March 12, 2023 – Beverly Gologorsky
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Congress passed legislation that, among other things, allowed all participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known more popularly as the food stamp program, to “receive the maximum monthly benefit, regardless of income.” That put extra food on the tables of so many poor families in this country and, as the New York Times reported, “helped keep food insecurity at bay and cut poverty rates to a record low.”
But ho-hum, as far as Congress is concerned, that’s history. Crisis over and done with. (No matter, by the way, that more than 300 Americans are still dying daily of Covid-19.) Tens of millions of low-income families are no longer getting those additional food-stamp benefits. Today, TomDispatch regular and novelist Beverly Gologorsky puts that sad reality in both a personal and a far larger context as she explores why hunger itself isn’t considered a kind of pandemic in this country. …
