This I Wonder Essay
Sabatino Mangini
ENG 100
This I Argue Final Draft
Hunger in America
When I first arrived in America, my family and I were on food stamps--we were always afraid that we would run out of food. It was always hard for my mom to find enough food to feed us. Then my mother landed a job at Walmart and the government cut us off from the food stamp program. At the time I didn't understand the system and I was wondering why they did that and then my mother explained it to me that she had made her income rise over the qualified applicants. We had to find ways to get enough food to eat. We met a priest who aided us financially and also gave us food once a week. He gave us some solutions that came up when there was a shortage of food. He told us that we start going to a food pantry, local church groups, and soup kitchens. We started to attend his church and on every Sunday we would get our breakfast and lunch.
At the time I didn't know it but my family and I were facing food insecurity on a daily. The charity programs and food banks are a generous way for everyday citizens to prevent hunger in America. However, these charitable endeavors are not enough to feed each hungry American. The American government should allocate some of the funds from the defense budget towards the SNAP program.
While the SNAP program goes under funded the defense budget has risen. Since 2001, the base defense budget has risen from $287 billion to $530 billion and that's before the outstanding costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, According to an article in the Washington post. Comparing the defense budget to the WIC budget which only provides $6.82 billion for the all WIC programs (Frac.org) I begin to wonder why. I don't understand how our own people are dying of hunger and the government keeps on making more weapons
According to an article in feeding America, 91% of the benefits from SNAP go to low income at or below poverty households and SNAP benefits don’t last most participants the whole month. About 90% of SNAP benefits are finished by the third week of the month, and these people currently receiving SNAP benefits turn to food banks for assistance, according to feeding America website. All SNAP beneficiaries saw their benefits cut on the beginning of November last year. According to feeding America, which stated that the November SNAP cuts will result in $5 billion in lost food assistance. These federal funded programs are being cut which are the main sources of food for most people on SNAP and unfortunately there is more cuts to come. These cuts will be exposing more people to hunger.
We see stories in A Place at the Table where a single mother with small children was cut off her benefits because she had got a job and made two dollars over the limited income over the poverty line. These mothers are not able to feed their families because of the insufficient funds and all because the federal government reduced their SNAP benefits.
According to A Place at the Table, some 17.6 million households with 49 million people had food insecurity in 2012, which meant that they lacked access to sufficient food at some point during that year because they didn't have enough money and didn't have other resources to meet their basic food needs. A place at the table shows a group of women called witness to hunger make a stand to go down to Washington to tell their accounts and what they go through everyday without enough food for their families. We see these women have first hand experience on the struggle of raising kids on limited income and they are in need of a legislation to increase funding for the food assistance program and put an end to hunger and poverty.
The U. S government needs to increase funding for the SNAP program because many families are going without food. Sadly these benefit cuts that have been made to food stamps will increase food insecurity and hard ships in many households. According to the USDA, the cutting of these benefits resulted in a great number of households in which one or more persons had to skip meals or otherwise eat less because they had insufficient funds. SNAP benefits are an entitlement, which means that anyone who qualifies under the program’s rules can receive benefits. Therefore the American government should make more funding for the SNAP program in order to prevent hunger in America.
Sabatino Mangini
ENG 100
This I Argue Final Draft
Hunger in America
When I first arrived in America, my family and I were on food stamps--we were always afraid that we would run out of food. It was always hard for my mom to find enough food to feed us. Then my mother landed a job at Walmart and the government cut us off from the food stamp program. At the time I didn't understand the system and I was wondering why they did that and then my mother explained it to me that she had made her income rise over the qualified applicants. We had to find ways to get enough food to eat. We met a priest who aided us financially and also gave us food once a week. He gave us some solutions that came up when there was a shortage of food. He told us that we start going to a food pantry, local church groups, and soup kitchens. We started to attend his church and on every Sunday we would get our breakfast and lunch.
At the time I didn't know it but my family and I were facing food insecurity on a daily. The charity programs and food banks are a generous way for everyday citizens to prevent hunger in America. However, these charitable endeavors are not enough to feed each hungry American. The American government should allocate some of the funds from the defense budget towards the SNAP program.
While the SNAP program goes under funded the defense budget has risen. Since 2001, the base defense budget has risen from $287 billion to $530 billion and that's before the outstanding costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, According to an article in the Washington post. Comparing the defense budget to the WIC budget which only provides $6.82 billion for the all WIC programs (Frac.org) I begin to wonder why. I don't understand how our own people are dying of hunger and the government keeps on making more weapons
According to an article in feeding America, 91% of the benefits from SNAP go to low income at or below poverty households and SNAP benefits don’t last most participants the whole month. About 90% of SNAP benefits are finished by the third week of the month, and these people currently receiving SNAP benefits turn to food banks for assistance, according to feeding America website. All SNAP beneficiaries saw their benefits cut on the beginning of November last year. According to feeding America, which stated that the November SNAP cuts will result in $5 billion in lost food assistance. These federal funded programs are being cut which are the main sources of food for most people on SNAP and unfortunately there is more cuts to come. These cuts will be exposing more people to hunger.
We see stories in A Place at the Table where a single mother with small children was cut off her benefits because she had got a job and made two dollars over the limited income over the poverty line. These mothers are not able to feed their families because of the insufficient funds and all because the federal government reduced their SNAP benefits.
According to A Place at the Table, some 17.6 million households with 49 million people had food insecurity in 2012, which meant that they lacked access to sufficient food at some point during that year because they didn't have enough money and didn't have other resources to meet their basic food needs. A place at the table shows a group of women called witness to hunger make a stand to go down to Washington to tell their accounts and what they go through everyday without enough food for their families. We see these women have first hand experience on the struggle of raising kids on limited income and they are in need of a legislation to increase funding for the food assistance program and put an end to hunger and poverty.
The U. S government needs to increase funding for the SNAP program because many families are going without food. Sadly these benefit cuts that have been made to food stamps will increase food insecurity and hard ships in many households. According to the USDA, the cutting of these benefits resulted in a great number of households in which one or more persons had to skip meals or otherwise eat less because they had insufficient funds. SNAP benefits are an entitlement, which means that anyone who qualifies under the program’s rules can receive benefits. Therefore the American government should make more funding for the SNAP program in order to prevent hunger in America.