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Rising Prices Dilute Value Of Food Stamps

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The New York Times

Published: June 22, 2008

Making ends meet on food stamps has never been easy for Cassandra Johnson, but since food prices began their steep climb this year, she has had to develop new survival strategies.

She hunts for items that are on the shelf beyond their expiration dates because their prices are often reduced, a practice she once avoided.

Johnson, 44, knows that buying food this way is not healthful, but she sees no other choice if she wants to feed herself and her 1-year-old niece and 2-year-old nephew, who live with her.

"I live paycheck to paycheck," Johnson said.

The sharp rise in food prices is being felt acutely by poor families on food stamps, the federal food assistance program.

In the past year, the cost of food for what the government considers a minimum nutritional diet has risen 7.2 percent nationwide. It is on track to become the largest increase since 1989, according to April data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But food stamp allocations, intended to cover only minimum needs, have not changed since last fall and will not rise again until October, when an increase linked to inflation will take effect.

Stacy Dean, the director of food assistance for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington social issues advocacy organization, estimates that the rising food prices have resulted in two fewer bags of groceries a month for the families most reliant on the program.

In May, Congress passed a farm bill that would raise the minimum amount of food stamps that families receive, starting in October. The bill, which was passed over President Bush's veto, will also raise for the first time since 1996 the amount of income that families of fewer than four can keep for costs like housing or fuel without having benefits reduced.

Yessenia Villar, who lives in Manhattan, says it is getting harder to stretch her monthly $190 in food stamps to cover food for herself, her mother and her 5-year-old daughter.

"I used to make all my groceries for $150 a month and then have a little extra," she said. "Now it is, like, crazy."

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