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I have ranted about the brainless shallowness of people telling members of the U.S. military, active duty and vets, "thank you for your service" for a few years now because it is meant to make to make the person who says it feel good, and they will often tell others about the experience and how the soldier's, sailor's, airman's marine's or vet's face lit up when they said it. WHAT LAME SAPPY BULLSHIT!!!!! The vast majority of the people who do this also vote for politicians who vote for military spending increasing the profitability of the military-industrial complex with no benefit for the troops. They vote for politicians too cowardly to refuse to fund wars and military actions not authorized by congress as the U.S. Constitution requires. They vote for politicians who will vote to cut funding of many social safety net programs that so many active duty military and vets need. The voluntary ignorance of these people and their political laziness is disgusting. I do not say thank you for your service to active duty U.S. military and vets because I do not need to masturbate my ego. I do let my legislators and the president know that we need to do more to provide for active duty duty U.S. military and vets, not at the expense of domestic spending but by reducing the corporate welfare for and waste by the military industrial complex. Congress is considering cutting funding for SNAP (food stamps) a program too many active duty U.S. military and vets need. If you care about these people and people living in poverty in general please sign the petition to your legislators telling them not to cut SNAP funding after these articles from CBPP / Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , Military.com, and NPR
SNAP Helps Almost 1.5 Million Low-Income Veterans, Including Thousands in Every State
NOVEMBER 9, 2017
IN EVERY STATE, THOUSANDS OF LOW-INCOME VETERANS USE SNAP TO HELP PUT FOOD ON THE TABLE. Almost 1.5 million veterans live in households that participate in SNAP (formerly food stamps), CBPP analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey finds.[1] In every state, thousands of low-income veterans use SNAP to help put food on the table; two states have more than 100,000 veterans participating: Florida (124,000) and Texas (103,000). In eight states, at least 10 percent of veterans live in households that received SNAP in the last year. (See Table 1 for state-by-state data.)
The 1.5 million figure, an annual average for the 2014-2016 period, represents veterans who received SNAP at any point during the previous year. For low-income veterans, who may be unemployed, working in low-wage jobs, or have disabilities, SNAP provides an essential support that enables them to purchase nutritious food for their families. Nationwide, SNAP is a powerful anti-hunger and anti-poverty tool: it kept 8.8 million people above the poverty line in 2014, including 4 million children.[2]
Some veterans returning from service face challenges in finding work and making ends meet. For example, young veterans who leave active duty may have little work experience beyond military service. Searching for a new job can be especially difficult while they are in the military. Young recent veterans have higher unemployment rates and lower labor force participation rates than similar civilians, according to a recent Congressional Budget Office report. The unemployment rate for male veterans ages 22-24 who were neither in school nor functionally disabled was about 2 percentage points higher than that of comparable civilians over the 2008-2015 period, on average, and their labor force participation rate was 1.1 percentage points lower.[3] Similarly, the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that the unemployment rate for veterans ages 25-34 was higher than that of civilians in the same age group in 2016.[4]
Households with a veteran who has a disability that prevents him or her from working are about twice as likely to lack access to adequate food as households that do not include someone with a disability.[5] More than a third (1.4 million) of recent veterans reported a service-connected disability in 2016.[6] This can make it harder for them to provide for their families. About 20 percent of households receiving help through the charitable food assistance network (which includes food banks, pantries, and shelters) include a veteran, one study found.[7] For veterans struggling to overcome obstacles to feed their families, SNAP makes a crucial difference.
| TABLE 1 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Veterans Receiving SNAP Benefits, 2014-2016 Average | |||
| State | Estimated number of veterans receiving SNAP | Estimated total number of veterans | Estimated share of veterans receiving SNAP |
| Alabama | 27,000 | 337,000 | 8% |
| Alaska | 4,000 | 65,000 | 5% |
| Arizona | 37,000 | 489,000 | 7% |
| Arkansas | 17,000 | 203,000 | 8% |
| California | 96,000 | 1,649,000 | 6% |
| Colorado | 21,000 | 373,000 | 6% |
| Connecticut | 12,000 | 177,000 | 7% |
| Delaware | 5,000 | 67,000 | 7% |
| District of Columbia | 3,000 | 27,000 | 12% |
| Florida | 124,000 | 1,456,000 | 9% |
| Georgia | 61,000 | 646,000 | 9% |
| Hawaii | 10,000 | 107,000 | 9% |
| Idaho | 8,000 | 114,000 | 7% |
| Illinois | 52,000 | 609,000 | 9% |
| Indiana | 28,000 | 395,000 | 7% |
| Iowa | 14,000 | 196,000 | 7% |
| Kansas | 11,000 | 183,000 | 6% |
| Kentucky | 25,000 | 279,000 | 9% |
| Louisiana | 23,000 | 257,000 | 9% |
| Maine | 10,000 | 106,000 | 9% |
| Maryland | 27,000 | 373,000 | 7% |
| Massachusetts | 24,000 | 320,000 | 7% |
| Michigan | 55,000 | 581,000 | 10% |
| Minnesota | 16,000 | 320,000 | 5% |
| Mississippi | 16,000 | 173,000 | 9% |
| Missouri | 32,000 | 425,000 | 8% |
| Montana | 5,000 | 84,000 | 6% |
| Nebraska | 6,000 | 126,000 | 4% |
| Nevada | 17,000 | 208,000 | 8% |
| New Hampshire | 5,000 | 103,000 | 5% |
| New Jersey | 17,000 | 344,000 | 5% |
| New Mexico | 12,000 | 147,000 | 8% |
| New York | 67,000 | 753,000 | 9% |
| North Carolina | 56,000 | 666,000 | 8% |
| North Dakota | 2,000 | 47,000 | 4% |
| Ohio | 64,000 | 758,000 | 8% |
| Oklahoma | 24,000 | 276,000 | 9% |
| Oregon | 39,000 | 298,000 | 13% |
| Pennsylvania | 63,000 | 800,000 | 8% |
| Rhode Island | 6,000 | 61,000 | 10% |
| South Carolina | 27,000 | 367,000 | 7% |
| South Dakota | 5,000 | 61,000 | 8% |
| Tennessee | 44,000 | 442,000 | 10% |
| Texas | 103,000 | 1,484,000 | 7% |
| Utah | 7,000 | 123,000 | 6% |
| Vermont | 4,000 | 41,000 | 10% |
| Virginia | 34,000 | 686,000 | 5% |
| Washington | 53,000 | 548,000 | 10% |
| West Virginia | 13,000 | 134,000 | 10% |
| Wisconsin | 27,000 | 357,000 | 8% |
| Wyoming | 2,000 | 46,000 | 4% |
| United States | 1,459,000 | 18,888,000 | 8% |
Notes on Methods
CBPP analyzed the 2014-2016 American Community Survey Public Use Microdata Sample (ACS PUMS) for this state-level analysis. Veterans were identified as individuals who indicated that they had ever served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces. The figures presented here represent our best estimate of the number of veterans living in households that receive SNAP at some point during the year.
The analysis combines data for three years (2014 through 2016) to improve the reliability of the state estimates. The figures, which total 1.5 million veterans nationwide for the three-year average, refer to veterans living in households where anyone received SNAP benefits at any time in the past 12 months. The ACS surveys housing unit addresses and residents of group quarters facilities, including shelters. The survey omits any homeless individuals who are not staying at an address (e.g., with friends or family) or at a shelter at the time of survey. Given the transient nature of this population, the ACS likely undercounts the homeless, including homeless veterans.
End Notes
Why Do Military Members Qualify for Food Stamps?
Thanks to a proposed budget cut to what's officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), food stamps and military members have recently been a hot topic.
Yes, you heard me correctly: food stamps and military members. While the fact that about 13 percent of all Americans used SNAP for food aid in 2016 and more than 80 percent of those receive more than $90 a month in benefits doesn't make most Americans bat an eye, the idea that military families are among those users is shocking to many people.
And yet they are.
According to a 2016 report from the Government Accountability Office, more than 23,000 active-duty troops used the food stamp program in 2013, the last year for which such information was available.
The data on how many troops use SNAP are notoriously difficult to track, in part because the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which manages SNAP, does not share the data with the Defense Department. (In fact, data published by the USDA says that about 2,000 military members used the program in 2013, in direct contradiction to the information given to the GAO. We don't know why.)
By far the biggest question I have received in the series of news interviews I've done on the subject is something like this:
How is it that military family members are on food stamps?
I'm going to tell you.
YOU PROBABLY KNOW PEOPLE WHO USE FOOD STAMPS
The food stamp program currently provides assistance to individuals who qualify based on a combination of income and household size. It's basically impossible to make generalizations about who qualifies because each state administers the program a little differently, but the USDA does offer a chartthat shows some general income guidelines.
Let's put it this way: Anyone who works anything even close to a minimum-wage job and has any number of other people in their household, such as children, likely qualifies for SNAP. Many, many hard-working Americans -- 13 percent of the entire population in 2016, according to USDA data -- qualify for food stamps. New school teachers, janitors, bus drivers, retail workers and your neighbors may all qualify for food stamps.
In short, food stamp users don't look like the stereotype likely in your head. And some of them wear U.S. military uniforms.
QUALIFYING FOR THE FOOD STAMP PROGRAM IS A MATTER OF MATH
Whether a family qualifies for food stamps has everything to do with household income level compared to household size. For military members, that means very junior troops -- on the bottom of the military pay scale -- with a few kids and stationed in a low cost-of-living area likely qualify for SNAP. The bigger the household and the more junior the member, the more likely they are to qualify.
'WHY ARE TROOPS PAID SO LITTLE?'
A political hot potato, the question of just why it is military members are paid so little that they qualify for SNAP likely has to do with how the compensation system was designed or, more specifically, who it was designed to pay.
I wasn't a fly on the wall when all of this stuff was hashed out. Heck, I probably wasn't even alive. But I can tell you that new troops aren't always fresh faced and straight out of high school. Many of them are. But sometimes new recruits come in with families as a change in profession, a trend that you can imagine may have slightly increased during the U.S. recession.
There are many, many people who believe the military compensation system must be modernized to offer better wages. I'll leave that debate to them.
MOST TROOPS AREN'T ON FOOD STAMPS
While any troops or military families going hungry -- or any Americans at all, for that matter -- are too many, the percentage of military families on food stamps is peanuts compared to the American population at large. In 2013, the last year for which we have such data, 1.7 percent of the active-duty force was on SNAP.
HUNDREDS MORE TROOPS COULD QUALIFY FOR FOOD STAMPS
The Basic Allowance for Housing allotment is factored into the food stamp income calculation. That means troops who live in high cost-of-living areas where they receive -- and spend -- more BAH likely don't qualify when they arguably need the benefit the most, while those in very low-cost places do qualify.
Some anti-hunger advocates think this is a huge mistake, and legislation has been offered on the Hill in the past to change that. That effort stalled last year when a single congressman refused to provide a rules waiver that would allow the proposal to be moved through the defense committee instead of the agriculture committee, which typically oversees SNAP changes.
-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.
When Active-Duty Service Members Struggle To Feed Their Families
FROM
Kara Dethlefsen lined up early on a recent morning for the food pantry at the Camp Pendleton Marine Base near San Diego. She and her husband, both active-duty Marines, took turns holding their 4-month-old daughter.
"We most like to get the avocados, lemons, some vegetables to cook up," says Dethlefsen, 27, who first heard about the pantry from an on-base nurse after giving birth.
"This probably saves us anywhere from $100-300 each time we come," she says. That's key for her young family. Her husband is getting ready to transition to civilian life after five years of military service, and they're not sure what financial challenges that could bring.
The food pantry is run by Saddleback Church, one of several faith-based groups that operate on base to bring donated food to military families every month. The pantry offers fresh fruit and vegetables, canned food, meat and baby items like diapers. Typically, about 100 families show up, according to Saddleback pastor Steve Mahnke.
"I always tell my friends, my neighbors, I show them what I got and they seem to be coming," says Sarai Vizcarrondo, 41, as she pushed a cart of produce and canned goods to her car. She says the pantry helps meet the needs of her family, which includes two teenage children and her husband, an active-duty Marine.
Though families cite different reasons for coming, the pantry's popularity points to a real need among service members, says Abby Leibman, president and CEO of MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, an advocacy group based in Los Angeles.
"There's nothing that makes you feel more vulnerable or undermines your ability to live your life [more] than not knowing if you're going to be able to feed your family," says Leibman.
Her group tracks food assistance programs, such as pantries, available to military families across the country. She says there are hundreds of pantries on or near most bases or installations that are designed specifically for active-duty military families. She says that's a "serious indicator" of need.
"It's about a system that was designed to support them that is failing in that goal," says Leibman. "We have a military that takes care of its own. Well, here's a place where it's failing, so it needs to course correct."
Calls for better data, swifter response
In July 2016, the Government Accountability Office concluded that the Department of Defense was not fully collecting or analyzing data on how many service members were in need of food assistance or enrolled in federal programs such as SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (also known as food stamps), and WIC, the program for Women, Infants and Children.
At the same time, the GAO found troubling signs that some military families were in need. For example, nearly 1 in 4 children at DOD schools are eligible for free meals, a program that's based on income. Also, about 23,000 active-duty service members rely on SNAP benefits, according to the 2013 Census Bureau.
Last year, families spent about $67 million in food stamps at commissaries – the discount stores on military bases, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP. The largest share was in California.
"This suggests that people serving our country may be having difficulty making ends meet," stated the GAO report, which called on the Department of Defense to do a better job tracking service members' eligibility and use of food-assistance programs.
"Without more complete survey data, DOD will not understand the prevalence of need among service members to effectively target its support," the report concluded.
At the time, the Pentagon said it concurred with the GAO recommendations – but nearly a year later, it still hasn't changed how it tracks the issue.
"This particular issue crosses multiple offices within the DOD in terms of policy responsibility," says Johnny Michael, a Pentagon spokesman. "Each of those offices takes their specific policies very seriously. They look at things like the GAO report and try to improve whichever policy they're responsible for in terms of taking care of our service members."
He declined to comment on whether specific offices, such as the Defense Health Agency or the Defense Manpower Data Center, both cited in the GAO report, have made specific changes or had changes underway in response to the report. But he adds, "They have read it and they are certainly taking those recommendations into consideration."
Lower enlisted ranks the most vulnerable
When her husband was stationed at San Diego's Naval Base in 2010, Ashley Butler began a meticulous accounting of their household expenses. She tracked gas costs. She bought items in bulk. She limited trips to see family back in Wichita, Kans.
Her husband was an enlisted Naval Seaman, and with two young daughters under 10, they were finding it hard to make ends meet.
"You stretch as much as you possibly can," she says. "It's stressful because you want to make sure you can feed your family."
They qualified for WIC, and Butler, who was 27 at the time, went to the food pantries nearby. But feeding her family was still a challenge – and she knew other families who were having a hard time, too.
"The people who are struggling don't want to talk about it, they're embarrassed by it," she says, adding that her own relatives shared the misconception that all military members earn a high salary.
"People need to be made aware that this is happening," she says.
Service members who qualify and receive federal food assistance make up a small percentage of the overall active-duty population – barely 2 percent of the force, according to the USDA.
But that number tends to draw from a particular slice of the military: lower-ranking enlisted members with children.
An enlisted service member, for example, starts out earning $1,449 per month. In a family with three children, that salary could make them eligible to receive SNAP benefits.
The Pentagon notes that the pay scale rises as a service member stays on duty. Troops also receive additional benefits, including health and dental care, child care and, at times, a housing allowance. By the time a service member rises to an E-4 rank, he or she earns $2,046 monthly.
Still, there are indications that food stamp data provides only a partial picture of need. For example, in a recent survey run by military spouses, called Blue Star Families, 7 percent of active-duty families said they faced food insecurity over the past year. Taken as a percentage of the overall active duty population, that would be more than 80,000 families nationwide.
Butler, the Navy spouse from San Diego, moved with her family to Ridgecrest, Calif., about three hours north of Los Angeles, in 2014. Her husband has since been promoted, which has helped ease the financial pressure. But the move also came with another challenge: The remote area lacks support programs like the food pantries and discount food stores of San Diego.
"We still struggle," she says, adding that her husband first joined the military because he was drawn by a sense of duty to serve his country. "I feel like we're being penalized because he wants to do good, and I shouldn't have to feel that."
Closing a loophole
In the short term, advocates are calling on the government to close a loophole that currently prevents more military families from being eligible for SNAP.
Right now, the funds that a service member receives for living off-base, known as the Basic Allowance for Housing, are counted toward eligibility for SNAP. When that's added to a family's income, it pushes some into an income bracket too high to receive food aid.
Rep. Susan Davis, a California Democrat, has introduced legislation in Congress that would change that. The bill, titled the Military Prevention Hunger Act, has been referred to the military personnel and nutrition subcommittees in the House.
Abby Leibman, of the advocacy group MAZON, says she supports the measure, which her group estimates could double the number of military families who get SNAP. But she says there's a larger issue that society as a whole must grapple with.
"This part of our community is not being served and that's our responsibility, because they are sacrificing so much for us," says Leibman. "It becomes our obligation."
This story was produced by the American Homefront Project — a collaboration of North Carolina Public Radio-WUNC, KPCC-Los Angeles, and WUSF-Tampa, with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Bob Woodruff Foundation. Dorian Merina is a reporter with KPCC.
Please sign the petition to House Republicans: No cuts or additional work requirements for food stamps in the 2018 farm bill.
The past few months have been a never-ending battle over SNAP (food stamps) with the Trump administration.
First, Trump introduced Harvest Boxes to replace half of all families’ food stamp benefits in his 2019 budget. Now, Republicans in Congress are proposing a farm bill that slashes over $20 billion in SNAP spending and imposes strict work requirements on food stamp recipients.
The farm bill is vital, historically bipartisan legislation. Republicans are jeopardizing it so they can punish low-income people and prevent families from having access to food.
This is an incredibly low move from Republicans in Congress. Sign now to tell them to pass a farm bill without any attacks on food stamps.
This dangerous version of the farm bill will have a deep, devastating impact on low-income people and families across the country—Democratic aides said it would likely result in at least one million SNAP recipients losing their benefits due to work requirements and income limits.
Democrats are holding the line against Republicans’ proposed SNAP restrictions, but we need all members of the House to reject these cuts and work requirements.
Click here to AUTOMATICALLY sign the petition demanding Republicans reject any cuts or additional work requirements for food stamps. There’s simply too much at risk—this version of the farm bill cannot pass.
Our message to House Republicans:
Do not pass a farm bill that cuts funding for SNAP and imposes additional work requirements for recipients. Reject this dangerous, unethical policy.
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