• Food stamps: Faces in the line Food stamps: Faces in the line By the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – December 22, 2004 Volunteers who served thousands of meals to the needy this season may have noticed something different about those
• Food stamps: Faces in the line
Food stamps: Faces in the line
By the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – December 22, 2004
Volunteers who served thousands of meals to the needy this season may have noticed something different about those reaching for the plates. A growing number were the working poor and even middle-class needy who never thought they would have to depend on food aid.
Post-Dispatch reporter Ron Harris recently offered sketches of faces in the food stamp line. Some of them turned out to have grown up in middle-class families and now find themselves relying on the kind of generosity that they once were accustomed to extending to others.
One is Lisa Gray, 31, whose father is an aerospace engineer. A mother of three, Ms. Gray’s only sources of income are a $6.25-an-hour discount store job in Ballwin and sporadic child support payments. Rent and utilities pretty much eat up her salary, which falls more than $4,000 short of lifting the family above the poverty rate of $18,850 for a family of four.
The number of Americans receiving food stamps has risen by more than 39 percent since 2000, following a seven-year decline. The sharp rise is thought to be due partly to the return of former food stamp recipients who lost this aid during welfare reform and to efforts by states to enroll more people who are eligible. But social workers report that much of the increase in food stamp participation is from people with jobs who are earning too little money to buy life’s essentials.
Some of these recipients are victims of ongoing structural economic changes that have caused their manufacturing jobs to vanish and left them with relatively low paying service and retail jobs or no jobs at all. Families are finding themselves on the margins, facing growing pressure to cut corners. For many, food pantries and stamps have become an essential part of their lives. That’s the only reason they are able to cover all or most of the rising costs of other necessities, such as housing, medicine and utilities.
It’s no surprise, then, that some researchers predict that growing numbers of Americans will find themselves facing poverty at some point in their lives and that even Americans who consider themselves part of the middle class worry at times of becoming too poor to provide for themselves and their families. This fear rises as the working poor and middle class must shoulder more of their health benefits.
The 23.9 million people receiving food stamps create a disturbing picture of a new generation unable to reach and exceed the economic advantages enjoyed by their parents. President George W. Bush needs to tackle this economic stagnation during his next term.
