The Food Bank released its annual research report this week, NYC Hunger Experience 2011: Support and Sacrifice, which revealed a startling increase in the number of middle-income and college-educated New Yorkers struggling to afford food. “The fact that education is no longer a buffer against poverty and hunger is antithetical to conventional wisdom and a blow to everything we’ve ever been told,” Food Bank President and CEO Margarette Purvis said. In other news, the mayor and the governor disagreed on finger-imaging of food stamp applicants and the NYC Health Department launched a new campaign to warn New Yorkers against super-sized portions.

More College-Educated NYers Struggle To Afford Food, Report Finds, NY1, 1/11
The Food Bank's NYC Hunger Experience 2011 report finds that between 2010 and 2011 the number of college-educated New Yorkers concerned about affording food or needing assistance getting food increased by 25 percent. The Food Bank says the study shows that higher levels of education don't always provide a safety net against hunger.

NY Gov. Cuomo sets aggressive agenda for 2nd year, Associated Press, 1/5
While outlining an aggressive agenda to boost New York's economy during his second year in office, Gov. Andrew Cuomo advocated several measures to help the poor and dispossessed, such as better access to food stamps. He said 30 percent of New Yorkers eligible for food stamps, about 1.4 million people, don't get them — leaving more than $1 billion in federal funds unclaimed annually. The state should help remove barriers and stigma and end fingerprinting as a requirement, he said.

Bloomberg Says He Will Fight for Fingerprinting Rule, New York Times, City Room, 1/5
A day after Gov. Andrew Cuomo vowed to end New York City’s policy of requiring food stamp applicants to be electronically fingerprinted, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended the policy and said he would try to convince the governor to keep it in place.

In New Ads, Health Department Offers Super-Sized Warnings, New York Times, City Room, 1/10
In a new set of posters in English and Spanish, the health department depicts the steady increase in sizes of soda cups and French fry sleeves against backdrops of unhealthy people, including a diabetic man who is missing most of one leg. The ads, which began appearing in the subway system on Monday, warn that obesity and diabetes have become more common as the average size of food servings has risen.

Break‘fat’ club, New York Post, 1/8
A study led by Department of Health official Gretchen Van Wye compared kids who ate breakfast in class with kids in control schools where breakfast is served only in the cafeteria. It found that about one in five kids who ate in class were eating breakfast twice. “Special care should be taken to ensure that children are not inadvertently taking in excess calories by eating in multiple locations,” she writes in the research paper. Some of her colleagues fear that the controversial study could lay the groundwork for scrapping part or all of city’s free breakfast program.

By Danielle Pagano McGunagle,

When a child gets his or her acceptance letter for college, it is a proud day for the entire family. College means a hopeful future of limitless possibilities: a career, a comfortable life and the security of never having to worry about how to keep food on the table.

Food Bank For New York City’s latest research report, NYC Hunger Experience 2011: Support and Sacrifice, turns that conventional wisdom on its head.

The percentage of residents with a college degree who reported difficulty affording food increased from 24 to 30 percent between 2010 and 2011.

This year's report finds nearly 1 in 3 college graduates in New York City are struggling to afford food — and equal numbers are concerned they will need food assistance over the coming year.

In fact, even as New York City as a whole has stepped back from a crisis point at the height of the recession in 2008, when nearly half of New Yorkers were struggling to afford food, it is now college graduates and middle-income New Yorkers who are experiencing the biggest increases in difficulty affording food — and that should shock all of us.

We call this report “Sacrifice and Support” — why? Because those are the two main strategies New Yorkers are resorting to maintain their ability to afford food.

What's the “sacrifice”? Well, considerable numbers of New Yorkers are cutting back their food purchases — especially on the healthiest food.

What's the “support”? The safety net that's in place to prevent people from going hungry is capturing more and more people in their time of need.

If anything, however, this report helps show where our safety net is falling short — and where it can be strengthened.

Learn more…
 

Danielle Pagano McGunagle is the Director of Communications & Marketing at the Food Bank For New York City.

by Astrid Spota

According to an alternate poverty measure released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week, 16 percent of U.S. residents — or 48 million people — are living in poverty. That’s 9 percent higher than the official poverty rate currently used by the federal government.

Because the government uses the official poverty rate to determine eligibility for various benefits, like food stamps, this difference between two mathematical calculations can have a real impact on the lives of low-income Americans.

Under the official measure, 14 percent of U.S. residents, or 44 million people, are living in poverty. That leaves the 4 million Americans who are living right above the official poverty level without the last-resort benefits that help families keep food on the table.

The official poverty rate has long been criticized for being an outdated and inadequate calculation that understates the extent of poverty in the U.S. Developed in 1955, it doesn’t account for increases in the cost of basic necessities like food and housing, and it doesn’t measure the impact of tax credits and government benefits like food stamps.

The new alternate measure is a much more dynamic calculation. It includes non-cash transfers like food stamps and housing subsidies in the calculation of household income, and accounts for household expenses like out-of-pocket medical costs and taxes owed. And, so important for an expensive city like New York, it considers geographical variability in the cost of living.

These sophisticated calculations lead to some interesting findings. Among them:

• Under the alternative measure, the percentage of senior citizens living in poverty is almost double that of the official rate, increasing from 9 to 16 percent. This drastic increase is primarily attributed to rising medical expenses.
   
• After adjusting for geographical variations in the cost of living, the new estimate found that one in five residents living in central cities is living in poverty, compared to one in six living in non metro areas and one in seven living in the suburbs.
   
• Without food stamps, the poverty rate would increase from 16 to 17 percent, and without the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) it would increase to 18 percent.

Findings like these have serious implications for government policies and programs designed to meet the needs of the most vulnerable Americans. Acting on the knowledge that the number of people in need is actually far higher than previously estimated is a choice that will take a lot of political will — so don’t be surprised if there is no hurry to make the transition to a more accurate poverty measure.

by Astrid Spota

New York City’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 9.4 percent in July, the State Department of Labor has reported. This decrease from last year’s peak of 10.5 percent marks the seventh straight month of declining unemployment in the city, with job gains in financial services, professional and business fields and leisure and hospitality.

But unfortunately, these figures don’t tell the whole story. As a recent study by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University illustrates, lower-income households are more likely to experience unemployment than higher-income households. This study found that the unemployment rate for households earning $12,499 or less was 30.8 percent, almost 10 times that of households earning $150,000 or more (3.2 percent).

Furthermore, unemployment calculations don’t include job-seekers who have stopped looking for a job because they can’t find work, or underemployed individuals who accepted a part-time position to make ends meet. So the economic situation may actually be worse than reported.

And while the gradual uptick in employment has caused some economists to be cautiously optimistic, the unemployment rate doubled from 4.7 to 9.4 percent between the start of the recession in December 2007 and July 2010 (see chart below).

In these tough economic times, the Food Bank is working to strengthen the safety net that is so essential for New Yorkers affected by the recession. Our network of food pantries and soup kitchens provides food for low-income people of all ages in all five boroughs; our Tax Assistance Program helps secure millions of dollars in refunds to stretch budgets and boost the local economy; and our food stamp programs help enroll New Yorkers in this important federal benefit.

There is a long road ahead before the jobless rate returns to pre-recession levels. And with your support, the Food Bank will be there to help New Yorkers make it through.

by Daniel Buckley

The Food Bank continually works to raise awareness and support for hunger relief through media, providing information, data and stories of those in need.

Here are some of the recent stories that have featured the Food Bank so far this holiday season:

THIS WEEK: Fox 5, “Good Day New York”
NY Weather Authority Mike Woods visits the Food Bank For New York City’s 90,000 square-foot Bronx warehouse to help get the word out about hunger in our city, interview President and CEO Lucy Cabrera and repack food for delivery to food pantries and soup kitchens.

WNYC, “The Brian Lehrer Show”
Áine Duggan, the Food Bank For New York City's Vice President of Research, Policy & Education, discusses hunger in New York and demand at food assistance programs across the city.

The New York Times, “City Room” blog, “Stimulus Funds Stock Pantries and Soup Kitchens”
Nationwide, food assistance programs received an extra $100 million in resources from the stimulus, on top of the $250 million that was originally budgeted. New York State’s financing soared 118 percent to $45 million, of which $28.5 million went to New York City.

NY1, “Food Bank For New York City Prepares Pre-Thanksgiving Day Feast”
With more than three million New Yorkers experiencing food shortages, the Food Bank’s Community Kitchen & Food Pantry of West Harlem prepared a Thanksgiving feast for those most in need.

Time/The Associated Press, “Food Banks Go High Tech to Feed the Hungry”
Food banks across the country are undergoing a high-tech revolution, adopting sophisticated databases, bar coding, GPS tracking, automated warehouses and other technologies used in the food industry that increasingly supplies their goods.

“Lola Berry New York,” Episode 4
Australian television personality Lola Berry drops by the Food Bank’s downtown office to interview Vice President of Policy, Research and Education Áine Duggan before subwaying it up to Harlem to speak with Jesse Taylor, the Senior Director of our Community Kitchen & Food Pantry of West Harlem.

by Justin Crum

Here are a few things that we’ve been reading around the office recently. Are there any stories you’d like to share? Leave a link in the comments!

The USDA projects free and reduced price lunches to reach a 41-year high for the 2009–10 school year, McClatchy reports.

Daily Dish, the LA Times food blog, writes about Food Bank partner Whole Foods and the “Renegade Lunch Lady” teaming up to help improve the quality of school lunches. 

In the New York Times Magazine, David Leonhart discusses the policy implications of approaching obesity as a serious health risk like smoking. While we certainly don’t condone any form of employment discrimination — one rather extreme example — the article provides an outline for how to reshape the fight against obesity. 

In an NPR story about migrant children’s health in China, they explore healthy eating in schools as a tool to better not only physical health, but also school performance.