RTS ALERT: HB2060 ~ Food Assistance Reduces Recidivism & Helps Families

According to a Feeding America pre-pandemic study, 5.3 million older adults are food insecure and often the biggest hurdle towards food security is the lack of information on available help. An interview with Interview with Angie Rodger of Arizona Food Bank Network on SNAP.

Unlike SNAP, WIC has a smaller budget, and less of a spotlight. Now, Congress and the USDA are working to address food insecurity in families head-on by investing in and modernizing the program.

President Biden’s Covid-19 relief package is poised to bring a historic reduction in poverty rates, with nonmetro counties among the biggest beneficiaries.

Food banks are a lifeline for Arizonans in need. That has never been more clear than during the COVID-19 pandemic, when our food banks have seen 2–3 times as many people in their lines.

During Covid-19, food banks have been swamped, serving people who don't get SNAP benefits and millions more whose SNAP benefits don't provide enough food.

A big part of the administration’s coronavirus relief package is focused on children. The president says he wants to expand the federal child tax credit, which gives families money for each child they have — or at least reduces their taxes. This change could help lift nearly 10 million children above the poverty line or get them closer to it.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) issued an important new tool at the end of January to help states implement Pandemic EBT (P-EBT), which provides federally funded grocery benefits to replace the meals that children are missing when they’re not attending school or child care.

The American Rescue Plan, the emergency relief proposal that President Biden announced in mid-January and that Congress will begin considering soon, includes key investments to mitigate high levels of hunger and hardship.

HB2142 will be heard in the Arizona House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday, January 27, 2021. Your help is needed to urge committee members to vote YES on this important issue.

CBPP on January 22 released a statement from Dottie Rosenbaum, Senior Fellow and Interim Program Area Lead for Food Assistance, on the President’s new executive order that includes changes in food assistance.

Young adults think the current eligibility standards disregard families that need the additional money.

The presentations by Dr. Ryan Cumming of ELCA World Hunger and Ms. Angie Rogers of Arizona Food Bank Network for the LAMA Summit on November 7 were excellent ~ well worth viewing!

More than 4 in 10 children live in households that struggle to meet usual household expenses. … The figures underscore the need for policymakers to agree on a strong, bipartisan economic relief package.

As evidence of profound hardship resulting from the COVID-19 health and economic crises mounts, powerful tools to mitigate suffering and bolster economic activity will be unavailable to state and local government without congressional action.

The current rate of food insecurity, which is when you don’t have reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable food, is about 10% of Americans, or 22.3 million. In 2019, while not quite apples-to-apples, the rate was 3.7% of Americans.