The food stamp challenge (again)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman is the latest journalist to "take the food stamp challenge" and report on it. (*Note: this link seems to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The food stamp challenge (again)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman is the latest journalist to "take the food stamp challenge" and report on it. (*Note: this link seems to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-12-02T09:50:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html\",\"name\":\"The food stamp challenge (again)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2013-12-02T09:50:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2013-12-02T09:50:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman is the latest journalist to \\\"take the food stamp challenge\\\" and report on it. (*Note: this link seems to\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The food stamp challenge (again)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The food stamp challenge (again)","description":"Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman is the latest journalist to \"take the food stamp challenge\" and report on it. (*Note: this link seems to","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The food stamp challenge (again)","og_description":"Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman is the latest journalist to \"take the food stamp challenge\" and report on it. (*Note: this link seems to","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2013-12-02T09:50:00+00:00","author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html","name":"The food stamp challenge (again)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2013-12-02T09:50:00+00:00","dateModified":"2013-12-02T09:50:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman is the latest journalist to \"take the food stamp challenge\" and report on it. (*Note: this link seems to","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The food stamp challenge (again)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":718,"date":"2013-12-02T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T09:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html"},"modified":"2013-12-02T09:50:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T09:50:00","slug":"the-food-stamp-challenge-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/12\/the-food-stamp-challenge-again.html","title":{"rendered":"The food stamp challenge (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Chicago Tribune columnist Barbara Brotman is the latest journalist to \u201ctake the food stamp challenge\u201d and report on it<\/a>.\u00a0 (*Note: this link seems to take you to a paywall, but if you google food stamp challenge brotman, you\u2019ll get there.) Does she do it right?<\/p>\n

First of all, her budget is $31.50 a week \u2014 the average food stamp benefit.\u00a0 This means she starts off wrong, since the \u201caverage\u201d benefit includes all those who are determined to have sufficient income that their food budget only needs supplementing, not that their entire food needs must be met.\u00a0 The current monthly maximum benefit is $189 per month for a single individual, or (using 4.3 weeks per month) $44 per month, significantly more than $31.50.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

(This is a fixed amount all across the USA, which means that people living in high-food-cost areas will have a more difficult time of things than low-food-cost areas.\u00a0 Should the benefit vary by region?\u00a0 No doubt.)<\/p>\n

Second, she walks into Aldi without a meal plan, just buying food items that seem to make sense but only \u201cnetting one dinner plan.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Here\u2019s what she reports buying:\u00a0 milk, cereal, chicken thighs, cheese, sliced turkey, one grapefruit, lettuce, grapes, generic tuna, generic chocolate cookies, cheap bread, apples, oranges, a cantaloupe, three peppers, spaghetti, sauce, bag of frozen vegetables (she buys either the frozen vegetables or all three of the last items, it\u2019s not clear which,\u00a0at Trader Joes for $4).\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Third, she\u2019s a bit of a food snob:\u00a0 the spaghetti sauce \u201cwas so bad that pasta made an unappetizing alternative.\u201d\u00a0 (I eat Aldi\u2019s spaghetti sauce regularly.)\u00a0 The sliced turkey \u201ctasted and looked like bologna.\u201d\u00a0 Her only frozen vegetables are from Trader Joes (did she just not trust Aldi?\u00a0 Insist on organic?), and she buys no canned vegetables.\u00a0\u00a0 There are no meatless entrees (e.g., a beans and rice meal).\u00a0 And she moans about the monotony of turkey and cheese sandwiches for lunch everyday.<\/p>\n

Fourth, there would indeed have been more variety if she\u2019d been cooking for a family \u2014 she could have purchased several types of lunchmeat for variety, and, of course,\u00a0a variety of dinner entrees.\u00a0 And single adults are fairly limited in their eligibility for food stamps, so this isn\u2019t really representative.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Having said this, I\u2019ve never done the \u201cfood stamp challenge\u201d myself.\u00a0 In the first place, I doubt I could interest my husband in bringing his lunch into work and sacrifice eating out \u2014 and a proper \u201cfood stamp challenge\u201d would require a longer time period than a week.\u00a0 But our family\u2019s benefit would be $750 per month, or $174 per week for the five of us, which is as much as I spend on a stock-up grocery trip, with paper products and cat food.\u00a0 Maybe someday I\u2019ll add in hypothetical amounts for him and track our spending, just to be able to document my feeling that maximum-benefit food stamp allotments are fair sums of money. . . <\/p>\n

Update: having written the above, I then googled \u201cfood stamp challenge\u201d and found this article<\/a> at the Washington Post, which confirmed my hunch that the stories of insufficiency of food stamps come largely from the working poor who aim to meet their entire food spending through food stamps (and food pantries), even though they receive lesser benefits due to the expectation that they contribute some of their own income. <\/p>\n

Fundamentally, the issue is, in part, that the working poor, who are pressed for time in ways the unemployed are not, are least able to cook from scratch and most need to, to stretch their food stamp dollar. And, if this group expects food stamps\/food pantries to meet their entire food costs, and potentially has all their remaining income taken up by other fixed expenses (e.g., housing and utilities) then there are other issues \u2014 maybe, in part, a failure of the Section 8 housing voucher system to meet needs, not the food stamp system. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"