SNAP and food banks: Relieving hunger
Marisol is stretched thin. As a single mother to two children, she does her best to make ends meet in her hometown of Taos. Job opportunities are scarce, so Marisol patches together two part-time, minimum-wage jobs to support her family. Marisol’s income, at $1,300 per month, falls well below the federal poverty level.
The shifts offered to her vary significantly, often falling outside the school day, and she has no benefits or sick leave. When the shifts Marisol is offered fall outside the traditional school day and she has to pay for child care or a baby sitter, finances get even tighter.
Marisol qualifies for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, which helps her family get by. Some months she can piece together her income and her SNAP benefit to make sure her family is fed. When she doesn’t get enough hours at work, Marisol must make difficult choices. The utility bill doesn’t get paid so her children can eat. When utilities are about to be cut off, she turns to her local food pantry, Shared Table, which gets food from The Food Depot in Santa Fe, to help fill the gap. SNAP benefits keep the family afloat for about two weeks each month, which makes a difference, but it isn’t enough.
This story shows that the partnership between the SNAP program and local food pantries is crucially important for keeping food on the table.
The SNAP program is the bedrock program for hunger relief in New Mexico. Last year, SNAP reached 461,000 New Mexico residents, or 1 in 5 of our population, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. Almost all of these SNAP recipients live below the federal poverty line (86 percent), and most are in families with children (73 percent).
Working is an important part of the SNAP program. Current SNAP requirements stipulate that recipients must work. However, SNAP recipients typically work in jobs with low wages, inconsistent schedules and no benefits — all of which contribute to high turnover and spells of unemployment. SNAP helps low-wage workers such as these add to their income by supplying food. The Food Research and Action Center, or FRAC, noted that SNAP lifted 8.4 million