The Census Bureau found that 13.7 percent of the nation's total population was poor in 1996, vs. 13.8 percent in 1995. In September, the Department of Agriculture reported that 11 million people in the US, including 4 million children, live in households that experience moderate or severe hunger on a regular basis. This data was collected before federal food program cuts of the 1996 welfare law had taken effect. In 1996, Congress passed a welfare law that drastically cut federal food programs, especially the Food Stamp Program. Groups affected the most in the short run were legal immigrants and childless adults, but in the long term, families with children will also be hurt.
Donations are down and hunger is up at food banks.
In late August, hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants living well below the poverty line most of them working poor, children, elderly, and disabled people lost access to food stamps. Some states moved to provide state funds, but state responses have been uneven at best. Republican Governor George Bush of Texas stated that food stamps are a federal responsibility and that the crisis requires a federal response. The lead sponsors are Reps. Private charities play a key role in fighting against hunger, but their efforts alone can never fill the need for an adequate, effective federal role in ensuring the minimal nutritional well-being of our nation's poor and vulnerable.