As Costs Rise, Food Stamps Can’t Feed Many N.J. Families

By HEATHER APPEL, SPECIAL TO THE RECORD

Food stamps cover less than half the monthly food expenses for most New Jersey households receiving assistance from the federal subsidy program. And locally, many recipients are running out of food stamps by the second week of the month and turning to food pantries to make up the difference.

The state Department of Human Services estimates that it costs $766 a month to feed a family of four, based on a “moderate-cost food plan” as calculated by the USDA. But for low-income families in the state, the average monthly food stamp payment is less than half that amount, $357 for a family of four, said Pam Ronan, a department spokeswoman. And those numbers are based on average food costs from last fall, before consumers saw steep increases in the cost of such staples as bread, eggs and milk.

In Passaic County, where roughly 25,000 households receive food stamps, the average monthly payment is $214 per household, said Myron Bilynsky, the county’s food stamp administrator.

Food stamps are intended as a supplement, said Bilynsky, but more and more people depend on the federal program to provide most of their food each month. It’s always been a challenge to make that money last, but now it’s even harder.

“This month and last, I got about half the amount of food as before the recession,” said Kenneth Carter, 42, who was waiting to pick up a bag of food Monday morning at the food pantry operated by St. Paul’s Community Development Corporation in Paterson.

Carter gets about $164 a month in food stamps. “Food stamps help, but they run out by the 14th, 15th of the month,” he said. This month, he said, he went grocery shopping twice, and then had $30 left, which he spent at neighborhood delis. He uses the subsidy to buy canned goods, rice, pasta and meat.

At C-Town on 20th Avenue, general manager Oscar Nuez said about 60 percent of his customers use food stamps, bringing in $80,000 weekly. He sees the bulk of that business in the first half of the month, and he has noticed people cutting back on what they buy as prices have gone up. The store is offering discounts to offset some of the inflated prices, like charging $6.99 instead of $12 for 20 pounds of rice, if people spend a minimum of $30, Nuez said.

The Community FoodBank of New Jersey, which distributes food to pantries and soup kitchens around the state, saw a 16.5 percent increase in the number of people turning to food pantries from December 2007 to March 2008 compared to the same period a year ago.

Meara Nigro, director of advocacy for the FoodBank, said some relief should come from the new farm bill, which was passed last week by Congress and has enough support to override a promised veto from President Bush.

The farm bill would invest $10.4 billion over 10 years in public nutrition programs, including $7.9 billion for food stamps and $1.25 billion for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which allocates money to food banks to purchase food. The bill also increases the minimum food stamp benefit from $10 to $14 a month and indexes it to inflation, and it raises the income limit to qualify for the program.

As it stands now, Nigro said, food stamps typically provide about $1 per meal per person.

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(c) 2008 Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.