A Fresh Start for CalFresh

January 11, 2012

The new year brings a major change to CalFresh, a federal program that provides modest food benefits that help nearly 4 million low-income Californians – more than half (60 percent) of whom are children – ward off hunger. Thanks to AB 6 (Fuentes), Californians applying for CalFresh assistance no longer have to be fingerprinted in order to receive benefits. This change should help increase the number of Californians who enroll in CalFresh, since numerous studies suggest that fingerprinting deters eligible individuals from applying, as we reported in 2009. Boosting participation in CalFresh is sorely needed. In 2009, just 53 percent of eligible Californians were enrolled, ranking dead last among the 50 states, according to a recent report from the US Department of Agriculture. In addition, because CalFresh benefits are 100 percent federally funded, improving participation would bring more federal dollars to California. Those additional federal dollars would be spent at grocery stores throughout the state, supporting jobs and further aiding local economies.

– Scott Graves

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Governor Acts on Key Bills

October 10, 2011

Governor Brown completed action this weekend on the roughly 600 bills that the Legislature sent him before adjourning last month. The Governor signed a significant budget-related bill, SB 202 (Hancock), which moves a state spending cap measure from the June 2012 primary election ballot to the November 2014 general election ballot. The spending cap measure – ACA 4 – was placed on the ballot as part of the October 2010 budget agreement. SB 202 also requires future initiatives and referenda to be placed on November general election ballots.

The Governor also signed AB 6 (Fuentes), which eliminates the fingerprinting requirement for CalFresh – formerly food stamp – applicants, although not for CalWORKs welfare-to-work applicants. AB 6 also cuts red tape by shifting from a quarterly to a six-month reporting system for CalFresh and CalWORKs recipients. These changes, which the CBP recommended back in 2009, are expected to increase program efficiencies and boost the CalFresh participation rate, which ranks near the bottom among the 50 states’ food assistance programs. Unfortunately, the Governor vetoed AB 1182 (Hernández), which would have further simplified CalWORKs by eliminating California’s restrictive “vehicle asset test.” Families who apply for CalWORKs generally cannot have a car worth more than $4,650, a limit that has not been adjusted since the mid-1990s. California has one of the strictest limits in the nation despite the fact that Californians rely heavily on their cars to get to work, and in today’s market a car worth less than $4,650 is not likely to be very reliable, to say the least. Let’s hope the Legislature gives the Governor an opportunity to reconsider his veto next year.

– Scott Graves

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Video: The CBP’s Jean Ross Discusses California’s Safety Net

October 5, 2011

With increased unemployment and poverty brought on by the continuing economic downturn, more individuals and families are relying on public programs for food assistance, health coverage, income support, and other services. This rising demand comes at a time when budgets at all levels of government are stretched thin.

Last week in Sacramento, CBP Executive Director Jean Ross participated in a panel discussion hosted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) that looked at the condition of – and challenges facing – California’s safety net in the wake of the Great Recession. Moderated by David Lesher, PPIC director of government affairs, the panel featured Jean along with Caroline Danielson, PPIC policy fellow (pictured here) and Bruce Wagstaff, countywide services agency administrator for Sacramento County. The full video is below.

– Steven Bliss

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CalFresh Food Assistance: Another ARRA Success Story

July 26, 2011

Here’s another piece of good news about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA): The ARRA reduced the number of low-income US households who reported hunger or the threat of hunger in 2009, even as the nation’s unemployment rate surged during the most severe economic downturn in the post-World War II era. This finding comes from a rigorous analysis by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The study assessed the impact of the ARRA’s nutritional assistance provisions, including a 13.6 percent boost to food benefits provided by the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps and called CalFresh in California.

The study concluded that the ARRA not only helped to boost both SNAP enrollment and families’ food spending, but also “improved food security among low-income households during a period of tough economic conditions.” Specifically, 530,000 fewer low-income households experienced hunger or the threat of hunger in 2009 than would have been the case without the ARRA, according to the report. Further underscoring the ARRA’s positive impact on food security, the researchers found that households who were ineligible for SNAP benefits because their incomes were slightly too high did not fare as well: “Food spending increased by a smaller amount and food security did not improve” for these families, the researchers concluded.

Millions of Californians facing prolonged joblessness and reduced incomes during the painfully slow economic recovery have benefited from the ARRA’s improvements to food assistance. As CBP Executive Director Jean Ross noted yesterday on KPCC, the number of CalFresh recipients – most of whom are children – has increased steadily since California employment peaked in 2007, rising by 82 percent from just over 2 million in July 2007 to 3.7 million in May 2011. In the aggregate, CalFresh families receive more than $500 million per month in 100 percent federally funded food benefits, all of which is spent at grocery stores throughout the state, thereby boosting local economies. Certainly, CalFresh has room for improvement, as we’ve pointed out before. But for now, as the state struggles to recover from the Great Recession, it’s hard to argue with success.

– Scott Graves

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House Republicans Propose To Cut and Cap Food Assistance for Low-Income Californians

April 12, 2011

One of the programs on the House Republicans’ target list for deep cuts in federal fiscal year (FFY) 2012 and beyond is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation’s primary anti-hunger program formerly known as food stamps. The House Republicans’ budget blueprint for FFY 2012, which is expected to be approved this week, would slash SNAP funding by $127 billion over 10 years and convert the program to a block grant. These changes would require California to scale back federally funded food assistance that currently assists more than 3.5 million low-income Californians through the state’s CalFresh Program. Specifically, the House budget resolution would:

  • Cut SNAP funding by $127 billion between FFYs 2012 and 2021. House Republicans propose to cut SNAP funding by nearly 20 percent compared to the level needed to support projected enrollment over the next 10 years. California’s share of this reduction would amount to roughly $10 billion, according to estimates developed by our colleagues at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). That’s $10 billion that wouldn’t be available for low-income families to spend in grocery stores throughout California to help keep food on their tables. The CBPP notes that, “policymakers could not possibly achieve cuts of this magnitude without scaling back SNAP eligibility or reducing benefits deeply.” As a result, California would be forced to drop hundreds of thousands of low-income Californians from CalFresh or reduce benefits by hundreds of dollars per year for each family in the program.
  • Convert SNAP funding to a block grant. In addition to the funding cut, House Republicans propose to convert SNAP funding to a block grant beginning in FFY 2015. California would receive a capped amount of federal funding each year to support CalFresh benefits, which would largely eliminate the program’s ability to respond to increased need for food assistance during a recession. CalFresh quickly expanded – as intended – to fill the rising need for food assistance during the Great Recession as California workers lost jobs and income and struggled to feed their families. The number of CalFresh recipients increased from 2.0 million in April 2007, just before the economic downturn began in California, to more than 3.5 million in November 2010, with the fastest growth occurring in 2009 and early 2010. The block grant envisioned by House Republicans would prevent CalFresh from similarly expanding to meet increased need during future economic downturns, unless California used state dollars to supplement capped federal funding, an unlikely prospect given the state’s ongoing budget difficulties.

California’s safety net for low-income families is already dangerously frayed due to years of state budget cuts, including billions of dollars in reductions approved by the Legislature this year to help close the state’s $26.6 billion budget gap. Cutting and capping federal funding for SNAP – a cornerstone of the nation’s safety net for low-income Americans since the 1960s – would likely be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

– Scott Graves

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