UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
Food, Nutrition and Consumer Service
Statement of Nancy Montanez Johner, Under Secretary
Before the Subcommittee on Department Operations,
Oversight, Dairy, Nutrition and Forestry
House Committee on Agriculture
March 13, 2007
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Nancy Montanez Johner, Under Secretary, Food,
Nutrition, and Consumer Services (FNCS), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
I am pleased to be at today’s hearing to discuss the Food Stamp
Program (FSP) and its impact on children’s nutrition and health. The FSP is the
Nation’s primary nutrition assistance program, increasing food purchasing power
for households with little income and few resources by providing benefits that
are redeemed at retail grocery stores across the country. Over 26 million
low-income people make use of the program to help put food on the table.
This program provides substantial benefits to low-income
families with children, helping them to stretch their buying power. About half
of all food stamp recipients are children, nearly 80 percent of food stamp
benefits go to households with children, and over 80 percent of all children who
are eligible for benefits receive them. On average, households with children
receive about $300 in food stamp benefits each month, with the amount varying
based on the size and income level of the household. Food stamp households also
benefit from nutrition education that is part of the program in every State –
helping to promote thrifty shopping and healthy eating among food stamp clients.
The evidence is clear that the FSP makes an important difference
in the lives of low-income children and families, and the others that it serves.
With its nationwide standards for eligibility and benefits, it represents a
national nutrition safety net for low-income families and individuals wherever
they live. It is designed to expand automatically to respond to increased need
when the economy is in recession and contracts when the economy is growing,
making sure that food gets to people who need it, when they need it.
Perhaps most importantly for today’s hearing, the FSP makes more
food available to households that participate. Food stamp families are able to
spend more on food than they would be able to without the program, and providing
benefits that can be spent only on food increases total food expenditures more
than providing an equal amount of cash would. In addition, there is evidence
that program participation can increase the availability of nutritious food in
the home.
To sum up, Mr. Chairman – the Food Stamp Program works, and it
works for children. That’s why we’re committed to ensuring effective program
operations for all eligible people who wish to participate.
To meet that commitment, we have implemented outreach activities
such as the national media campaign. The number one reason that people do not
apply for food stamp benefits is because they do not realize that they are
eligible. The national media campaign seeks to raise awareness of the nutrition
benefits of food stamps and encourage low income people to seek out more
information about their eligibility for this important benefit. National media
campaign activities primarily consist of radio advertising in areas of low
participation.
The Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) also provides outreach
materials for the Food Stamp Program including posters and flyers, as well as
radio and television public service announcements, that State and local food
stamp agencies and community and faith-based outreach providers can use in their
local outreach efforts.
For the last four years, FNS has also awarded grants to
community and faith-based organizations to implement and study promising
outreach strategies. All of these outreach strategies are geared towards the
working poor, including families with children, seniors, and legal immigrants,
including citizen children of undocumented parents.
Mr. Chairman, I know the focus of this hearing is how the FSP
affects children’s health, but I would be remiss if I did not mention the other
major programs that I oversee which directly bear on this subject. The 15
domestic nutrition assistance programs administered by FNS work together to
improve food security, fight hunger, and support healthy eating for low-income
people across the Nation. The President’s budget for Fiscal Year 2008
demonstrates the Administration’s unwavering commitment to this mission by
requesting a record level of $59 billion dollars for these vital programs, which
serve one in five Americans over the course of a year. While these programs are
designed to meet the needs of people of all ages who need assistance, they focus
most strongly on the needs of children. In addition to food stamps, the major
nutrition assistance programs include:
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The Child Nutrition Programs (CNP), including the school
meals (lunch and breakfast) program, and the Child and Adult Care Food
Program (CACFP), which support nutritious meals and snacks served to over 30
million children in schools, child care institutions, and after-school care
programs. In addition, the Summer Food Service (SFSP) Program and parts of
the National School Lunch Program provide nutritious food to children in
summer camps and other settings in the summer months, when school is not in
session.
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And for the youngest children and infants, we operate the
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or
WIC. WIC addresses the special needs of at-risk, low-income pregnant,
breastfeeding, and postpartum women, infants, and children up to five years
of age. It provides 8 million participants monthly with supplemental food
packages targeted to their dietary needs, nutrition education, and referrals
to a range of health and social services; benefits that promote a healthy
pregnancy for mothers and a healthy start for their children
Overweight and obesity are critical issues for every part of our
population, and addressing those problems is most important early in life, when
eating and other health-related behaviors are developed. The policies that shape
the programs are aligned with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which are
revised every five years to ensure that policy is based on current scientific
and medical knowledge. And each major program promotes healthy eating and active
lifestyles through nutrition education and promotion.
Nutrition education and services are provided to WIC
participants in conjunction with other parts of the WIC benefit to improve birth
outcomes and promote childhood immunization, and breastfeeding. Team Nutrition,
a comprehensive, integrated plan to promote good nutrition through the Child
Nutrition Programs, includes nutrition education materials for use in schools
and technical assistance for food service providers. We also promote nutrition
education across programs through the Eat Smart. Play Hard. Campaign, and by
working with State agencies that operate the programs on State Nutrition Action
Plans, to foster integrated cross-program strategies.
Nutrition education efforts are not limited to the Child
Nutrition Programs but are also provided by States to food stamp recipients. The
program represents a prime opportunity to reach low-income children and families
and encourage healthy practices that can last a lifetime.
The FSP clearly has been a major benefit to low-income
households with children over the years. Children in the FSP have also benefited
from the increased commitment to nutrition education as a component part of the
Program. Considered an optional benefit on the part of States, spending in the
area of nutrition education has increased over the last fifteen years. For
example, in FY 1992, FNS approved $661,000 for Food Stamp Nutrition Education (FSNE)
efforts conducted by seven State agencies. This year, FNS approved $275 million
in federal funds for fifty-two State agencies to provide FSNE. It is important
to note that FSNE plays a valuable role in helping to communicate the Dietary
Guidelines for Americans to low-income audiences. This includes promotion of
MyPyramid and its various iterations such as MyPyramid for Children and
MiPiramide.
To that end, FNS has also developed a series of nutrition
education and promotional materials targeting women with children entitled
Loving Your Family, Feeding Their Future: Nutrition Education through the Food
Stamp Program. These materials are designed for Food Stamp mothers who may
possess low-literate skills and who may be Spanish speakers. These materials can
be used in any setting with similar target audiences, such as the WIC Program.
The anticipated release date of these materials is May 2007.
The Food Stamp Nutrition Connection is a website designed to
provide training and information resources to FSP nutrition educators, and it
provides more than 150 nutrition education resources for children.
For a preview of our excellent children resource materials
please visit our web sites at:
I would like to take a moment to outline several of our Farm
Bill Proposals, especially those that would benefit households with children.
We are using the 2007 Farm Bill process to further improve
program access and facilitate future self-sufficiency. The Administration’s
reform-minded and fiscally responsible proposals build on the success of the
2002 Farm Bill – raising food stamp participation rates among eligible
populations, restoring eligibility for many legal immigrants, and providing new
flexibility for States to tailor services to better serve their clients – with
improvements in access, strong integrity, and careful stewardship of the
taxpayer dollars. Let me outline some of the proposals that have particularly
important impacts on families with children:
First, we want to strengthen efforts to integrate nutrition
education into the Food Stamp Program by recognizing in the Food Stamp Act of
1977 that nutrition education is a component of the program and investing $100
million to establish a five-year competitive grants demonstration program
targeted at developing and testing solutions to the rising rates of obesity.
These grants will allow us to evaluate creative and innovative solutions in this
complex area, such as point-of-sale incentives to purchase fruits and
vegetables, increased access among food stamp recipients to farmers markets, and
integrated initiatives that use multiple communication channels to reinforce key
messages. These initiatives would include rigorous evaluations to identify
effective strategies. This is important, as the Committee knows, because of the
serious health threats of obesity and overweight threaten American citizens, but
is even more critical when we consider the impact it has on our nation’s
children.
Second, our proposals to increase program access that would
affect families with children include:\
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Eliminating the cap on the dependent care deduction –
Current policy supports work or participation in work services by providing
for limited deductions from the family’s gross income associated with the
cost of dependent care when determining food stamp eligibility and benefit
amount: a cap of $200 per month for children under 2 and $175 for other
dependent children is the current policy. The cap was set back in 1993. It
is time to eliminate the cap, which would simplify State administration and
help working families with children.
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Excluding the value of college savings plans from the
resource limit This proposal would expand the plans eligible for exclusion
from the resource limit when determining food stamp eligibility and would
simplify administration for the States. Most significantly, it supports
working poor, encourages focused savings for children’s futures, and
recognizes that households should not have to deplete college savings plans
in order to get nutrition assistance. This proposal will exclude from the
resource calculation the value of certain college savings plans that the IRS
recognizes for tax purposes, including 529 plans operated by most States
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Excluding combat-related military pay – Enhanced pay from
military deployment can sometimes cause families receiving food stamps to no
longer be eligible for this assistance. This policy change would ensure that
military families are not penalized for doing their patriotic duty. It
supports the families of servicemen and servicewomen fighting overseas by
ensuring that their families back home do not lose food stamps as a result
of the additional deployment income. This proposal has been a part of the
President’s budget for several years and was first enacted in the 2005
Appropriations Act; this farm bill proposal would make this annual policy
fix permanent.
Encouraging savings for retirement –This proposal simplifies
food stamp resource policy and makes it more equitable because under current law
some retirement accounts are excluded and some are included. This proposal
supports the President's Ownership Society Initiative, by increasing the ability
of low-income people to save for retirement. It is expected, when fully
implemented, to add approximately 100,000 persons to the program and to increase
benefits by $592 million over 5 years. The majority of the new participants will
be workers and their families, most with children, but also improves access for
elderly.
Third, beyond the $100 million in obesity-prevention grants, we
also propose to improve nutrition for children by:
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Adding new mandatory funding for the purchase of additional
fruits and vegetables for use in the National School Lunch and Breakfast
Programs. This $500 million of funding over 10 years represents a net
increase in the total purchase of fruits and vegetables for school meals
over levels available under any other authorities.
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Increasing Section 32 spending on fruits and vegetables by
$2.75 billion over 10 years. This proposal will increase the availability of
fruits and vegetables to low-income individuals and school children
participating in nutrition assistance programs, and the consumption of these
healthful foods can contribute to the improved health of program
participants.
Mr. Chairman, Food Stamps and the other USDA programs help us
lead the fight against hunger, and the level of commitment to this task remains
high. But we still know that there is more to do. We are continuing to improve
program operations, get benefits to those who are already eligible, but do not
participate, and keep our eye on program integrity in the process.
FNS programs enable other programs to operate better by making sure that young
children have access to proper nutrition and are ready to learn.
This concludes my prepared remarks. I would be happy to answer any questions you
might have at this time.
References
Devaney, B., and R. Moffitt (1991). “Dietary Effects of the Food Stamp Program,”
American
Journal of Agricultural Economics 73(1):202-11.
Fox, M.K., W. Hamilton, and BH. Lin (2004). Effects of Food Assistance and
Nutrition Programs
on Nutrition and Health: Volume 3, Literature Review.
Cambridge, MA: Abt Associates.
Fraker, T.M. (1990). The Effects of Food Stamps on Food Consumption: A Review of
the
Literature. Washington, DC: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
Last modified:
11/26/2008
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