the world, and it is impossible for individuals to take care of all the people or all the beings on the planet, those now living and those yet to live, and so, we do as a practical necessity owe more to the people closest to us, and ought to concern ourselves mostly with the people we can see, where we best understand their problems, and can most directly help them. From this perspective, we do owe more to the poor in our cities and our nation than we owe to the poor of distant lands or remote future times. 

This leads to a practical suggestion: give more of your time and wealth to help local humans than you give to help far-away humans, but give to both; and give more of your time and wealth to humans than you give to plants and animals, but do give something to help animals and plants.  It’s not so much, “why do we care so much about distant problems when local problems are pressing” as it is, “we need to care about distant problems and attend to them, but we need to give more attention and concern to local problems and attend to them more.” 

You may know of the logical fallacy of the “false dichotomy” where an issue is framed as an “either this or that, but not both” problem when in fact that is no reason to exclude “both” or bring in alternatives to the limited choices (of “this” or “that”) presented in the argument.  It’s worth keeping this in mind.  Human minds seem especially vulnerable to simplifying problems into false choices between two positions or actions when in fact there are many positions or actions possible, and choices often do not stand in opposition so that one choice excludes the other. 

Free lunches in schools for many American children.

Here is a student reaction paper about the child nutrition program that provides free or reduced price lunches at many American schools:

National School Lunch Program, or NSLP, helps children from poor families receive a good lunch at school every day. The school district will give these children a free or price reduced lunch.  Reduced priced lunches do not cost more than 40¢. In order for families to get their kids a free or price reduced lunch, they have to submit an application to the school district. The application can be sent home with the child at the beginning of the school year. However, the start of school is not the only time that a family can apply. They can apply at any point in the school year. They just have to request the application. Also, if a family is receiving SNAP, TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families), and FDPIR (Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations), their children are automatically able to receive these special lunches. The children that receive this can get these special priced lunches as soon as they start school in kindergarten or first grade until they graduate from high school. 

This program helps quite a few families who might not be able to afford to give their kids lunch money every day. There are children who go to school everyday and have never eaten a school lunch. For example, in my high school, if we did not have lunch money, they would give us a cheese sandwich and a carton of white milk. Looking around the lunch room, there were several kids who almost never ate lunch because they could not afford to put money in their account and they did not want milk and a cheese sandwich. The teachers in the lunch room did nothing to make sure that every kid ate that day. The application procedure for this program seems pretty lengthy. However, this would help the school decide whether these families actually need it (“need” is simply determined by the children’s household income). The families who do not need this program and falsely claim low incomes so their children quality for it take away the opportunity for other families to give their children a proper lunch. If a family is already receiving SNAP, TANF, or FDPIR, then it is obvious that these families need more help than most families who are not receiving benefits from these programs. For the families receiving benefits through these programs, their children will receive free school lunches.

If anyone wants to know more about the NSLP, there is some recent (FY 2015 estimates) information available at schoolnutrition.org.

No Kid Hungry Campaign

Here is a student essay describing a policy or program. 

On March 14, 2012, Governor Patrick Quinn announced a new partnership in efforts to end childhood hunger in Illinois. A 2011 report from Feeding America found that more than 745,000 children in Illinois are at risk of hunger. Families are struggling to put food on the tables and provide nutritious meals. The organizations, Share Our Strength and Illinois Commission to End Hunger gathered at Parker Elementary Community Academy in Chicago to announce the Commission’s report and start off the Illinois No Kid Hungry campaign. The campaign will work to help teach more families about federally funded programs to help assist in hunger needs such as; school breakfasts and summer meals which provide children with a healthy start they need. They will also help families learn how to cook healthy yet affordable meals for their families. Share Our Strength and the Greater Chicago Food Depository have joined together to begin the Illinois No Kid Hungry Campaign. With the help of their sponsors; Jimmy Dean, Walmart, Arby’s Foundation, and supporter- Weight Watchers, Illinois will soon be looking at a shrinking number of children who are hungry.

Any school that is a public school, nonprofit private school, or a residential child care institution can choose to take part in the School Breakfast Program. More than 770,000 students are eligible for the free or reduced breakfasts and lunches at school, yet less than one half of the students are participating in this program. This means children are coming to school hungry because there is not enough food to eat at home. Hungry children are less likely to perform to their highest potential in the classrooms. Also, less than 15% of the children who are eligible for the summer meals receive them. Illinois is actually in the top five states that have actually lost federal funding due to low participation rates for these services. The young children of our communities need good nutritious meals in order to grow physically and keep up with their academics to their full potential. Through the help from Share Our Strength, children who are in need will be enrolled in federal nutrition programs and families will be taught how to cook healthy and affordable meals. The families will learn how to select nutritious, yet low-cost ingredients and prepare meals in ways to ensure the best nourishment for their family.

 With the help from Illinois Commission to End Hunger and No Kid Hungry students and their families will be better aware of the programs available. With the generous help from numerous not-for-profit programs, the people of Illinois can receive help without using any state money or without raising taxes. This is a big relief that the state is not going further into debt with this Commission to End Hunger program. Share Our Strength and No Kid Hungry campaigns in 16 other states besides Illinois. These states include Maryland and Colorado, where it has been an incredible success. In Maryland, this campaign has helped to increase the number of children eating summer meals by 7.5%. In Colorado, has increased the participation in school breakfast program by 430,000 more meals served. It looks like Illinois is on the same road to success as these other states are to end hunger for the children.

Student reaction essay on hunger.

    From when I can remember, I have the same routine everyday: take a shower, eat breakfast, and brush my teeth. Throughout each and every day I consume various snacks along with having lunch and dinner.  When I begin to worry about the certain things I deal with in life, I have never had to worry when my next source of food will be. I can wake up every morning fully assured that I will have a meal on my plate. To know that there are people who do not have this luxury in the world, let alone in the United States, is heartbreaking. We need to implement policies that ensure no one should have to go hungry.

    The world is facing a hunger crisis unlike anything else it has seen in nearly 50 years. Every day almost 16,000 children die from hunger-related causes. That's one child every 5 seconds. Every year 15 million children die of hunger. The World Bank estimates that the spike in global food prices in 2008, followed by the global economic recession in 2009 and 2010 has pushed between 100-150 million people into poverty. Suffering from poverty results in one of many things: less money for food.

    A recent study given to us in one of our lectures stated that 1.4 million people go a day without eating because of the lack of resources to obtain food. We also learned that 64 million people suffer from very low food security. Of these people that had very low food security, 20% of them went a whole day with nothing to eat. I immediately thought to myself that there is no way these statistics can be true. I eat meals on a daily basis, why isn’t everyone else in the world.

    Nearly one in four people, live on less than $1 per day, while billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people.  While the military continues to spend money, one missile could feed a school full of children every day for 5 years. I strongly believe that hunger and race are intertwined in the United States. In 1991, 46% of African-American children were hungry as compared to 16% of white children. The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40% and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age.

    I never thought twice about how fortunate I am to have the luxury of eating. I always thought we all had to eat to survive, but 16.1% of people in the world are malnourished! This statistic is extremely high and should have never been this high in the first place. I feel since the United States is such a strong and powerful country, we should have the power to feed everyone. One of the Millennium Development Goals in the U.N. is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. This goal should be implemented throughout the world and quickly! Providing the food and nourishment that is needed to maintain overall good health is a responsibility each person owes another.

Reaction Paper on Food

Here is a decent reaction paper on hunger:

Ban Ki-Moon, the former United Nations General Secretary, wrote in a March 12, 2008 editorial (available at the Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/11/AR2008031102462.html) editorial:

This is the new face of hunger, increasingly affecting communities that had previously been protected. Inevitably, it is the "bottom billion" who are hit hardest: people living on one dollar a day or less. When people are that poor, and inflation erodes their meager earnings, they generally do one of two things: They buy less food, or they buy cheaper, less nutritious food. The result is the same -- more hunger and less chance of a healthy future.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated in 2007 that 850 million people on the planet suffered from hunger, with 820 million of these living in developing countries.  One of the Millennium Development Goals was to get the number of persons experiencing hunger down to 400 million by 2012, but by 2009 the FAO estimated 1.023 billion humans suffered chronic hunger, and then 925 experienced this in 2010 (see FAO media release from September 14, 2010 at http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/45210/icode/).

As terrible as this hunger is in developing nations, I’m alarmed that there were 30 million people outside of the developing nations who experienced hunger in 2007. These were people living in developed nations; the rich nations. It seems to me ridiculous and unacceptable that in a wealthy food-producing place like our country there should be people experiencing hunger. In the United States our main policy to prevent hunger is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, still called “food stamps” although the name has changed and most people use electronic debit cards for their benefits rather than “stamps”).  Lately there have been over 44 million Americans getting SNAP benefits in any given month (http://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/SNAPsummary.htm). These numbers have increased dramatically since the start of the Great Recession, and costs for the program have doubled over what they were in 2007 (from $35 billion to $72 billion in 2011). And yet, we know that as recently as 2006, a quarter of persons who qualified for SNAP benefits didn’t get them, mostly because they never applied for them, or their parents didn’t apply (see the participation rate report at http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/snap/FILES/Participation/Trends2002-09Sum.pdf). In America today we have 14.5% of households experiencing some food insecurity (see http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/FoodSecurity/). Why is this?

Persons in America who experience poverty have many potential services from the public to keep them from becoming hungry.  SNAP is the biggest program, but there are also school lunch and breakfast programs for children. There are food pantries and soup kitchens or bread lines. Households may qualify to get monthly benefits through Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), or perhaps Supplemental Security Income (SSI) if someone in the household is disabled. Low-income families may get the Earned Income Tax Credit, and they may get medical care through Medicaid, and they may get help with energy bills through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). For housing, there are public housing units and vouchers for subsidized housing. And despite all this, there are still many Americans (over two million) who will skip meals or even go a whole day without eating because of their poverty in any given month.

I suppose these persons who go hungry are probably not using all the welfare benefits they could use.  They may be too embarrassed.  Or, perhaps they are ignorant of what they can get. There may be some people who have low incomes, but are not especially poor, and perhaps these people have too much income to qualify for many benefits, but then for some other reason they spend all their money on housing or medicine and have nothing left over at the end of a month to pay for food.  For example, a middle-class family that suddenly loses employment may still have too much income to qualify for food assistance, but they may have significant debt, or a someone may need very expensive medical care or medicine, and the family might choose to avoid becoming homeless or having their power turned off, or avoid dying from not taking expensive medicines, and those choices could mean that they run out of food.  Such families might be the most embarrassed and the most ignorant when it comes to getting welfare benefits.

How could social workers or food banks reach out to those who are ashamed or do not know where they can get assistance?  Outreach and publicity should be part of all the welfare programs and food bank missions. The goals for these programs and agencies should be to protect people against hunger, and that means they need to find anyone who might go hungry and convince them that everyone needs help now and then through life, and there is no shame in getting help for a period when one needs it. Food banks and food pantries should advertise more, both to collect more donations and to attract more “customers” to collect needed food. Low income neighborhoods may require the most advertising, but middle-class neighborhoods shouldn’t be overlooked. I believe if we do more to let people know about what help is available, and help them feel comfortable accepting the help after sudden layoffs or when they have exhausted their other resources, we should nearly eliminate hunger entirely, so that researchers will not be able to find the people who skip meals or go for a whole day without eating simply because they have no money for food. That should be our goal.

It is important for the United States to continue giving agricultural aid and food support to end hunger for the hundreds of millions of poorest people in the developing nations, but we also must work to eliminate hunger in our own society.

Editorial about Food Security Policies

Here is a student paper about hunger and food security policies.

The food and hunger policy in America is very beneficial for our fellow Americans. The policy has its ups and downs but throughout the years it has become a huge success for those who suffer from hunger. While there is still a high number of people who don’t receive a sufficient amount of food throughout the year, the numbers of people who receive government assistance are increasing with the help of the government and our local communities. Do you ever wonder how the awareness of hungriness is discovered? The Economic Research Services plays a large role in research on a federal level of food security. From the statistics gathered in 2008 by the Economic Research Services, it was found that in the United States eighty-five percent of people in the United States were secure with food in their households, while 14.6 percent did not have a secure amount of food in their houses sometime throughout the year. There are many different food programs designed by the government that provides assistant for those who have an insecure amount of food in their homes. The most popular program is SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is a very good program and provides people with a reasonable amount of grocery voucher money monthly. This program has helped over 24 million low-income Americans each month, according to the United States Department of Agriculture from 2008 figures. There was also a total of $37.5 billion used to supply the SNAP program amongst those low-income American families.

This program is sufficient because it focuses on helping those who are in need for food the most based on their income status and household size. While this program provides food for families it also educates them on proper dieting that helps them maintain their health for the better. So because of this requirement, education around the United States is increasing and helping people to make wiser food choices when they shop at grocery stores.

Although State participation in SNAP Education is voluntary, I feel as if it would be beneficial if it was a requirement and not an option. This education is given to improve the life of the Americans and it would help people to live longer and have less health problems as they age. This program is also beneficial to the low-income Americans because it decreases the number of children living in poverty. According to the Economic Research Service, the number dropped 4.3 percent because of SNAP. With the SNAP program more people are likely to feel secure about the amount of food they have in their homes versus not having SNAP and people feeling insecure. When people have the needed amount of food in their homes for their families they are more likely to succeed in taking care of other areas in their households. Some of those things would be employment, education, parenting, and basically life skills.

Student considers housing crisis, immigration, and hunger

Here is another interesting student reaction paper.  You never know where students will go with these informal writing assignments, and there is always something new or innovative in these.

First off I would like to discuss more in-depth the hungry [hunger] issue that we talked about briefly. I was looking on frac.org and found some interesting facts about hungry [hunger] that I would like to share with you. There were 36.2 million people living in households considered to be food insecure in the year 2007. Of these 36.2 million, 23.8 million are adults (10.6 percent of all adults) and 12.4 million are children (16.9 percent of all children). In some developing nations where famine is widespread, hunger manifests itself as severe and very visible clinical malnutrition. In the United States hunger manifests itself, generally, in a less severe form. This is in part because established programs – like the federal nutrition programs – help to provide a safety net for many low-income families. While starvation seldom occurs in this country, children and adults do go hungry and chronic mild under nutrition does occur when financial resources are low. The mental and physical changes that accompany inadequate food intakes can have harmful effects on learning, development, productivity, physical and psychological health, and family life. (FRAC, 2008) 

I really believe that immigration is a major cause of poverty. I know you will have a great deal to argue against what I believe, but when [we] bring the people of foreign countries over we are taking away plenty of jobs for our people that are suffering from poverty. Even if they are taking the low level jobs such as McDonalds and Wal-mart, those are still jobs [now unavailable] for our people. This is just something that I believe will help the ones in poverty. The government needs to make the immigration laws harder and more impossible for them to be citizens of the United States. I do not have anything against the immigrants, but believe we have our own problems and don’t need them coming to make more, such as being here illegally and so on. 

The second issue I would like to discuss is the housing issue that we hit base with this last week. There are not nearly enough places for people to live and the Section 8 housing voucher waiting lists are a mile long. There needs to be more built and more homeless shelters built. I was reading a very interesting article on MSN today [“More families move in together during the housing crisis,” by Stephanie Armour, USA Today, February 3, 2009] . It was about a dad that built a three family house and then lost his job. His family to help him out moved into it. 

“We're still living there now. Times are rough," says Tixe, 26, a publicist. "It's been very beneficial that we're all together. My stepbrother and I have a wonderful relationship now. We eat together for dinner, and I've become closer to my dad, too. This is an important time for family to help, the way the housing market is going. Our story is a testament to how families should come together to help with a mortgage." 

Another direct quote that I liked from this story was 

“The weak economy — which has brought surging foreclosures, sinking property values, vanishing home equity and mounting job losses — is playing a major role in family dynamics, pulling relatives under the same roof to pool their resources and aid relatives who've lost their homes.” 

This is so very true, and many are living paycheck to paycheck who never did before. Many family elders are living with family because they can’t afford their old home anymore. Many say they see a decrease of divorces because of financial reasons, which is very wrong, but what can we do? People are taking out their money from banks left and right. So many are staying in the rentals and afraid to buy homes. This economy is getting scary and something major needs to take place. 

Food security in Illinois

I thought this essay letter written for an assignment by one of my students was worth sharing here on the blog.  It's about the food stamps program, now called "SNAP".

Dear Senator [Name],

I am writing in regards to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the federal Food Stamp Program. One of the primary goals of this program is to help put healthy foods on the tables of low income families. The change has given the program a new focus on extending benefits to as many families as possible by making the program more accessible to those in need. The average monthly household participation in Illinois alone was 595,832 for 2008! Only four states have a higher participation rate than Illinois: California, Florida, New York, and Texas. 

The number of Illinois households participating monthly in the Food Stamp Program has shown a significant increase of almost 30,000 households yearly since 2004. I believe this indicates to our community that the need for food assistance shows no signs of slowing down, especially in today’s unstable economic times. Job loss, homelessness, and hunger are on the rise.

These are all issues that can not be ignored that we must face together. Our current President, Mr. Barack Obama, has shown that he is committed to doing his share in helping SNAP during these rough times by recently putting into action a pilot program to help senior citizens, one of the hardest populations to reach that is served by SNAP, receive the benefits they qualify for. He also supports the recent additional nutrition provisions that were included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to temporarily increase the benefits and services that individuals and families receive through SNAP. This will greatly increase the food purchasing power of low income families during this American hardship.

Still, the United States Department of Agriculture, who oversees SNAP, only has a discretionary budget authority of $24.6 billion for 2009 compared to that of the Department of Defense’s roughly $650 billion budget for 2009. Remember, only a small portion of that $24.6 billion will go to SNAP, and many needy families with young children will inevitably still go hungry this year.

Hunger is defined as “the uneasy or painful sensation caused by lack of food; the recurrent and involuntary lack of access to food.” In Illinois during the years of 2004-2006, 3.5% of households experienced hunger on a regular basis. Food insecurity can be defined as “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.” Some food insecure households are lucky enough to obtain enough food to avoid going hungry, but not all of them are as fortunate. Between 2004 and 2006, 9.8% of Illinois households experienced food insecurity. 

This is why I, along with the rest of our community, need your help. You have the power to educate within the political arena. This is such an important issue and immediate necessity. Don’t let a chance like this pass you by. Please help push for more spending for SNAP and related programs this year and in years to come because, together, we can make the difference these families so desperately wish for.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

Sincerely, 

[Name]
University of Illinois at Springfield
Social Work Program

If you're interested in more information, here are some web sites the student used or else that I'm recommending where you can learn more about food security policies in Illinois.

Illinois Department of Human Services description of LINK.

A pdf file of the Department of Agriculture proposed FY 2010 budget (from the White House).

The USDA's page giving an overview of nutritional assistance programs.