The Hunger Council of Windham County held its first meeting last week, and the numbers presented to those in attendence were unbelievably bleak.
Vermont is ranked the ninth hungriest state in the nation, with one in seven Vermonters of all ages living in “food insecure” households, defined as those whose family members have to skip meals, rely on assistance programs, or rely on poor-quality food.
More than 90,000 Vermonters - about 7,300 in Windham County alone - receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known nationally as SNAP, and in Vermont as 3SquaresVT.
That number has steadily increased over the past few years. It's about 17 percent - yes, 17 percent - of the entire population of Windham County.
One in five Vermont children experiences hunger, and more than 15,000 low-income children eat a free school breakfast on an average school day. In Windham County, 43 percent - yes, 43 percent - of grade-school and high-school students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals.
That we are seeing this level of poverty and hunger in our communities is obscene.
Yet the U.S. House Agriculture Committee last week endorsed a proposal that would cut funding for SNAP, while still retaining agricultural subsidies.
While most farmers are experiencing higher production costs, the Washington-based Environmental Working Group found that 61 percent of farm subsidies go to just 10 percent of recipients, and that 90 percent of farm subsidies go toward the production of just five crops - corn, wheat, soy, rice, and cotton.
Some Republicans on the Agriculture Committee think that SNAP recipients have it too good. Most of them don't realize that the average benefit for a family of four in Vermont is just $38 a week, or about $1.80 per person, per meal.
* * *
The grinding poverty that working Vermonters face is unknown to those legislators outside the state. The federal government figures that it takes about $4,921 per month, before taxes, for the average family of four to pay for housing, energy costs, health care, food, and other expenses.
However, two adults working full-time jobs and earning the minimum wage of $8.15 in Vermont make $2,608 a month, before taxes.
Food shelves and soup kitchens help pick up some of the slack for low-income families, but these emergency food services account for only about 10 percent of the total need. SNAP, the school lunch program, and other nutritional assistance programs bridge the huge gap that private charity cannot hope to fill.
For many working families in Vermont, and across the nation, the recession has not ended. And when the cost of everything keeps rising, families too often scrimp first on food, because eating seems less important than paying the rent or keeping the car running - the car that gets you to work.
But our government is making a different set of choices.
The amount of money the federal government currently spends on SNAP is roughly $40 billion per year. It costs us about $6 billion per month to wage war in Afghanistan. Six months in Afghanistan roughly covers the entire cost of SNAP for one year.
Instead of cuts, we need more assistance for low-income families . On both the state and federal levels, we need economic policies that create jobs enabling Vermonters to earn a liveable wage - one that allows them to get their groceries at the market, rather than the local food shelf.