child care - Digital Library Collections

CHILD
NUTRITION
gram requirements, and reduce administrative
costs. The vast majority of savings arise instead
from across-the-board benefit cuts for all recipients-including
families with children, the working
poor, the elderly, and people with disabilities-and
from a series of benefit cuts that target particular
groups of low-income households.
Between September 1996 and September
1997, the number of individuals receiving food
stamp assistance plummeted by an astounding 3.9
million (see figure 4.2). This is far more than can
be explained by improvement in the economy and
the expected effects of the 1996 welfare law. In
addition, a survey by the U.S. Conference of Mayors
fmds that requests for emergency food assistance
have risen sharply. Despite the economy's
growth and the low unemployment rate, requests
for aid were up by an average of 16 percent in 1997
in the 29 cities surveyed, with the majority ofthese
requests coming from families with children. This
increase appears directly related to the sharp
shrinkage in food stamp assistance. More troubling,
most of the data in the mayors' study are for
the period be/ore most of those legal immigrants
who were terminated from food stamps in large
numbers lost their benefits. The study also found
that 19 percent of the requests for food are estimated
to have gone unmet, with 71 percent ofthe
cities reporting that some of those in need may
have to be turned away because of a lack of resources.
Effects on children. Two-thirds ofthe spending
cuts for food stamps affect families with children,
including poor working families as well as those
receiving welfare benefits. In FY 1998, according
to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, more
than 5 million families with children will lose an
average of $36 a month in food stamp benefits.
Because such families averaged only $600 a month
in gross income in 1995-just 54 percent of the
poverty line-this represents a substantial loss.
Moreover, benefit reductions will deepen over
time, giving families slightly less food purchasing
power with each passing year.
The costs to children go beyond economic
ones. Myriad studies have shown that children who
are afflicted with even mild forms of undernutrition-a
type ofmalnutrition caused by lintited food
supply-suffer adverse health and learning effects.
These include iron deficiency anemia (which is
associated with impaired cognitive development),
Figure 4.2
Fewer Fooel Stamp Recipients
The number of food
stomp recipients (the
Number of children and adults receiving food stamps
28 ..--------------------------,
27.1 million
majority of whom are
children) plunged
sharply after passage
of the 1996 welfare
low.
September 1994 Sepfember 1995 September 1996 September 1997
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Consumer Service.
CHI L D R EN'S D E FEN S E FUN D 55