CHICAGO — The estimate was startling and made headlines across the country: Almost half of all U.S. kids will be on food stamps at some time during childhood.
How could it be true in the land of plenty, in the midst of an obesity epidemic, skeptics wondered.
Surprisingly, many statisticians and policy analysts say the projection seems about right. Where they differ, along ideological lines, is in interpreting what it all means.
Most would agree that people on food stamps aren’t necessarily starving, and some might not be even close to it. It also is clear that people who need food stamps the most often don’t get them.
Food stamps are a U.S. Department of Agriculture program administered by states, but the USDA’s annual report on food-stamp enrollment, released this week, said dozens of states failed to reach some of the country’s most needy citizens in 2007.
The estimate on children is from an analysis published this month in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The authors, sociologists from Cornell University and Washington University in St. Louis, based their projection on 30 years of national data.
They said their results show U.S. kids face a substantial risk for experiencing poverty, which poses a serious threat to their health and well-being.
A USDA hunger report last week raised similar concerns, finding that more than one in seven American households lacked “food security” in 2008 — the highest number since tracking began in 1995.
Sarah Meadows, a Rand Corp. policy analyst, called the food-stamps analysis believable but stressed that it doesn’t mean that half of all children are using food stamps at any given time.
“While there may be a group of children who are persistently exposed to poverty, many move in and move out,” she said.
Columbia University statistician Andrew Gelman said the paper clarifies a misconception “that people are either on welfare or they’re not.” Reality is more nuanced; the study underscores that some families only receive government aid temporarily, he said.
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the analysis’ findings are valid — but the “hyperbole” suggesting many families are in danger of dire outcomes is not.
Eligibility is based on income — for a family of four to be eligible, its annual take-home pay can’t exceed about $22,000. And Rector argued that many families with comforts like televisions and air conditioning receive food stamps for short periods of time when a parent is laid off.
