"SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is the country's largest anti-hunger program. "The vast majority are children, working people, older Americans, veterans and people with disabilities," Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, says of food stamp recipients. "If the SNAP program shuts down, we will have the most mass hunger suffering we've had in America since the Great Depression." For most people, SNAP is the only money they get directly."
""This month, I could not afford to pay anything, gas or electric," she says. Instead she paid her monthly car payment, since she needs to drive to doctors' appointments, visit her mother, and one niece uses the car to get to work. If her nephew's food benefit disappears in November? "I am very concerned I will not have heat," she says. It would also ruin Thanksgiving."
Nearly 42 million people who receive federal food assistance risk losing benefits because of the federal shutdown. About one in eight U.S. residents receive an average of $187 per month through SNAP. Many households rely on SNAP as their only direct monthly support because cash welfare fell sharply in the 1990s and Medicaid pays providers directly. A shutdown would imperil children, working people, older Americans, veterans, and people with disabilities and could cause mass hunger comparable to the Great Depression. Individual households face immediate hardships like unpaid utilities, lost holiday meals, and inability to afford transportation or heat. A separate nutrition program for seven million pregnant women and new parents also risks running out.
Read at www.npr.org
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