These are items that could be afforded on a food-stamp budget by Tulsa World's Colleen Almeida Smith, who took part in a SNAP Challenge this month.
Times just got a little leaner for people relying on
food stamps. Last month, 628,956 Oklahomans ate food purchased through the welfare program.
That’s an all-time record, which is saying something considering the state has bested this grim statistic multiple times in recent years.
That’s also about 16.5 percent of the state’s population.
Beginning Nov.1, residents relying on this help to eat will see a decrease in the amount provided, according to an announcement Wednesday by the
Oklahoma Department of Human Services. The exact cuts will vary by household.
But, a family of four with no income and no changes in their case will have a monthly benefit decrease of $36.
For a little perspective, the family will be living on $1.40 per meal, per person, per day.
That's a loss of about 21 meals a month.
DHS said the cuts come from the expiration of increases to the program put into place under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as the stimulus package.
The stimulus bill was meant of offset the effects of the Recession.
Since 2009, costs of just about everything has jumped, including food, gas, utilities and other basic life needs.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates meal prices have increased by about 9 percent since 2009.
The USDA states the current average cost of food in the “thrifty” plan for a family of four ranges from $553 to $634 a month, depending on the ages of the children.
In 2009, the average cost in this category was $507 to $581 a month.
Keep in mind that is in the cheapest possible category, which takes planning and available low-cost items.
Current monthly averages in other food budgets for a family of four are: $702-$828 in the “low-budget,” $870-$1,036 in the “moderate” and $1,075-$1,255 in the “liberal” category.
The maximum amount in food stamps allowed for a family of four is $668.
That goes down based on monthly income.
The monthly average food stamp benefit per person in Oklahoma is $128.36, according to
the Henry Kaiser Family Foundation. It doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle-room in a food budget for a child's birthday cake or holiday ham.
Of the Oklahoma food-stamp recipients, 44 percent are children, 10 percent are disabled people and 7 percent are elderly residents, according to
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Nearly 75 percent of recipients are in families with children, 44 percent are in working families and 26 percent are in families with disabled or elderly people.
My Tulsa World colleague Colleen Almeida Smith
chronicled her experience on the SNAP Challenge.
SNAP refers to the food stamp program, which is called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The challenge asks people to feed themselves using the average food stamp benefit, which was set at about $4 a day in Oklahoma for the event.
Smith
describes surviving but not thriving on the two-day challenge.
Twenty-six members of Congress
took this challenge too.Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., said it was the "hardest shopping trip in memory."
Food stamps not only impact people in hunger, it impacts area businesses.
Two years ago, I wrote a story with a colleague on
where food stamps were being redeemed. At that time, Walmart stores received $506 million in revenue from the $1.2 billion in food stamps Oklahomans were using.
There were some small-town stores receiving close to $1 million in revenue, most likely because there are fewer shopping locations in rural areas.
DHS estimates this latest adjustment will result in $66 million in lost revenue to Oklahoma businesses from November through September 2014.
“Oklahoma grocers will feel the impact directly as SNAP recipients will have less food budget money to spend in the stores,” according to a DHS press release.
The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are starting some fierce debates about the food-stamp program.
The House voted to separate the program from the Farm Bill, and Senate did not.
Some in Congress want to ban people with felony records from receiving food stamps and require job training/seeking.
There is a movement to recalculate the amounts and review the process by which recipients are approved.
A perennial argument is to disallow certain items such as soda, chips and desserts.
Why not add a requirement for Congress to live on these budgets and restrictions for a month before voting?
It would go far in gaining some understanding of how 15 percent of Americans feed themselves.
Follow Ginnie Graham on Twitter.
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