Why work requirements don't work

The recent proposal to increase work reporting requirements for people receiving SNAP food assistance under the Limit, Save, and Grow Act is redundant and harmful for several reasons:

*work requirements already exist for SNAP. According to the USDA, these “include registering for work, participating in SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) or workfare if assigned by your state SNAP agency, taking a suitable job if offered, and not voluntarily quitting a job or reducing your work hours below 30 a week without a good reason.” States also have the option to impose additional requirements on able-bodies adults without dependents aged 18-49, although evidence suggests that these have failed to increase workforce participation.

*the term “work requirements” in the context of changing eligibility programs such as SNAP and Medicaid is misleading. A more accurate term would be reporting requirements which involve more layers of paperwork, bureaucracy, and surveillance in exchange for often meager benefits. These reporting requirements impose burdens people receiving food assistance and the businesses, organizations, and/or agencies for which they work and simply result in few people receiving needed assistance.

*work reporting requirements don’t promote work. For example, the New York Times reported that when West Virginia piloted the program in counties with the most favorable labor market conditions, the state Department of Health and Human Resources found that “Our best data does not indicate that the program has had a significant impact on employment figures.” Rather, people lost food aid and local businesses lost out. Similarly, when Arkansas added similar reporting requirements for Medicaid, workforce participation didn’t increase—but the number of uninsured people did.

*work reporting requirements for food assistance hit the most vulnerable people hardest, including homeless people or those with unstable housing—a population that includes many veterans, domestic violence survivors, rural residents, people with disabilities, noncustodial adults supporting children, people in recovery from Substance Use Disorder, and others.

*the “Limit, Save, and Grow Act” would double down on vulnerable populations by imposing reporting requirements on older adults up to age 55. According to AARP, over 9.5 million Americans over age 50 rely on SNAP, a group that faces age discrimination in hiring and employment practices.

*SNAP benefits help local businesses and economies—and loss of benefits costs both. The Food Research and Action Council reports that each dollar in federal SNAP benefits generates $1.79 in economic activity.

*reducing SNAP benefits for millions of Americans would only place greater demands on already stretched food pantries, soup kitchens, and charities which are often staffed by volunteers and seniors.

All of which is to say this is not cool.

Punching down

 Things are about to get rough for West Virginia families facing food insecurity, defined by the USDA as “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.”

Some hits are coming from federal changes in COVID programs and some from state legislation. But the unkindest cut of all could come from a mean-spirited bill recently introduced in the legislature if it crosses the finish line.

All of these involve the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, which provides basic food aid to around 167,000 households here.

As of March 1, pandemic-related emergency allotment increases for SNAP will cease. The average household here will receive a monthly reduction of $195 in benefits. The individual will see a reduction of $102, a net loss of $33 million in income to state businesses.

Then there’s this: when the federal Public Health Emergency ends in May, the suspension of work reporting requirements will end for able-bodied adults without dependents will end.

This means that a law passed in 2018 will go back into effect on July 1, imposing reporting requirements and hurdles for non-custodial low-income adults. As many as 24,000 could be pushed off if they can’t satisfy reporting requirements for work activities.

The 2018 bill was touted to promote workforce participation. In fact, it doubled down on a failed 2016 policy piloted in nine counties. A later DHHR report found that “Our best data does not indicate that [limiting benefits] has had a significant impact on employment figures.” People were just cut off and local businesses lost out.

Those are bad enough, but potentially much worse is House Bill 3484. It would add so many reporting, documenting and other bureaucratic restrictions for so many people as to make it unworkable both for people receiving help with food and for the beleaguered state agency that would have to administer the bill if it passes.

At a recent legislative committee meeting, a state agency representative testified that implementing the proposed legislation would actually cost state taxpayers millions of dollars while the additional requirements would reduce number of low-income people receiving food assistance. And that research has indicated that additional requirements reduce food assistance without increasing employment.

A representative of retail businesses testified that the loss of federal SNAP dollars would hurt local business and jobs, especially in rural counties.

Caitlin Cook, director of advocacy and public policy at Mountaineer Food Bank, which serves 48 of 55 counties, pointed out that the state food charity system is already overstretched and couldn’t make up for the loss of federal food aid. According to Cook, “For every one meal the food bank provides, SNAP provides nine, while simultaneously putting additional money into our local communities.”

Despite all the expert testimony, the bill passed out of committee and was reported to the floor of the House. At this writing its fate is unclear.

Aside from hungry people and local businesses, HB 3484 would also mean a loss for West Virginia farmers and farmers’ markets, which now offer SNAP Stretch, a program that allows people to double their purchasing power for fresh and locally grown food.

The bill goes against the grain of actions taken by political leaders in recent times. In 2021, for example, House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, announced the creation of a Food Insecurity Workgroup “dedicated to utilizing every tool at West Virginia’s disposal to help reduce hunger throughout the state.”

The group met regularly to hear from experts in the field and made positive recommendations about increasing CARES Act funding to combat hunger. In December 2021, Governor Justice agreed, providing $7.25 million for food insecurity partners across the state. Reportedly, Speaker Hanshaw may reactivate the group.

Meanwhile, Gov. Jim Justice in his 2023 state of the state speech said that “We need to try with all in us to say, by God we’re not going to have hungry people in West Virginia today.”

The governor released a proclamation declaring Jan. 26 to be Hunger Free West Virginia Day, acknowledging that 217,690 people here, including 63,070 children are food insecure; one in six children experiences hunger regularly; and that many seniors have to chose between lifesaving medications and a healthy diet.

It had strong language, such as “it is essential to provide appropriate, healthy nutrition to all residents of West Virginia suffering from food insecurity;” “Charitable programs are unable to fully support those facing hunger. A combination of charity and government assistance programs is necessary to help bridge the meal gap;” and “food is a human right.”

The senate also weighed in last month with a resolution that stated “The West Virginia Senate recognizes food insecurity is prevalent in our communities, with 1-in-7 West Virginians not knowing where their next meal will come from…”

Things are challenging enough in West Virginia already, whether we’re talking low-income adults, kids, and seniors or people in local businesses, farmers, agencies, and charities. We don’t need a bad law to make a tough situation worse.

It’s sad but some people seem to derive gratification from harming people with less power than themselves, especially if they don’t think their targets can retaliate. Poor people are a convenient target for those who enjoy this kind of thing.

That’s what this is. That’s all this is.

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

One more try for the Child Tax Credit

 In the last half of 2021, a massive public policy experiment took place in the USA. And it worked.

The experiment was the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), which was part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). This program provided a small but significant amount of income to all but the wealthiest families with children, based on the age and number of children in the household. 

This was a different approach from other social programs in that it covered many people who wouldn’t qualify for other programs because their income was either too low or too high.

The results were startling but hardly unpredictable. Between 2020 and 2021, child poverty dropped by around 46 percent according to the US Census Bureau, reaching an all-time low of 5.2 percent by the end of the year.

I mean, gee, who would have thought that a little money might help people get out of poverty?

There is plenty of qualitative and quantitative research to show what families did with that extra bit of economic security. The short version is that they spent it pretty much where you’d expect: on food, rent or mortgage, home repair, utilities, education, childcare, internet/telecommunications, vehicle/transportation costs, clothing, paying past due bills, work expenses for parents, and savings.

Then there’s this: fewer parents had to sell their plasma to support their families or take out predatory payday loans with outrageous interest rates.

I know many West Virginians who collected stories from parents in our state about where the money went. In one case, they helped pay for a child’s braces. In another, a broken toilet finally got replaced  (kinda major if you haven’t been there). A child got a bed of his own. Worn out tires were replaced before winter hit. Utility cutoffs were avoided. Some found better and safer housing. Other kids were able to take part in things they would otherwise have missed, including extracurricular school activities like cheerleading and sports, summer camps, and a first ever vacation.

In a word, the kind of things that make life a bit more livable.

That was the good news. The bad news was that the CTC wasn’t renewed. It reminds me of the old medical joke that the operation was a success, although the patient died. Or so it seems.

The results of the expanded CTC were a big deal for many reasons, the biggest on being that child poverty is expensive. For everyone. 

A 2018 study from Washington University at St. Louis calculated that child poverty directly or indirectly cost the US $1.03 trillion in 2015 alone. At the time of the study, that amounted to 28 percent of the entire federal budget or 5.4 percent of total US gross domestic product.

Children living in poverty face hunger, sickness, instability, and a general lack of security, which can have community impacts over a lifetime and beyond. This kind of adverse childhood experience can increase odds of low academic achievement, developmental issues, and behavioral problems. Later in life, it can contribute to the greater likelihood of chronic diseases, shorter life expectancy, substance use disorder, contact with the criminal legal system, mental health issues, and more. It can affect lifetime earnings, intergenerational assets, family relationships, and community wellbeing. 

As one might expect, the negative effects of ending the expanded CTC didn’t take long to hit. As soon as February 2022, the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University reported an immediate spike in child poverty rates as the program ended, with 3.7 million American children yo-yoed back into poverty.

Researched published last month in the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) Health Bulletin further documented the harm done by failing to renew the CTC. The focus was on the “increased risk of food insecurity and associated adverse health outcomes, including developmental delay, behavioral problems, and school absenteeism, as well as decreased access to preventive care” after monthly payments ended. Special attention was given to children in very low-income households who were more likely to experience food insecurity and less likely to qualify for help as the safety net was scaled back.

What the researchers found was that after the expanded credit ended, the percentage of US households with children experiencing food insufficiency increased, with larger increases in food insufficiency among households with lower income levels. These estimates represent a relative increase in food insufficiency of approximately 16.7% among households making less than $50 000/y, 20.8% among households making less than $35 000/y, and 23.2%among households making less than $25 000/y.”

The report concludes: “Nonrestricted cash transfer programs like the monthly eCTC represent a promising approach to mitigating income instability and reducing food insufficiency among families with children. With the expiration of the monthly eCTC in 2021, additional policies aimed at mitigating the health and economic effects of poverty on children and families are urgently needed.”

The story doesn’t have to end here with a brief respite from poverty for millions of kids only for them to be thrown back into its depths.

Congress still has unfinished business to address as 2022 winds down. It has the chance and the responsibility to revisit this missed opportunity in yearend legislation and restore this vital program, rather than merely cut taxes for rich people and corporations. Specifically, America’s children and families need and deserve a basic monthly credit without cuts in eligibility for very poor or vulnerable families or reductions in other vital programs.

This time around, I hope that our senators open their hearts and minds and take this chance to prioritize our children, youth and families over—or at least as much as--more breaks for wealthy corporations. 

A crime to be poor?

 I'm not sure how I managed to miss this quote by Kurt Vonnegut from Slaughterhouse Five...

“America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”

I wish I was surprised

 The United Health Foundation recently released it's 2021 report on American Health Rankings. And, well, it's kind of what you'd expect. West Virginia ranks at or near the bottom on several indicators, including:

*49th in occupation fatalities (the legislature tried and failed to gut the state mine safety agency this year, which may knock us out of 50);

*47th in economic hardship (who could have guessed that years of anti-labor legislation, automation and corporate driven-globalization might not have brought prosperity?);

*48th in per capita income (see above);

*47th in poverty (see above); 

*49th in unemployment (the legislature also tried to cut unemployment insurance eligibility from 26 to 12 weeks this session);

*49th in food insecurity (in 2018, the legislature passed a bill that made it harder for low income adults without children to access SNAP benefits);

*49th in social support and engagement;

*50th in drinking water violations (lowering water standards to benefit extractive industries being an annual legislative ritual);

*49th in nutrition and physical activity;

*50th in depression;

*50th in drug deaths (not surprising given how WV was bombed with opioids by pharmaceutical companies in recent years);

*48th in frequent mental distress;

*50th in premature deaths; and

*50th in asthma, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, COPD, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. I'm guessing that being a mineral extraction sacrifice zone didn't help here. Thank God and former governor Earl Ray Tomblin for expanding Medicaid--otherwise we'd be dropping like flies. No doubt the social determinants of health have a lot to do with this.

This is just a partial list. The rest is here. Meanwhile, instead of dealing with these issues, the legislature spent a lot of time this year going after what's left of public education; failing to pass caps on diabetes-related expenses; the bogey man of "critical race theory;" trying to make it harder for workers and their survivors injured or killed on the job to get compensation; trying to repeal the state income tax; and such.

It's nice to have good priorities. That's what I hear anyway

Lighting up young brains...literally

 My late father was a bad joke magnet. Over the course of his life, he amassed quite a collection from the coalfields of Fayette County to the Pacific Theater of World War II.

Aside from shameless puns endlessly repeated, he was fond of good news/bad news jokes of the kind that would raise expectations and then smash them. 

(For example, one of his favorites was about a general telling his soldiers the good news that they finally get to change undergarments. The bad news was they had to change them with each other…I told you they were bad.)

I thought of him when I saw a news story about a real-life good news/bad news scenario which is even less funny than any of his jokes.

A newly released study found encouraging results showing that anti-poverty measures can actually improve brain activity in one-year-old infants in ways that are associated with higher language, cognitive and socio-emotional scores later in life. That would have been the good news.

The bad news is that the expanded Child Tax Credit (CTC), a national program that could have helped millions of infants, not to mention kids of all ages, just got shut down when the US Senate failed to extend the program. 

Tens of millions of kids, and an untold number of infants, lost out when the expanded CTC ended in December 2021. And whether it will come back in any form is largely up to West Virginia’s senators.

The experiment, called Baby’s First Years, was planned long before a monthly CTC benefit became a reality. It involved a team of investigators from six universities around the country who conducted an experiment aimed at seeing whether a direct anti-poverty intervention would affect brain development in very young children.

Researchers recruited a diverse group of low-income mothers at four locations around the country. Participants were randomly placed into two groups. One received a nominal cash gift card worth $20 per month, while the other received a month cash gift of $333 dollars with no strings attached. By coincidence, that amount is similar to the CTC benefits of $250 to $300 per child, depending on age.

When the children in the experimental groups reached their first birthday, their brain activity was measured in their homes using electroencephalography, a process in which a cap is placed on the infant’s head to record brainwaves. Infants in the group that received the larger benefit had significantly more high-frequency brain activity than those in the $20 per month group.

According to neuroscientist Kimberly Noble at Teachers College, Columbia University, “We have known for many years that growing up in poverty puts children at risk for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health. However, until now, we haven’t been able to say whether poverty itself causes differences in child development, or whether growing up in poverty is simply associated with other factors that cause those differences.”

The design of the experiment shows that we’re looking at causation here, not just correlation.

Noble said that “All healthy brains are shaped by their environments and experiences, and we are not saying that one group has ‘better’ brains. But, because of the randomized design, we know that the $333 per month must have changed the children’s experiences or environments, and that their brains adapted to those changed circumstances.”

Researcher Katherine Magnuson from the University of Wisconsin-Madison said “families are all different, and the potential promise of money as a way of directly supporting families is that it allows parents to make choices about what their children most need. Thus, there may not be just one way in which money positively affects families; money may matter in a lot of small ways.”

I have to admit I was slow in recognizing the importance of the first months after birth in shaping long-term life chances, but the evidence is clear that adverse childhood experiences, including poverty, have huge consequences. The evidence also suggests that there are critical periods in human development in which our brains and bodies are especially sensitive to outside stimuli. It seems that ground lost in those periods may not be regained later in life.

We know from stories collected from WV parents that the benefits of income supports from the CTC have helped children of all ages. Not negotiating a deal for the CTC would be very bad news for a lot of people right now, and worse news for years to come.

Now that there’s solid evidence that this kind of basic support early in life can light up developing brains, it would be a shame to let those lights go out.

That’s no joke.

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

Babies, brains and bucks

 An interesting study was released this week that showed what most people probably already knew: that not being in desperate poverty is a good thing for babies. This time around, though, a cleverly designed experiment showed that this is a matter of causation, not just correlation.

A diverse group of low-income mothers in four locations were randomized into two groups. One received a nominal monthly gift card worth $20, while the other group received $333 per month. When the babies reached one year of age, they received an electroencephalogram in the home. When the results were compared, the group that got the higher amount showed more brain activity associated with higher language, cognitive and socio-emotional outcomes.

By a coincidence not anticipated when the study got started in 2012, the amount mothers in the higher income group received is pretty close to the amount of the monthly expanded Child Tax Credit, which began on July 15 and ended on Dec. 15 of last year. This is just another example of the benefits of the CTC for kids and families--and another reason why we can't give up the fight to extend it.

6 ways to fight hunger in WV

Note: in an earlier post I mentioned the creation of a legislative hunger working group, which was a really positive step. This article by Amelia Ferrell Knisely of Mountain State Spotlight, a statewide nonprofit  news service, highlights some ideas for addressing the problem.

Hunger in West Virginia — a complex problem tied to shuttered grocery stores, infrastructure issues and generational poverty — has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. The problem is one that advocates say requires state-level policy and funding to supplement the nonprofits and faith-based organizations that are trying to reach those in need. 

“There are some people who are suffering out here,” said Richard Brett, who runs a food pantry in Princeton. His faith-based charity Tender Mercies Ministries, which relies on a steady stream of volunteers to feed its community members, registers at least one to two individuals or families every day for food giveaways and he saw even more during the pandemic. The lack of jobs in the area and emergency food assistance programs that fall short often push people to reach out for help, Brett said. 

Yet, lawmakers devoted little attention to hunger during this year’s regular legislative session. Last week, House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, announced a bipartisan legislative workgroup will start studying the issue to outline anti-hunger priorities ahead of bill drafting this winter. 

The workgroup will be led by Delegate Larry Pack, R-Kanawha, and Delegate Chad Lovejoy, D-Cabell. Lovejoy in particular has been a vocal advocate for anti-hunger legislation since he was elected in 2016; he says the bipartisan buy-in to the anti-hunger workgroup “sends a message that it’s a priority.” 

But he notes it’s a complicated issue, which will require lawmakers to create practical yet effective policies. Here are six initiatives the new workgroup could take on to reduce hunger and support food charities, according to West Virginia researchers, policy analysts, charitable food network employees and anti-hunger advocates: 

1. Creating a state-level office to address hunger — The Legislature needs to immediately create a state-level office focused on coordinating county feeding efforts, according to Josh Lohnes, food policy research director at West Virginia University. Hunger needs and feeding programs vary from county to county, and a state office would coordinate between state agencies addressing hunger (like the Department of Health and Human Resources and the West Virginia Department of Agriculture) and private organizations (food banks, local charities, local school nutrition offices, etc.) “This office would employ local community food security coordinators in each county to create some connective tissue around responses at the local level that are frankly often uncoordinated,” said Lohnes, who has spent years researching and writing about the state’s charitable food system and hunger. The coordinators would be focused on improving outcomes of state-backed nutrition programs, he said. Lohnes estimated the program could cost the state around $3.5 million per year, which includes salaries for community food security coordinators and state-level oversight staff.

2. Listening to West Virginians before spending federal relief funds — West Virginia has already received half of the $1.36 billion it’s getting through the American Rescue Plan passed by Congress in March. The federal dollars — the state will get the remaining $677 million later this year — can be used to support COVID-19 response efforts, public health improvements (including hunger) and more. Lawmakers will have input on how Gov. Jim Justice spends the federal money after they passed HB 2014, which requires the Legislature to approve the governor’s use of any federal emergency money that is more than $150 million. Seth DiStefano, policy outreach director at the West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy, said it is imperative that lawmakers use this time to gather information from West Virginians about what they’ve experienced with food insecurity during the pandemic. He’d like to see the workgroup hold town halls around the state to hear feedback, then lawmakers should “turn that feedback into tangible policy results,” he said.

3. Transporting food to students in need — Feeding America estimates that 19% of West Virginia kids might experience hunger this year because of the pandemic, and hunger experts in the state agree lawmakers need to address feeding gaps for students during the summer and other unexpected breaks from school. Mountain State Spotlight reported on the ongoing gaps in summer feeding and for remote learners during the pandemic due to families’ lack of transportation and schools’ inability to deliver food. While many feeding programs have resumed due to reduced COVID-19 restrictions, student feeding gaps persist. Additionally, transporting food to students could help cut down on school food waste by putting food in the hands of students or other local feeding programs who need food. “If the school and county would stop to study the root of the problem, which we know is transportation, and figure out strategies to make those deliveries happen, they most likely would cut the waste down drastically,” said Jenny Anderson, director of Families Leading Change, a statewide advocacy group focused on improving schools. One plan from anti-hunger advocates that could be resurrected is one to pay bus drivers to deliver summer food; groups had asked Justice to use CARES Act money during the summer of 2020 to address student hunger in this way.

4. Increasing state-backed funding for food charities — More than 300,000 West Virginians relied on the state’s 333 food pantries for food back in 2016, according to research from the Food Justice Lab at West Virginia. Those pantries, on average, operated on a budget of less than $1,300 a month to pay for food, deliveries and more. Justice has for the last two years included $1 million for the state’s two food banks in his budget. But more state funding is needed as the problem has grown. “In the last month, I’ve applied for a million dollars in grants,” said Cyndi Kirkhart, who runs Facing Hunger Food Bank out of Cabell County. The food bank feeds more than 116,000 people each year. Kirkhart said her biggest need is funding as she is working on expanding the food bank’s options to include “medically indicated food boxes” with lean and no-salt added options for people with diabetes — West Virginians die from diabetes at the highest rate in the country — and cancer patients. 

5. Examining barriers to food assistance programs — Anti-hunger advocates want the workgroup to evaluate any barriers that keep West Virginians from applying for or receiving emergency food assistance programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). One of those barriers: a bill lawmakers signed off on this past session that continues a program that requires TANF applicants be screened for drugs. DHHR has drug-screened TANF applicants since 2017, when the department launched the pilot project after the Legislature mandated it; from October 2019 to September 2020, DHHR reported that out of 2,067 completed drug use screening questionnaires, only seven people tested positive for drugs. Child welfare advocates opposed the bill, saying that the program was likely to cut off West Virginia children, who make up the majority of the state’s TANF recipients, from necessary food.

6. Guaranteeing free food for students — Last month, California became the first state to offer free food to students without questions asked or required forms.The state set aside $650 million for its universal school meal program starting in 2022, according to NBC Los Angeles. In West Virginia, 47 of the state’s 55 counties are already qualified and elected to serve free meals for all students, pandemic relief aside, according to the West Virginia Department of Education. Rick Wilson, program director for the American Friends Service Committee and long-time West Virginia child nutrition advocate, said lawmakers should prioritize implementing a universal free meal program in West Virginia that would continue beyond the pandemic. 

Whatever policy decisions lawmakers make, the problem is large and growing: Feeding America estimates hunger now affects one in seven West Virginians, as well as one in five of the state’s children. State support is needed to supplement other anti-hunger efforts, said Caitlin Cook, director of advocacy and public policy for Mountaineer Food Bank. The food bank, based in Gassaway, provides food to 450 feeding programs across 48 counties.

“Nonprofits are not a sole solution to hunger, nor any social issue. Non-profits, for-profits and the government sectors all play a role in building food security,” Cook said. “Without commonality and those sectors working together, there’s pushing and pulling in opposite directions without concrete solutions.”

House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, announced the formation of the workgroup June 30. Other members of the workgroup are: Delegates Brent Boggs, D-Braxton; Ed Evans, D-McDowell; Joshua Higginbotham, R-Putnam; John Paul Hott, R-Grant; Riley Keaton, R-Roane; Kayla Kessinger, R-Fayette; Danielle Walker, D-Monongalia; Evan Worrell, R-Cabell; Kayla Young, D-Kanawha; and Lisa Zukoff, D-Marshall.

If you’re a West Virginia resident in need of food, please contact West Virginia 211 by dialing 211 or visiting www.WV211.org for assistance.

Guilty until proven wealthy

 It’s often said that, in the American legal tradition, a defendant is innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately, these days, it’s more like guilty until proven wealthy.

I’m talking specifically about the cash bail system. At any given time, as many as 700,000 Americans are locked up in jails. According to the Pretrial Justice Institute, most of these people haven’t been convicted of or even tried for the crimes for which they were arrested.

The reason most of them languish in overcrowded jails has no necessary connection to public safety. It’s because they can’t afford cash bail.

Now, that’s criminal. Specifically, it’s the criminalization of poverty.

As far back as 1964, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy observed that bail had become “a vehicle for systematic injustice.”

In testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he wrote: “Bail has only one purpose — to insure that a person who is accused of a crime will appear in court for his trial. We presume a person to be innocent until he is proven guilty, and thus the purpose of bail is not punishment. It is not harassment. It is not to keep people in jail. It is simply to guarantee appearance in court.”

Things have gotten much worse over the years. The Vera Institute of Justice notes that pretrial detention increased by 433% between 1970 and 2015. It’s probably gotten worse over the past six years.

According to national data, the median bail set for a felony charge is around $10,000, in a country where 40% of the population would have trouble coming up with an unexpected $400. Even if the accused person or the family can raise that money with a bail bond agent, they will lose a percentage of what they coughed up. Many times, the accused will be found not guilty or the charges will be dropped.

The racial bias inherent in this system is glaring: While Black Americans make up 13.4% of the U.S. population, they account for about 40% of Americans in pretrial custody. In any case, we’re overwhelmingly talking about poor and working-class people.

What happens to people held in jail because they can’t afford bail isn’t pretty. It takes only a few days to put people at risk of losing jobs, homes or child custody. Family members — and especially children — can be traumatized. And a lot of bad things can happen in overcrowded jails. The effects can last for generations.

People who can’t afford bail also are more likely to be given harsher sentences or accept plea deals, just to get out at some point.

It’s also expensive to taxpayers. In a 2017 report, the Pretrial Justice Institute estimated that the United States spends about $14 billion “to detain people who are mostly low risk, including many whose charges will ultimately be dropped.”

Even though the Legislature overwhelmingly passed a bail reform bill last year, the jail numbers in West Virginia have increased. As reported on March 15, the population in West Virginia’s regional jails has jumped to 6,135. The actual capacity of those jails is 4,265. This means that regional jails are about 43% over their capacity. Of these, approximately the same percentage is being held for pretrial.

All this occurs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, where risk of infections and community spread are high because of the constantly churning jail population. Many have pointed out that a stint in jail for a minor offense could be a death sentence.

It wasn’t always that way. As recently as April 16, 2020, the regional jail population was as low as 4,085 because of steps taken to reduce the jail population to slow the spread of the virus — and there was no spike in the crime rate. But the population rapidly increased again as things returned to “normal.”

Under the 2020 reform bill, judges or magistrates must hold a hearing within 72 hours for people who are incarcerated because they can’t afford bail. Incredibly, a new measure, House Bill 3106, would increase the period someone waits in pretrial for a hearing to 10 days, making a bad situation much worse.

Even aside from the impact on incarcerated people, their families and public health, this would have a huge cost on taxpayers. Counties owe $48.25 per day for each inmate in a regional jail, and at least 10 counties are behind in payments to the tune of millions of dollars. When counties fall behind, the state picks up the difference.

If we use the March 15 numbers reported by the state, there were 2,672 people in pretrial detention, at a cost to counties of $128,924 per day. At 10 days, we’re talking $1,289,240. And many people who can’t make bail are held for weeks and months.

Clearly, HB 3106 would be a step in the wrong direction for all concerned. Rather, West Virginia would do well to continue on the path to reform and ultimately abolish a system that bases personal liberty solely on the ability to pay.

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

Time to end a double standard

 Among other things, Jesus was a master of the one-liner. The gospels are full of zingers that cut to the heart of the matter.

One of my favorites is a line he used about the misplaced priorities of some of his opponents: “Blind guides, you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.”

At that time, many religiously observant people would strain the water they drank to avoid swallowing unclean insects. It was Jesus’ way of pointing out that, sometimes, we make a big deal of small things while ignoring major ones.

There are plenty of examples of that today. One of the biggest has to do with different attitudes toward the rich and the poor (come to think of it, Jesus had another camel/needle’s-eye zinger about that).

It’s long been known to public health researchers that high levels of inequality in wealth and income have negative effects on diseases, mortality, longevity, crime, addiction, happiness, social trust and other quality-of-life issues. And, in 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that income inequality was the highest it had ever been since it began tracking it.

COVID-19 made all that worse. Millions of Americans have lost jobs and benefits or have had to cut back on hours of work. Many are in danger of foreclosure or eviction when protections expire.

Meanwhile, the international humanitarian group Oxfam, in a report appropriately titled “The Inequality Virus,” found that, while “Over two million people have died, and hundreds of millions of people are being forced into poverty while many of the richest — individuals and corporations — are thriving. Billionaire fortunes returned to their pre-pandemic highs in just nine months, while recovery for the world’s poorest people could take over a decade.”

According to The Guardian, a Swiss bank recently reported that “billionaires increased their wealth by more than a quarter [27.5%] at the height of the crisis from April to July, just as millions of people around the world lost their jobs or were struggling to get by on government schemes.”

Thanks mostly to the stock market, the wealth of billionaires increased to $10.2 trillion, up from the previous peak of $8.9 trillion in 2017. The number of billionaires also increased, from 2,158 to 2,189, in the same period.

That would be the camel we’re swallowing.

The gnat that’s being strained out is hesitancy to pass a long-overdue measure to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 over several years. The minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 for nearly a dozen years and is now, obviously, worth less that it was then.

According to economist Dean Baker, if the minimum wage had kept pace with gains in worker productivity since 1968, it would be around $24 an hour today.

It’s an idea supported by a vast majority of Americans. The Pew Research Center has found that over two-thirds of Americans (67%) support the increase to $15. This includes a substantial number of Republicans (43%), including a majority of self-described Republican moderates.

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that passing the increase would benefit around 40 million Americans, over 38 million adults, nearly 24 million full-time workers, 23 million women, over 11 million parents, 5.4 million single parents and the parents of 14.4 million children. In 2019, the EPI estimated that this would benefit 255,000 workers in West Virginia.

These are the front-line workers who put their bodies, health and lives on the line to keep the country going in the midst of this crisis. It’s time to do right by them.

Jesus also said, “The laborer deserves to be paid.”

(This appeared as a column in the Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

Another one to watch

 Universal Basic Income is an idea that's been around for a while, arguably for centuries, but it's started gaining more traction in the wake of COVID. It tends to be popular in progressive circles, although it has some surprising support from libertarian and conservative circles where it's non-paternalistic and unbureaucratic approach resonates.

The idea is pretty much what it sounds like: guarantee every citizen a certain amount of money on a regular basis. It's been touted as a solution to poverty, a degree of protection from automation, and a safety net for the growing "gig economy" (a phrase that makes me think of unfortunate frogs hunted for their legs).

It's been tried to a limited degree in some places and the results seem promising. The latest city to announce an experiment with it is Compton, CA, a city with a poverty rate about twice the national average (sounds like a place I know). According to Mayor Aja Brown, the idea is to "challenge the racial and economic injustice plaguing both welfare programs and economic systems." According to CNN, 800 low income residents will pilot the program, as described in this fact sheet.

It will be interesting to watch the results. One thing I'm pretty sure about, in a climate of growing inequality, we're going to need something like a universal basic income or guaranteed employment program. Pope Francis issued a similar call earlier this spring.

Fatal to be hungry

I've spent a decent chunk of the last several years in working with friends to try to fight off attack on poor people in general and food assistance in particular. It would probably be safe to say our success has been limited.

Several of these fights are still in the works and are caused by the Trump administration's human wave attacks on SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program).

While musing on that subject, I ran across a couple of quotes about hunger and the cruelty and the enormous condescension people show to people who are poor.

Let's start with cruelty:

"It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you."

Now cruelty's close relation, condescension:

“It is curious how people take it for granted that they have a right to preach at you and pray over you as soon as your income falls below a certain level.”

I'm not sure which is worse.

Need a karmic boost? Help fight hunger

In an earlier post, I wrote about the Trump administration's proposal to mess with the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). These changes, if enacted, would cut off food assistance from over 3 million Americans and 25,000 West Virginians.

The deadline to submit public comments on why this is a bad idea is this coming Monday, Sept. 23.

Here's a link to the USDA comment page.

Here's a link to tons of information about why this is a bad idea.

And here's a great story from today's Charleston Gazette-Mail about what this means for West Virginia.

I've been given to understand that making a public comment against these measures will guarantee a fortunate rebirth in the Pure Land of Amida Buddha, where the commentor can work towards Supreme Enlightenment under the most favorable conditions.

What's at stake in the latest attack on food assistance

You may have heard that the Trump administration has proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that could result in taking away benefits from 3 million or more Americans.

Here's why it's bad: the proposed change eliminates "broad based categorical eligibility" (BBCE), which allows people who are eligible for other assistance programs (such as TANF or welfare, SSI or other programs) to be automatically eligible for SNAP.

Eliminating the BBCE creates a cliff effect in which people could experience drastic cuts in benefits when their living conditions modestly improve.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,

 SNAP supports work in part by phasing benefits down gradually — by only 24 to 36 cents for each dollar of increased earnings. But without BBCE, a family can lose substantial SNAP benefits from a small earnings increase that raises its gross income over SNAP’s eligibility threshold (130 percent of the federal poverty line, or $2,252 per month for a family of three in fiscal year 2019). BBCE allows states to lift this threshold and phase benefits out more gradually, which lets households close to that threshold take higher-paying work and still benefit from SNAP.

They also argue that eliminating BBCE could discourage struggling families from building modest savings and increase the level of bureaucracy in administering the program.

SOOOO....if you want to do a good deed and make a public comment about the proposed policy (click here for that),  your message can be as simple as "Eliminating BBCE will push struggling families over a benefit cliff." Or "It's a bad idea to discourage savings and asset building." Or "Why increase bureaucratic complexity? Keep it simple by keeping BBCE." Or some combination of the above.

Then there's this if you don't want to overthink it: it's not nice to take away food from hungry people.

Sounding the alarm on hunger

The Trump administration has proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, aka the old food stamps) that could take away basic food assistance from 3 million Americans. This is an administrative maneuver which clearly bypasses the will of both houses of Congress.

To fight this off, it's necessary for as many people as possible to a make their voice heard during the public comment period, which closes Sept. 23. Fortunately, there's an easy way to do this. All you have to do is click here and comment away.

To learn more specifics about what's wrong with doing that, click on this link from the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

I knew things were bad but...

It takes a lot to surprise me when it comes to bad statistics about West Virginia, but I didn't see this coming: according  to the WV Department of Education, 10,522 public school students in the state are homeless. 

Recall that West Virginia is a small state population-wise and getting smaller every day. This means that 4 percent of students are living in a vehicle, on a relative or friend's couch or in a shelter. That would average out to one student in every class of 25 kids.

The counties with the highest numbers include:

* Jefferson County — 1,411 students, or 16 percent of students
* Kanawha County — 652 students, or 3 percent of students
* Clay County — 633 students, or 34 percent of students
* Mercer County — 588 students, or 7 percent of students
* Cabell County — 455 students, or 4 percent of students

According to officials, some of this may be due to the lingering effects of the 2016 floods, but opioids are probably a leading cause.

Needless to say, none of this came up in all the time wasted by the legislature in pushing for privatization, charter schools and education savings accounts.

This is another example of how public schools are expected to deal with problems they didn't create, even while some legislators undermine them.

Why we fight

 "I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”--Stephen Jay Gould, 1941-2002/

That pretty much sums the answer to "why we fight" for me.

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.)

Revisiting Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign 50 years later

Fifty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his allies made some ambitious plans. They hoped to bring poor people together across racial and other social divides to call for “a radical redistribution of economic and political power.”

They hoped that a multi-racial Poor People’s Campaign would awaken the conscience of the nation and spark a mass movement to end poverty, systemic racism and the war economy.

The campaign came to pass but the desired results obviously did not. I can’t help but wonder what might have been different had Dr. King not been assassinated on April 4, 1968. I don’t believe that history is made by a few heroic figures, but it seems clear that individuals can make a huge difference.

In any case, half a century later we have unprecedented levels of economic inequality and a political system dominated by the very wealthy who seem intent on widening the gap. More people in America live in or near poverty now than in 1968.

Today, in the wake of passing gigantic $1.9 trillion in tax cuts that benefit primarily wealthy people and corporations, Congress is contemplating drastic cuts and restrictions in food assistance to vulnerable Americans as the mammoth Farm Bill comes up for reconsideration.

Slashing spending on food assistance by billions and cutting off basic help to millions won’t promote work, although it is likely to exert a downward pressure on wages for working Americans.

Other programs — like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, student aid — that help millions of Americans and tens of thousands of West Virginians are also being targeted at a time when the wealthiest 1 percent owns more than the bottom 99.

This is clearly a moral issue, one that is all too often ignored by those preaching restrictive versions of religion and myopic views of morality.

Ignoring issues of social justice goes against the grain of the biblical religion so many profess. The prophet Isaiah, honored alike by Jews, Christians and Muslims, couldn’t be any clearer:

“Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?” (Isaiah 10:1-3)

Around the country, there is a growing awareness of the need to revisit the goals of the Poor People’s Campaign in our new context and to issue a national call to moral revival.

In the words of the Rev. William Barber and the Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the new campaign, “There needs to be a new moral discourse in this nation — one that says being poor is not a sin but systemic poverty is.”

(This ran as an op-ed in today's Charleston Gazette-Mail.)

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.)