Food Stamp Piece

Heather Pusser
Heather Chaplin
Intro to Journalism
April 9, 2011
Poverty Thresholds

In New York, the average American family receives an income of about $30,000 a year, proving that the residents of New York City have had a chance to bounce back from the recession with more force than other cities in America. With the help from countrywide food banks, those not receiving enough food seek help for food distributing organizations.
Determining the poverty line in the United States is usually found by adding the totally cost of all the essential resources that an average adult consumes in a year. This approach is need-based in that an assessment is made of the minimum expenditure needed to maintain a tolerable life.
Minimum wage in New York City is the same as the federal, $7.25. Though the majority of states in the U.S. decide to match the federal minimum, it is interesting that the state of New York has a lower unemployment rate than the national average. Although the rate has decreased to 8.6% from the nation’s rate of 9.0%, other states with in the U.S. do not have the same luck.
In Houston, Texas, the poverty line for the city has risen dramatically since the recession. The average family living in poverty receives a $22,000 income. Last year, Houston had 8.8% unemployment though the entire stat e was only at 8.3% unemployment. According to the Houston Business Journal, in the past year, the rate in the Houston area has fell to 8.4%. The Houston area is now attributed to a statewide gain of 9,600 nonagricultural jobs during the month of April and will stay afloat from the help of the government sector, which added 4,000 jobs.
(Unemployment Rate: Houston, Texas, National)
Although the employment rates show that Houston is doing better than New York, the residents with income below the poverty level is much higher than New York. In Houston, statistics show that 20.6% of the residents make less that the average $30,000 income. Of that 20.6%, 8.5% receive less than half of the nation’s average income.
“It is very clear how extensive the economic difficulties are,” said Steve Murdock, the former state demographer who now is on the faculty of Rice University. “Health insurance. Job hours worked. Poverty Rates. Income. Thos are all in the wrong direction in terms of what we’d like to see for America.”
The poverty threshold on New York City is significantly higher than that of other cities in the United States. However the measurement of poverty in NYC differs from the U.S. Government’s methodology in several ways.
According to an NPR article, first, they consider the costs associated with food, clothing shelter and geographic location. The federal poverty measure, on the other hand, is equal to three times the cost of a basic food plan adjusted annually for inflation.
Second, when figuring income, New York takes into consideration a family’s food stamps, housing subsidies, out-of-pocket medical expenses, child-care and transportation costs. It looks at after-tax income, while the U.S. government uses a pre-tax income.
New York’s system for determining the poverty threshold was based on recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences. However, the increased income still leaves families struggling to make ends meet. Because the poverty line was created back in the 1960s, at the time Americans spent about a third of their income on food, therefore the government took the cost of a basic food plan and multiplied it by three. Since then, the poverty line has been adjusted for inflation but hasn’t taken anything else into consideration. Even though Americans today spend far less of their income on food, and much more on things like heath care.
In the state of New York, the cost of cell phones, as well as other utilities is considered while calculating the poverty line, as well as including the basic housing, clothing and food costs. The system them compares that amount to a family’s post-tax income. This is all added to the value of any government benefits, such as food stamps or housing that a family may need.
In an effort to aid those still in need for food, cities have developed food banks across the country. Food banks disperse millions of pounds of food to the need each year. Although the term “food bank” is sometimes used for originations that deliver food directly, most often the banks act as nonprofit wholesalers, donating or selling food at discounted prices to the soup kitchens or food pantries that distribute the food.
According to the Joel Berg of the Coalition Against Hunger, 700,000 more people get food stamps than did so five years ago. Therefore, food pantries have responded to the recession by opening its door to a new level of people. This ever-widening group of people expands to child-care workers, nurse’s aides, real estate agents and secretaries who are facing financial crisis for the first time.
"Quite too often, people make it about politics, taking partisan business into consideration,” Triada Stampas, director of Government Relations, Policy and Public Education for the Food Bank of NYC said. “But these are lives and livelihoods at stake. And the best way to meet these goals is to ensure quality from all angles--government, organizations, and citizen involvement. By working together through all these approaches, we have no choice but to help the food banks and poverty programs to prosper."
In 2009, the nation’s food banks received $100 million windfall to purchase more food as part of the stimulus law. This grant was a large boost for the food bank program, which usually receives $250 million a year from Washington. This increase in the amount of food seems huge even for an organization that measures servings by the millions of pounds.