Authors: .
Published/Written: November 10, 2013.
Source: Chicago Tribune.
This article brings to light the struggles of the working poor in Chicago. Many working poor families qualify for food stamp benefits (SNAP) because of their low earning wages. The food stamp benefits offer a lifeline for many families to be able to put food on their tables each day. Since the economic fallout, the government increased food stamp benefits on a temporary basis acknowledging that the working poor would be the hardest hit as they were the ones to lose their jobs and homes during this time. That extra benefit has come to expire for millions in the state of Illinois.
The families interviewed for this story were stunned to learn that their benefits would decrease by as much as $30. Many are already having a hard time to feeding their families with the amount already given to them, and now with these cuts, they don't know how they are going to survive. Like Shipler from 'The Working Poor' states, these families are working families either in part-time jobs, with children, earning minimum wage, faced with everyday struggles.
We have read in Shipler's book and experienced in our Oxfam hunger banquet, how one minute everything is ok and the next minute everything can go wrong from a lost job, and illness, a repair needed on a car, etc,.
These families are doing everything right, but when the funds decrease how are people expected to live and feed their families? Most of these families, like the families in the film 'The Red Wagon' , will have to stretch their hard earned dollars and turn to an already maxed out resource: their local food pantries. "The cuts have also raised concerns from social service advocates who
worry that families will lean more heavily on maxed-out aid agencies." Many families have never had to utilize this resource, but now they have to and depend on them to make ends meet.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-food-stamps-cuts-2-20131110,0,6008699,full.story
No comments:
Post a Comment