How the other half eats

This is an interesting article I just ran across about the SNAP program, which replaced the food stamp program. On the SNAP program, each recipient receives an average of $1.84 per meal to spend on food. This article goes into how hard it is shop for groceries in NYC if that is all you can afford to spend on food. It goes into the various problems such as you have to figure out how you are going to get to the store if you don't have the money for public transportation. You also have to have pots and pans to cook, and you have to have money to pay your $60 a month electric bill so you can cook. It also mentions that many people on SNAP spend their money on stuff you don't have to cook such as bologna and potato chips.

Apparently 20,000 people in NYC that are on SNAP have been able to use their SNAP card at the farmer's market. There was a program that made it easy for the farmer's to be reimbursed for the purchases, but the outfit that ran the program was told on June 30th that their services were no longer needed. Somebody else has temporarily taken over the program, but they are only going to keep the program going until the end of August.

Here is a link to the article
https://www.citylab.com/design/2018/07/ ... ts/566411/

On May 7, 1938, there was an 8-cent Relief Meal served at Gold Room at the Congress Hotel.

Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963), May 8, 1938

Fifty persons sat down yesterday to the cheapest luncheon ever served in the Gold room of the Congress hotel. Its cost was itemized at 8 cents by the Illinois Workers Alliance of Cook county, which took this way to point to the asserted need for more funds for its members, all on relief.
…

This portion was figured from the $28.50 budget of the average relief family of four. It equals 95 cents a day for the whole family. The alliance pointed out, however, that the 8 cents a meal would run less where rent or other necessities must be met from food money.

This experience was replicated at Greater Midwest Foodways program Midwest Eats! Food of the Great Depression. The menu card with this meal was really 6.99 cents and not 8 cents, in April, 2011, it would have cost $1.79 per person. Link to breakdown of costs.

I think the article was trying to point out that food costs a lot more in NYC than it does it places like Chicago, and yes you could walk into McDonald's today and use their app and get a big mac and fries for $1, but many people on the SNAP program do not do apps, and plus you cannot use your SNAP card at McDonald's. Many of the people on the SNAP program in NYC also do not have a decent grocery store within walking distance of where they live

Everything is more expensive in New York. That should come as no surprise to anyone. People who live here and are on SNAP face the same challenges. It's a sad commentary on our society's priorities.

Dear friend, colleague and bass player Chef Michel Nischan has an excellent program through his Wholesome Wave npo addressing this, and most recently got 20 million in funding into the farm bill to fund it. Here's a story about when he rolled out the project in Chi a few yrs back that I wrote for the much missed Gapers Block.http://gapersblock.com/drivethru/2009/11/13/nourishing_neighborhoods/

Is this the farm bill that has not passed yet? I heard that in the latest farm bill, Ryan wants to cut the number of people receiving SNAP benefits, where as in the Senate, the Democrats are trying to stop that from happening.

No. The last one.

I receive emails from Faith in Place, which sponsors Winter farmer's markets in the Chicago area at various churches. The latest email from them mentions that this is National Farmer's Market week, and they give a link to the list of all of the farmer's markets in Chicago, and I was pleasantly surprised. At least half of the farmer's markets that take place in the city of Chicago take the LINK cards and also match them. If you ask to have $20 taken off of your LINK card, it will give you coupons to use at the farmer's market worth $40. I know Evanston does this too, but I don't know how many other suburban markets to this or even take the LINK card.

Last I asked, there were over 500 mkts throughout the States doing this, and the entire state of California. Not bad for starting out in the parking lot of this restaurant w/the idea.