Hard times drive food stamp rolls

from the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

By Devon Haynie
The Journal Gazette

A worsening economy and a state-driven outreach effort have led more northeast Indiana residents to apply for the state’s food stamp program, according to aid workers, state officials and economists.

The annual average number of food stamp recipients in Indiana increased 22 percent from 2003 to 2007, according to figures from Indiana’s Family Social Services Administration. The increase in recipients was more pronounced in 10 northeast Indiana counties, where the annual number of food stamp recipients rose anywhere from 24 percent to 87 percent during the five-year period.

While most northeast Indiana counties saw an increase in food stamp recipients of less than 30 percent since 2003, LaGrange County saw a 42 percent increase. The rise in enrollment was also particularly noticeable in DeKalb County, where the number of recipients almost doubled from 2003 to 2007.

FSSA Secretary Mitch Roob believes the numbers reflect the agency’s statewide, grass-roots effort to publicize the food stamp program and other assistance programs and enroll those eligible for their benefits.

While local aid workers agree that outreach efforts are partly responsible for the increases, they say the numbers illustrate an increased need and the pinch that economic factors like rising prices and declining wages are putting on the region’s working poor.

“People are taking advantage of their eligibility; that’s the good news,” said Jane Avery, executive director of Community Harvest Food Bank in Fort Wayne. “The bad news is that clearly our area is still suffering. There are a lot of folks who have seen their incomes reduced because of job losses or medical problems, and they need more assistance.”

In 2006, the FSSA worked with IBM to create a Voluntary Community Assistance Network, a group of 1,000 organizations helping struggling Hoosiers meet their basic needs. The organizations provide information about the food stamp program’s eligibility requirements and distribute enrollment applications, along with referring people to Indiana’s other assistance programs, said Roob, who oversees the state agency that includes Indiana’s food stamp program.

“We’ve put a big onus on spreading the word out to people,” Roob said. “And we found that we had people all over the state who were eligible, for whatever reason, weren’t getting what they were entitled to get.”

Avery agrees with Roob that awareness campaigns have played a role in increased enrollment. Community Harvest Food Bank told 15,000 people in the nine northeast Indiana counties it serves about the food stamps program last year, Avery said. Of those addressed, at least 1,000 enrolled in the food stamps program, she said.

But Avery, like most food bank and aid workers in northeast Indiana, thinks the rise in food stamp recipients is more indicative of an economic downturn than an increased outreach effort. From 2003 to 2007, the number of food stamp recipients in Allen County grew 24 percent. At the same time, Avery said, more people have been coming into the food bank for assistance. In the past few years, she’s seen more men, refugees and members of the working poor than in the past.

“We’re talking about our standard Hoosier,” Avery said. “Hardworking, good people who don’t want to take charity of any sort, but find themselves just not making it.”

Rick Farrant, marketing director for United Way in Allen County, has seen similar trends.

“It’s very clear that the need for food assistance, at least based on the calls we receive, is growing,” he said.

A United Way-administered phone service that helps people in 10 northeast Indiana counties with basic needs received 3,829 calls about food assistance in 2007, Farrant said. The number of calls was the highest the phone service, known as 211, has received in four years and was the second most-common call behind requests for financial assistance. He attributes the rise in calls to higher food and utility prices, job losses and stagnant wages.

Jerry Conover, director of the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, agrees that the economy is likely playing a role in the increasing number of food stamp recipients. While employment in the Fort Wayne area has been increasing, Conover said, wages are slipping and historically well-paying manufacturing jobs are declining.

“There’s been a general downward shift in income in Indiana,” Conover said. “And that is true in many parts of the nation, but especially in manufacturing-intense areas, as the jobs that used to pay handsomely are replaced by manufacturing jobs that don’t pay as much. There may be more people slipping below the (poverty) line because of a gradual decrease in wages.”

The FSSA didn’t authorize its DeKalb office to speak about the county’s particularly high increase in food stamp recipients but attributed the increase to outreach efforts statewide. Economists agree that a suffering economy has played some role in DeKalb’s food stamp surge, but are skeptical that economic factors are the only cause.

DeKalb County’s unemployment is about 1 percentage point higher than most northeastern Indiana counties, said John Stafford, director of Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne’s Community Research Institute. But that statistic, he said, is “only a piece of the puzzle.”

“DeKalb, like so many counties, is heavily invested in manufacturing jobs, but no more so than, say, Noble or Steuben,” Stafford said. “If you had asked me to guess a county (that had a dramatic increase in food stamp recipients), that would not be the county I would guess. DeKalb has surpassed Allen in terms of per capita income. They’ve been doing pretty well.”

The food stamp program is a federally funded entitlement program available to households that meet certain income requirements. To be eligible for the program, a household generally cannot earn more than 130 percent of the federal poverty guideline. The guideline translates to a maximum gross monthly income limit of $2,238 for a four-person household or $1,107 for a one-person household.

Eligible households must also not have more than $2,000 in assets, unless they contain a member with disabilities or someone older than 60.

As part of an effort to de-stigmatize the program, paper food stamps have been phased out and replaced with plastic Electronic Benefit Transfer cards, which are similar to commercial debit cards. They can be used only for food, plants and seed to grow food.

dhaynie@jg.net

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Food stamp recipient increases

County 2003 2007 % increase

Allen 26,960 33,477 24

Adams 1520 1950 28

DeKalb 1763 3310 87

Huntington 2077 2695 30

Kosciusko 2950 4027 36

LaGrange 754 1075 42

Noble 1990 2549 28

Steuben 1649 2218 34

Wabash 1945 2515 29

Wells 1092 1427 30

Whitley 1,237 1,642 32

Source: STATS Indiana citing the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) data. http://www.stats.indiana.edu/about/fssa_m.asp

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Food stamp recipient increases

County 2003 2007 % increase

Allen 26,960 33,477 24

Adams 1520 1950 28

DeKalb 1763 3310 87

Huntington 2077 2695 30

Kosciusko 2950 4027 36

LaGrange 754 1075 42

Noble 1990 2549 28

Steuben 1649 2218 34

Wabash 1945 2515 29

Wells 1092 1427 30

Whitley 1,237 1,642 32

Source: STATS Indiana citing the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) data. http://www.stats.indiana.edu/about/fssa_m.asp