Feeding America: Working class ‘largest constituency’ for food banks

Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot told reporters late last week that “the largest single constituency” for food banks “are people who do not qualify for the federal nutrition programs — working class families who cannot get the nutrition they need without going to food banks.”
During a roundtable conversation, Babineaux-Fontenot emphasized that Feeding America, the nation’s largest network of food banks, is “nonpartisan,” but many of the people that she described as “the largest single constituency” are also people who are likely to have voted for President-elect Trump.
She added that Feeding America “is not bipartisan,” which she described as going for the lowest common denominator in policy, but “nonpartisan,” which she said means advocating for “policy interventions are going to do the most good.”
Nutrition advocates have pointed out for years that there are millions of people whose incomes are a little too high for them to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which was previously known as food stamps, and for free and reduced price school meals.
Even though unemployment rates are low, “food insecurity rates are worse than they were at any point in the pandemic, they are rivaled by the rates in 2008-09” during the financial crisis, she said.
More than 47 million people including 14 million children are food insecure, meaning that they don’t always know where their next meal is coming from, she noted.

Kent Eikenberry, president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank, sat next to Babineaux-Fontenot at the roundtable in Feeding America’s Washington office.
He said that in Northwest Arkansas, where Walmart is headquartered, 32 people move in per day, often to take high-paying jobs, but there are others who make $11 per hour or $22,000 per year.
“You can’t live on that,” Eikenberry said. “But they are not eligible for government assistance.”
Across the country, he said, there are “a lot of haves, a lot of have nots, and not a lot in between.”

“People living in hunger do not get the same uplift from a growing economy and will suffer longer,” Babineaux-Fontenot said.
Noting that she worked as an executive at Walmart before heading Chicago-based Feeding America, she added, “economies boom for a particular segment.”
In the disaster supplemental, Babineaux-Fontenot said, it is vital for farmers to get assistance. She noted that the Biden administration request to Congress includes money to rebuild food banks after the hurricanes, but not money to replace food that was ruined.
While SNAP has problems such as the fact that someone who gets a dollar per hour raise can be cut off, it is vital to maintain the program, she said. It is much better for people to have “the dignified access of going into a store and choosing the food they want” rather than standing in line at a pantry, she explained.
Many SNAP rules are not law, she said, but regulations that could be changed.

On the issue of whether Congress should provide money to make up SNAP beneficiaries’ losses from being scammed, Babineaux-Fontenot said she did not know the details, but that it is “appalling” there are “bad actors who come in and steal from them. We certainly don’t support fraud.”
If the Trump administration is going to discuss make changes to federal nutrition programs to encourage healthier eating, “we ought to be at that table,” Babineaux-Fontenot said. People experiencing hunger also experience chronic diseases, she added.
Of proposals to limit what people can buy with SNAP benefits, Babineaux-Fontenot said, “it’s a terrible idea to restrict what people can buy, but people who are proposing it are well meaning. It stigmatizes the status of being food insecure. The answer isn’t to limit what the options are but to expand nutritious options.”

House Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., has proposed not allowing the use of SNAP to buy sweetened beverages, but Babineaux-Fontenot said that if people on SNAP can’t buy Sprite, then they will “covet” Sprite.
On potential improvements for food banks, Babineaux-Fontenot noted that Feeding America’s warehouse members have refrigeration, which allows the food banks to provide healthier foods such as milk, but that many of the agencies that provide food directly to the public still do not.
On the food boxes that the Trump administration provided during its first term, Babineaux-Fontenot said boxes would be a good way to address the idea of “food as medicine.” But such boxes should come as a prescription from a doctor, she said. The boxes could also be a way to involve smaller farmers in providing food to low-income people, she added.
On the criticism of ultraprocessed food that has come from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice as Health and Human Services secretary, Babineaux-Fontenot said that could also fit in with the “food as medicine” movement and the food banks.
Both Babineaux-Fontenot and Eikenberry said they are hopeful that the Trump administration can make improvements to federal nutrition.
What keeps them motivated, Eikenberry said, is that when people get food, “a look of despair and embarrassment can turn to a look of hope.” -The Hagstrom Report