Janice Schakowsky: “I'll tell you that I have three times now done the SNAP challenge, or the food stamp challenge. The average SNAP benefit…”

“I'll tell you that I have three times now done the SNAP challenge, or the food stamp challenge. The average SNAP benefit is now $4.50 a day. Almost everyone on the SNAP program is on there for less than a year. It has been described to me by a former SNAP recipient as a trampoline. Nobody wants to do it, and they certainly don't want to line up at a food pantry, and those cupboards are really having a problem being filled. {time} 1615 It is hard to do. You can get the calories, but getting the nutrition and the health that you need from the food, that is really hard to do. People are reluctant to apply for these benefits. I wish they weren't, but there's still some stigma attached to that. I want to encourage people, by the way, that if they are eligible, they should get that for the sake of their children and their own health. States are struggling right now to meet their Medicaid budgets because there are so many people who are not getting health care through their employer or can't afford it on their own, so they are turning to State and local governments. We're finding that those governments are having to decide about fixing the roads, hiring teachers, or being able to provide these kinds of benefits. The same kinds of decisions that individual poor people are having to make, governments are having to make right now. But if only they were paid a decent wage for all the hours that they're willing to put in to get up early and get on that bus.…”