Poverty has proven hard to beat in America, declining slightly in the most recent estimates, but still barreling along at between 11% and 15% of the total population, as it has for decades. The official poverty rate of 12.3% in 2017 inched down from 12.7% in 2016 and 13.5% in…
Food Bank News
If you’re looking for a nice round number to describe the amount of money the federal government spends to help people get food, then $100 billion would do the trick. The USDA spent more than $98 billion in 2017 on 15 domestic food and nutrition assistance programs, down from nearly…
As the smallest of the major federal food assistance programs, the Commodity Supplemental Food Program, with $236 million of funding in 2017, barely registers on the scale when compared to SNAP ($68 billion). But it stands out for being the only program to focus on the needs of seniors. Under…
Funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program ($374 million in 2017) may be small potatoes compared to SNAP ($68 billion), but TEFAP holds the distinction of being the largest source of federal aid aimed directly at the nation’s food banks. Nearly 20% of the food that gets distributed by America’s…
Started as a way to bring food and nutrition to pre-schoolers in day-care centers, the Child and Adult Care Food Program has expanded robustly since its beginning in 1968, to now support day-care clientele of all types: elderly adults, disabled people of all ages, and pre-schoolers cared for in private…
As the third largest federal nutrition program, WIC receives more funding than the School Breakfast Program, but about half as much as National School Lunch. The $5.6 billion it got in 2017 is about one-twelfth the amount used up by SNAP, the largest program. Though WIC enjoys bipartisan support in…
The Summer Food Service Program is a bit player among the federal school-related nutrition programs, commanding only $418 million of funding in 2016, a fraction of the amounts for school lunch ($13.6 billion) and breakfast ($4.2 billion). Though the program has been around in one form or another since 1968…
The School Breakfast Program, which at $4.2 billion receives less than one-third the funding of National School Lunch, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016, propelled by steady growth from its start in 1966 when it served 80,000 students, to 2017 when it served nearly 15 million. Efforts to broaden student…
The National School Lunch Program is the largest of the school-based food-assistance programs, receiving $13.6 billion in federal dollars in 2017, more than three times the amount as the School Breakfast Program. It is available in 95% of the nation’s schools, and served about 30 million children every day in…