And this little piggy had roast beef...

Not to name names but Delegates Fast, Higginbotham, Foster, McGeehan, Kessinger, Westfall, Martin, Ambler, Butler, Queen, and Sypolt were the proud sponsors of House Bill 4001 the bill that limits West Virginians’ access to food benefits provided by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 

These delegates must believe that not only does taking food away from people help them secure good-paying jobs, but that daily SNAP benefits are too generous.  And like all WV legislators, these Delegates are eligible for a per diem of $131 per day while the legislature is in regular session. 

So out of idle curiosity, how about we contrast their generous legislative per diem with the paltry SNAP benefits by issuing them the #WVSNAPCHALLENGE?

By taking this challenge, these delegates will see if they are able to make their $131 per diem stretch for an entire month (since the average monthly SNAP benefits are $126).  If they think people receiving SNAP are living too high on the hog, maybe they should challenge themselves to survive one month spending $4.20 a day on food. 

Just sayin'.

And while we are talking SNAP (still), hop on the bus to DC to Save SNAP! on July 10th.

If they think it's so easy they should try it

Potter Stewart served as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1958 to 1981. He had some interesting things to say about checks and balances, the importance of a free press and the need for an enlightened citizenry.

However, he’s probably best remembered for his statement on how to identify obscenity. While acknowledging that it’s difficult to define in exact terms, he said “I know it when I see it ... .”

One place I’ve seen it lately has been in Washington, where the same House of Representatives majority that passed $1.5 trillion in tax cuts aimed mostly at rich people and corporations advanced a version of the Farm Bill that would cut basic food aid to 1.2 million Americans and slash benefits by around $17 billion.

The proposed cuts would come from restrictions on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that would affect families, children, low-wage workers, veterans, as well as people recovering from addictions.

Fortunately, the Farm Bill failed by a margin of 213 to 198, no thanks to West Virginia’s delegation. Unfortunately, it’s not over and we can anticipate further attacks on basic food security for vulnerable Americans.

Some of these attacks have already taken place at the state level. House Bill 4001, which passed the Legislature and was signed by the governor earlier this year, is likely to increase hunger without promoting employment. The bill takes a policy of time limits that failed in the nine counties with the best employment and spreads the misery statewide.

Apparently, the people who voted for it think living on a $4-a-day food budget is too high on the hog.

Just to put things into perspective, I thought a little social math might be in order here. Excuse me while I whip out the calculator:

*According to the West Virginia Code, legislators are eligible for a per diem of $131 per day during the regular session. Someone trying to survive on SNAP benefits would have to try to eat for over a month on that.

*Another good contrast is to consider how long someone on SNAP would have to live for the cost of one fancy meal. Let’s say it’s The Greenbrier. Thanks to the power of the interwebs, I found a menu and did the math: one bottle red wine, mid-range, $48; first course bisque, $9; lamb shank entrée, $49; chocolate soufflé dessert, $14; dessert wine, $17; cappuccino, $5. That comes to $157. If you throw in a 20 percent tip of $31.40, the total is 188.40. People getting by on SNAP would have to feed themselves for 47 days on that.

That’s a week longer than the time Jesus fasted in the wilderness at the beginning of his ministry. Come to think of it, I believe he had a thing or two to say about feeding the hungry.

(For the record, I don’t have anything against good food or the finer things in life. I just wish they were a bit more broadly shared. And I don’t mind people who can afford a feast — as long as they don’t try to take food away from those who can’t.)

*Here’s one more. The richest 1 percent of West Virginians are going to get a $25,000 tax cut due to recent federal legislation. That’s an annual food budget for 17 people on SNAP. Or, at current benefit levels, someone on SNAP would have to try to eat for a little over 17 years on that. As in from now until the year 2035.

Those lucky ducks on SNAP.

I only wish that those who want to take away food from people getting by on less than the cost of a fancy cup of coffee would actually try living on that much. It might be good medicine.

As Shakespeare put it in “King Lear,” “Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.”

(This appeared as an op-ed in the Charleston Gazette Mail.)

The greedy or the needy?

(Random dog picture. Sorry.)

In case you missed it, Kelly Allen of the WV Center on Budget and Policy had a great op-ed in the Huntington Herald-Dispatch this week about how federal policies are hurting ordinary West Virginians. Some of these have already been enacted, like the tax cut heist, but others could still be in play in the Farm Bill.

This would be a good thing about which to make noise.

(Did you notice the elegant way in which I avoided ending a sentence with a preposition? That's a habit I don't indulge in.)

A little good news...for now

A little crowing might be in order.

The (very nasty) House version of the Farm Bill failed by a vote of 198-213, no thanks to WV's congressional delegation. It's not over yet, though since House mis-leaders will keep trying to push something through.

Here's a statement about the latest developments by Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities about the need for a bipartisan bill that doesn't take away food from millions of Americans.

Thanks to everyone who worked to derail this train. By way of follow-through, a call to your representatives offices either to thank or (metaphorically) spank might be in order. Here are the numbers for the DC offices of the WV guys:

McKinley 202.225.4172

Jenkins 202.225.3452

Mooney 202.225.2711

For those outside of WV, and who probably have a better delegation, you can put in your zip here to find out the contact information.

And still everybody's gotta eat

The U.S. House has been debating the monstrosity of a Farm Bill today and it might be worth two or three minutes of your time giving your representatives a call to ask him to vote no.  As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, H.R. 2 would effectively remove nearly 2 million people from SNAP by imposing harsher work requirements.  Never mind that a lot of these people are already working.  And far be it from me to point out the evidence supporting any claim that work requirements boost employment remains at zilch, zero, nada. 

What we do know about policies like this is that they increase food insecurity, especially among women, people with disabilities, and seniors. 

We might be wise to look at programs that actually boost employment, like Montana's HELP-Link program which was started when the state expanded Medicaid.  The program provides Medicaid enrollees with employment services through their Department of Labor and Industry, including employment training and education.  When it comes to the proof in the pudding, 82 percent of the people who participated are now employed, and 80 percent have obtained higher wage jobs.

The Daily Mail editorial today slams the farm bill for other reasons, saying that it entails huge giveaways to "big ag" at the expense of small farmers. I reckon they're right. 

In short, there is not much to like about this thing.  Let's light up those phones! 

Here are the D.C. #'s

McKinley 202.225.4172

Jenkins 202.225.3452

Mooney 202.225.2711

Hungry days ahead

Gov. Justice declared in his State of the State back in January, "We don't need to quit until every single person is not standing on the side of the bridge saying, 'Mister, you have no idea how bad I'm hurting.'"

Actions speak louder than words. A case in point is that despite our governor's noble pronouncement, he recently signed House Bill 4001, a law that once enacted will do more to increase hunger than increase full-time employment.

HB 4001 mandates that the state no longer apply for a waiver from the federal government to exempt able-bodied adults without dependents from a 20-hour-a-week work requirement to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (known as SNAP or food stamps, but more importantly should be understood as food).

The law will add at least eight additional counties to the nine-county pilot that began in early 2016 when our Department of Health and Human Resources removed roughly 5,417 so-called "able-bodied adults without dependents" from the SNAP rolls.

Work requirements sound good, and they especially sound good when applied to "able-bodied adults without dependents," but be careful not to generalize who these thousands of individuals might be.

Perhaps it is a person on the difficult journey toward recovery from opioid addiction, and the food security that SNAP provides is the linchpin.

Perhaps it is one of the thousands of grandparents raising grandkids due to the ongoing opioid crisis. Make no mistake then, more children will go hungry, too.

Is taking food away from a person the answer to helping them find a job that offers enough hours to satisfy the work requirement, and (gasp) a job that offers a decent wage and health benefits?

Because in reality a lot of these individuals are working but they are in extremely low-paying, part-time jobs that are volatile and do not always provide enough hours to meet the 20-hour-a-week minimum.

While people often say that any good policy should be evidence-based, too often we instead hear anecdotes and sweeping charges of "laziness" used to justify policy.

Sociologist Herbert Gans said of this trend in his essay "The War Against the Poor" that "judgments are based on imagined knowledge, which may come from stories and preconceived ideas."

When looking at the evidence of the nine-county pilot where stricter work requirements were enacted and 5,417 individuals lost their food stamps, "imagined knowledge" is about all we have.

Did we succeed in the professed goal of getting people into more full-time employment, paying taxes and therefore no longer needing $118 a month to help pay for the bare necessity of food?

According to the Department of Health and Human Resources' own report, the answer is no. Of the 13,984 referrals to the SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) program, 259 gained employment - a less than 2 per cent success rate.

By contrast to HB 4001, the bill number alone indicating it was their top priority, the same legislative body could not find the political will to pass a bill that would have had a real impact on workforce participation.

HB 2727 sought to address the fact that people leave prison every day without any form of state-issued identification card, which means they face difficulty obtaining a job, much less keeping one if they don't have a driver's license. This bill, which would have helped thousands of West Virginians become gainfully employed taxpayers, died in House Finance.

Illustrating how HB 2727 would have boosted employment, a 2015 study conducted in Franklin County, Ohio, of "able-bodied adults without dependents" found that a whopping 60 percent of the 5,000 individuals surveyed said that not having a driver's license was a significant barrier to employment. Other major barriers cited were felony convictions, lack of transportation and being non-custodial parents.

HB 4001 becoming law will not create a single good-paying job. But it will for certain take food away from people, and federal dollars away from local economies.

The people who support legislation like this believe that food is a privilege, not a basic human right. It is probably safe to say then that our billionaire governor, and both the Republicans and Democrats who voted for this bill, are not worried about how they will pay for their next meal.

I am left to conclude that the governor's avowal in his State of the State was not true aspiration, but that really he has no idea how bad people are hurting.

(This op-ed by Lida Shepherd of the American Friends Service Committee appeared in the Huntington WV Herald-Dispatch this week.)

Loaves and fishes

Welch, WV in the days when mines were booming. Or is that Manhattan?

McDowell County is one of the poorest in West Virginia--and the nation. Before the coming of the coal industry, the population was tiny, with around 1500 people in 1860. When the mines were cranking, the population ballooned, growing to nearly 100,000 by 1950. As mining employment declined, it contracted hugely. I'd guess it's now below 20,000. High poverty rates also mean high un- and under-employment. It's also a food desert.

This Charleston Gazette-Mail article by Caity Coyne is a great summary of the struggles of people there to meet their basic food needs and of local charities like Five Loaves and Two Fishes to help that happen.  Those struggles are likely to get harder in the wake of HB 4001, in which Gov. Jim Justice and the Republican legislative majority restricted SNAP benefits, throwing thousands of low income West Virginians under the metaphorical bus.  Possible federal changes to food assistance under the Farm Bill could make things even worse.

Looks like food justice fighters are going to be busy.

The article also shows the importance of good local newspapers that do in-depth investigative reporting. We're going to need a lot of that.

Fixing the farm bill

Disclaimer: Well here goes nothing, I submit my first entry as a guest blogger on The Goat Rope, with El Cabrero making big cloven hoof prints for 谢岚 to follow.   Most humbly, 谢岚

(rough translation from Chinese: gratitude for mist from the mountains.  Pinyin pronunciation: Xie Lan).  

An oft-reported subject on The Goat Rope is Hunger Games, a really bad movie that never ends.  With Congress returning from recess today (groan), the most recent plot point involves the House Farm Bill which contains major threats to SNAP such as expanding harsh work requirements to include parents.  If you want, today is the last day you can submit comments to the USDA about these mean changes to SNAP.  谢岚 comments are below. 

If you need help “freeing the pen” as 谢岚 often does, check out Lojong for Writers.  Today 谢岚 received this pithy instruction: Don’t Make Things Painful—don’t beat yourself up when your writing doesn’t turn out as you hoped.  Good advice, thanks Atisha!

Dear Ms. Gersten-Paal:

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on USDA's Advanced Notice on requirements and services for Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents (ABAWDs).

American Friends Service Committee's WV Economic Justice Program pays very close attention to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) because SNAP plays a critical role in addressing hunger and food insecurity for 357,000 West Virginia residents. West Virginia is a state that especially must rely on SNAP for the following reasons, to only name a few:

•More and more jobs in WV pay low wages and have little or no benefits.
•West Virginia has traditionally been a state with high levels of poverty and un- and underemployment.
•West Virginia's traditional industries have declined.
•West Virginia hasn't fully recovered from the Great Recession in terms of either jobs or income.

One population that SNAP helps in particular are the thousands of formerly incarcerated individuals reentering society and others with criminal histories, with SNAP providing basic food assistance and supplementing inadequate income as these individuals seek employment. The time limit can be particularly harmful for people who have been incarcerated. They typically face steep barriers to employment such as stigma, low educational attainment level, and occupational licensing bans prohibiting them from many entry level jobs, all of which result in the need for more than three months to find a job.

Before entering prison, this population was more likely than the general population to have experienced poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and poor health. And these struggles often continue after release. Further, many may have competing parole requirements -- such as meetings with parole officers, curfews and required substance use disorder programs -- that can hinder opportunities to meet the 20-hour requirement.

While this request for comment appears to be open to suggestions on how to make the time limit less harsh via administrative action, we are concerned that the Administration seeks only to make the rule more draconian: to expand the scope of the cutoff and to eliminate the little flexibility states have to limit the damage of the rule. The Department's stance on the time limit is not one that our organization shares. We strongly oppose any administrative action by USDA that would expose more people to this cutoff policy. In West Virginia we have an underfunded workforce system and SNAP employment and training program which have proven ineffective at helping people meet the job training requirements under this rule. Put simply, there is no justification for weakening current waiver rules and exposing more vulnerable people to this SNAP eligibility cutoff.

The only action we encourage USDA to take with respect to this time limit rule that impacts Able-Bodied Adults Without Dependents is to propose its elimination. Restoring SNAP's ability to provide food assistance to impoverished unemployed people would be a powerful policy improvement that would reduce food insecurity among those seeking work.

More snark on SNAP

Thanks to a good friend and reader of this blog, it has come to my attention that I left out something important in yesterday's post, which is copied below in italics.

In it, I contrasted the cost of a good meal for one at the Greenbrier resort, owned by WV's governor and wealthiest person, with the average amount daily SNAP benefits.

The occasion for the post came after the governor failed to veto a mean-spirited SNAP bill that will result in thousands of low income West Virginians losing food assistance, take millions of dollars out of the state's economy and stress already stretched charities. During Holy Week, which is kind of tacky.

Anyhow, in the post I did the math--always a dangerous thing--and found out that the cost of a big meal for one person would cover SNAP benefits for an adult for 39 days.

My friend pointed out that I neglected the tip, a major faux pas on my part since I'm all about not stiffing working people. At 20 percent, that would come to $31.40. When you add that to the total, it comes to $188.40, which adds another eight days to the total.

It may or may not be a coincidence that the number of 47 days is exactly one day longer than the penitential season of Lent (if you count the Sundays), which ends on Easter Sunday. Traditionally, Lent was observed with fasting.

Living on $4 in food assistance a day, those lucky ducks on SNAP get to observe Lent every day.

No, I'm not over it.

Here's yesterday's post minus the links:

Contrasting SNAP benefits with a meal at the Greenbrier

I'm wondering whether anyone else sees the irony or something when the richest person in the state, who also happens to be governor, refuses to veto a bill that will take away food assistance from thousands of West Virginians with very low incomes during Holy Week?

The governor, by the way, owns the Greenbrier resort, at which many of you may not have stayed or eaten (I know I haven't). I poked around the interwebs and found the following menu options for dinner for one there:

Red wine, mid-range,           $48
First Course bisque                 $9
Second course risotto             $15
Entree lamb shank                 $49
Chocolate souffle dessert       $14
Dessert wine                           $17
Cappuchino                              $5


That comes to $157.

 Hmmm....SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits for low income people amount to around $4 per day.

That means that for the cost of one big feed for one person at the Greenbrier is equivalent to what someone on SNAP gets to live on for slightly over 39 days. 

I don't want to sound like a hatchet man, but put that in your tackle box and smoke it.

Contrasting SNAP benefits with a meal at the Greenbrier

I'm wondering whether anyone else sees the irony or something when the richest person in the state, who also happens to be governor, refuses to veto a bill that will take away food assistance from thousands of West Virginians with very low incomes during Holy Week?

The governor, by the way, owns the Greenbrier resort, at which many of you may not have stayed or eaten (I know I haven't). I poked around the interwebs and found the following menu options for dinner for one there:

Red wine, mid-range,           $48
First Course bisque                 $9
Second course risotto             $15
Entree lamb shank                 $49
Chocolate souffle dessert       $14
Dessert wine                           $17
Cappuchino                              $5


That comes to $157.

 Hmmm....SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits for low income people amount to around $4 per day.

That means that for the cost of one big feed for one person at the Greenbrier is equivalent to what someone on SNAP gets to live on for slightly over 39 days. 

I don't want to sound like a hatchet man, but put that in your tackle box and smoke it.

Short notice, but last chance to stop a bad bill.

Labor struggles like #55united remind us of the need for solidarity with working class and low income people. Today (Thursday) at 1 in the WV Senate Health and Human Resources Committee, HB 4001 is up for final consideration.

It's a mean spirited bill that would take food away from thousands of vulnerable West Virginians, take millions out of local economies and strain already overburdened charities .You can read more about why it’s bad here.

If you can, please consider contacting committee members and especially chairs before `1 this afternoon and urge them to table the bill. Twitter handles for Chairman Tom Takubo and Vice-Chair Mike Maroney are @DrTomTakubo and @DrMikeMaroney. Takubo's office phone is (304) 357-7990.

Thanks!

WV's Hunger Games and how you can help win them

In addition to alienating school teachers and public employees, it looks like WV Governor Jim Justice is supporting a plan to take away SNAP (food stamp) benefits from low income West Virginians and take millions of dollars out of the state's economy.

(Some state employees, by the way, qualify for SNAP.)

 Or at least, he hasn't opposed the plans of the WV Department of Health and Human Resources to do the same.  This Think Progress piece pretty much nails it.

A bill to do more of the same, HB 4001, is likely to be taken up by the Judiciary Committee of the WV House of Delegates next week.

There will be a public hearing on the bill this coming Monday (Feb. 12) at (groan) 8:30 am. If you can make it out, please come and make some noise.

You can also help a lot by calling the office of Chairman John Shott and asking him not to take up the bill. His  number is (304)-340-3252. His email is John.Shott@wvhouse.gov.  You can reach other members of the Judiciary Committee here.

You can reach the governor's office at 304-558-2000 or email him from this site.

Hunger games in Congress

The following op-ed of mine appeared in today's Gazette-Mail. If you feel so inclined, please contact your representative and ask that they not mess with feeding kids in school.

We have a tendency in West Virginia to top the lists of bad things and bring up the rear of the lists of good things. One fortunate exception to that pattern is the area of child nutrition, in which we’ve made huge strides in recent years.

Some readers may remember the 2013 Feed to Achieve Act, which passed the Legislature with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill was “to eventually provide free nutritious meals for all pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade school children in West Virginia.”

We’ve come a long way toward that goal since then. For the last two years, West Virginia has led the nation in school breakfast participation.

Rising to the top of that list was a huge turnaround. As MetroNews reported in February, a few years ago, only about 28 percent of students were fed school breakfasts. Now that number has increased to over 82 percent. This is a big deal since kids who are “hangry” — hungry and angry — can’t learn very well.

Part of the reason for that success was Feed to Achieve’s mandate that schools offer innovate ways of serving breakfast. But a federal policy enacted in 2010 also helped.

The Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) allows school boards to provide free meals for all students in schools with a high percentage of children in poverty. The idea is to improve nutrition, remove stigma for getting free or reduced lunches, reduce paperwork, and to improve education and reduce discipline problems.

CEP has so far been adopted by 46 of 55 counties. Of these, 19 provide free meals to all students in the county at this time, with at least one new county to step up next year. As of January 2016, 429 out of 686 schools were participating — a rate of around 62 percent that impacted nearly 146,000 students.

It’s a big deal.

The bad news is that proposed legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives could undo much of that progress. The bill in question is HB 5003, misnamed as the “Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016.” Its lead sponsor is Indiana Congressman Todd Rokita.

According to the national Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “If this bill becomes law, 7,022 schools now using community eligibility to simplify their meal programs and improve access for low-income students could have to reinstate applications and return to monitoring eligibility in the lunch line within two years. These schools serve nearly 3.4 million students. Another 11,647 schools that qualify for community eligibility but have not yet adopted it could lose eligibility.”

The bill would also increase and complicate school meal application verification requirements in ways likely to cause students to lose access to free or reduced meals.

Advocates for better child health and nutrition have also expressed concerns about the bill’s weakening of nutrition standards and its impact on participants in child care and summer feeding programs as well as the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program.

I’m hoping that our congressional delegation will stand up for West Virginia’s children and oppose these measures. We’ve come too far to turn back now.