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June 13, 2000

BACKGROUND

The Food Stamp Program, aiding over 20 million Americans, is the nation’s most effective and widely used federal anti-poverty program. It has been essential in enabling poor people to move from public assistance to economic self-sufficiency. Moreover, food stamps have been seen as critical to ensuring the success of 1996 welfare reform legislation. There is, however, a significant need to expand the program in order to assist struggling families currently not served. The Hunger Relief Act, sponsored in the Senate by Senators Edward Kennedy (MA) and Arlen Specter (PA) and in the House by Representative James Walsh (NY), addresses this challenge through reforms to help working families and children. This initiative is supported by a diverse coalition of faith-based groups and anti-hunger advocates and has bipartisan co-sponsors in both houses of Congress.

The bill consists of four titles, each addressing a particular concern.

• Title I – restoration of benefits for needy legal immigrants: The 1996 welfare reform law had a profound impact on the immigrant community, forcing almost one million legal immigrants off of federal assistance programs. Although there has been modest success in restoring some benefits since that time, restorations have only helped some 30 percent of the estimated 900,000 who lost eligibility. The Hunger Relief Act restores food stamp eligibility to all otherwise eligible legal immigrants. Among these are taxpayers working in low-income jobs, parents of young children, and elderly individuals whose needs were not addressed in previous legislation.

• Title II – Vehicle Allowance: Most low-income people need a car to get to work. However, families who own a vehicle worth more than $4,650 are subject to disqualification from the Food Stamp Program. The cut-off for eligibility has risen only $150 since 1977 and is below the amount most states allow for working parents receiving cash assistance under TANF. In assessing the value of a vehicle, The Hunger Relief Act allows states to apply the same eligibility rules to Food Stamps as they do to TANF.

• Title III – The Shelter Cap: So that Food Stamp allotments more accurately reflect actual household need, applicants may deduct from their available resources shelter costs that exceed 50 percent of their income. Currently there is a $275 cap on this deduction, for working families. (Elderly individuals are exempt from the cap.) This cap reduces food stamp benefits to over 729,000 households with children, even as housing costs rise, forcing many families to choose between heating and eating. The Hunger Relief Act raises the shelter deduction cap to $340 and then indexes it to inflation.

• Title IV – TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program): Since 1983, The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) has leveraged private and volunteer resources to meet short-term nutrition needs of families in crisis, provided an outlet for excess government-owned commodities, and reduced the need for recourse to food stamps. Over the past year, emergency food needs have increased 15-20 percent, according to food banks surveyed across the nation. In 1998, 39 percent of families who sought emergency food included an employed adult, and 38 percent of emergency food clients were children. The private charitable sector cannot meet present needs alone. The Hunger Relief Act authorizes additional appropriations of $100 million over five years for commodity purchases and food distribution costs.

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