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Food Bank News

Food Waste in its Many Forms

Anyone who’s ever contemplated an all-you-can-eat buffet can easily imagine the epic amounts of food that get wasted every day at every level of the food system — at restaurants, grocery stores, schools, cafeterias, and homes. And that’s not counting the food wasted by farms, manufacturers, and distributors before it…

Low Minimum Wage Rate Dampens Earnings

Nearly ten years ago, on July 24, 2009, the federal government raised the minimum wage from $6.55 to $7.25. Since then, there has been no increase, though other entities have picked up where the federal government has left off. Many states and municipalities have moved on their own to raise…

The Staying Power of Poverty

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 Aid Addresses Spectrum of Need

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…

Tiny CSFP Strives to Help Seniors

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…

TEFAP Backstops the Food Banks

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…