I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Photo by Mills Baker
Here’s another sign of how the poor economy is affecting New Mexico: state data show that 70,000 more New Mexicans are using food stamps than just a year ago.
According to data from the New Mexico Human Services Department, individual use of the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, rose by 28 percent in New Mexico from September 2008 to September 2009, when nearly 325,000 New Mexicans were collecting benefits that help them buy food.
Food stamps help individuals and families living around the poverty level — roughly $22,000 for a family of four. And the increase in food stamps usage in New Mexico has coincided with a similar rise in the state’s unemployment rate, which has risen dramatically over the past year. The rate reached 7.9 percent in October, up from 4.5 percent in October 2008, according to the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions.
As bad as the numbers are, they may not capture the full picture of how widespread hunger is in New Mexico, officials said Monday.
“Not are we only seeing low-income people who need food,” said Sonya Warwick of Albuquerque-based Road Runner Food Bank, which distributes foodstuffs to pantries and soup kitchens across the state, “[but] we’re seeing people whose hours are cut. They may make too much money to qualify for food stamps.”
But they are having trouble putting food on the table, she said.
In the past, the Road Runner Food Bank has estimated that 100,000 New Mexicans who are not on assistance go hungry at some time or another, Warwick said.
The rise in food stamp cases, which is almost entirely federally funded, offers a glimpse into how the recession is hitting New Mexicans. And the picture isn’t pretty.
Over the past year, nearly 40,000 adults joined the program’s rolls, compared to nearly 30,000 children, data show. Adults make up just over 50 percent of the food stamp recipients in New Mexico.
Food stamp usage rose nearly everywhere in New Mexico, in urban and rural areas.
Bernalillo County saw an increase of nearly 40 percent from September 2008 to September 2009 as the caseload grew by more than 12,000 cases, state data show.
Santa Fe County, meanwhile, recorded a 33 percent increase in food stamp cases while Dona Ana County, which includes Las Cruces, saw the caseload rise by 24 percent.
Rural areas were equally hard it, if not harder hit by the economic troubles.
Lea County, in southeastern New Mexico, saw food stamp cases rise by more than half, jumping to 3,459 this September, up from 2,263 cases a year before. Colfax County, up north, saw its caseload rise by nearly 40 percent, jumping from 533 cases last year to 745 cases this September.
The rise in New Mexico’s food stamp cases has led to increased costs, which jumped from $23 million in September 2008 to more than $41 million in September 2009, data show. The federal government foots the bill for the program.
Hunger of course is not confined to New Mexico. More and more Americans are going hungry, according to recent reports.
According to a research report issued earlier this month from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more and more Americans are struggling with where to find their next meal. The report, authored by Mark Nord, Margaret Andrews, and Steven Carlson, said that 17 million households across the nation at some time during the year had difficulty providing enough food for all their members due to a lack of resources.
The prevalence of food insecurity was up from 11.1 percent (13 million households) in 2007 and was the highest observed since nationally representative food security surveys were initiated in 1995.
Meanwhile, the New York Times published a story over the weekend detailing how the federal program, has increased dramatically during the recession.
An interactive map that ran with the Times story showed how many people in each county use the program.
Torrance County was the worst off county in New Mexico, according to the Times’ interactive map. According to the graphic, nearly 25 percent of all Torrance County’s 17,000 residents, and 50 percent of its children, were on food stamps in 2009, an 11 percent rise from 2007.
But Torrance County was nowhere near the top of the list of worst-off counties across the country as measured by the number of food stamp cases compared to population, the graphic showed.
According to the graphic, Wade Hampton County in Alaska earned that dubious honor. Nearly 50 percent of that county’s residents, and 62 percent of its children, were on food stamps.
ALBUQUERQUE — Ask Carmen Martinez, and the Albuquerque senior will tell you how the federal government’s stimulus plan is helping.
A petite woman with a friendly face framed by curly black hair, Martinez was on hand Thursday to hear Gov. Bill Richardson and other officials announce that the federal government is purchasing $700,000 in extra food.
The chicken and pork products, along with canned fruit and produce, is being distributed over the next several months to low-income New Mexicans across the state who might otherwise go hungry.
Among those expected to benefit are senior citizens who rely on boxes of food supplied by Albuquerque’s Roadrunner Food Bank and children at 35 low-income schools. They receive backpacks during the school year packed with food for weekends and holidays.
“There are people out there living on $300 a month,” she said.
Martinez has a street-level perspective of hunger in New Mexico.
She coordinates deliveries of food to individuals and families living in Albuquerque’s Brentwood Gardens Apartments, where she is a resident. She volunteers at the food bank, but she also is a client, receiving a box of food each month meant to last her 30 or so days.
“I know how to budget,” Martinez says. “I learned from an early age. My mom always made us beans, tortillas with green chile. Others don’t know how to.”
Things have gotten worse in the last year, she said.
“People are hurting. If you are working and you’re hurting, you’re definitely hurting if you are on a fixed income,” Martinez said.
Melody Wattenbarger, executive director at the Roadrunner Food Bank, has noted the rise in hunger too. It’s hard to miss, she said.
A year ago the Roadrunner Food Bank was shipping 65,000 pounds of food a day to its partner food banks across the state. Today that amount is 90,000 pounds, Wattenbarger said.
The increase has to do with rising need, Wattenbarger acknowledged. But it also has to do with the additional food that is on hand thanks to the federal government’s cash infusion.
On Thursday, 552 whole chickens and 868 cases of applesauce were shipped out, headed to various parts of the state, thanks to the federal stimulus money.
But that’s only a small fraction of what the $700,000 pays for, state officials said.
“That’s nearly 600,000 pounds of food that will soon be on dinner tables around the state,” Richardson said of the federal infusion. “These are tough times. More and more New Mexicans are turning to some kind of assistance to help provide a decent meal for their families.”
The economic slump has led to a 28 percent increase in applicants for New Mexico’s food stamp program, said Pam Hyde, the New Mexico Human Services Department secretary.
“We are seeing a lot of people come in to our offices for the first time asking for help for food on the table,” Hyde added.
The money earmarked for New Mexico is part of a $100 million infusion of stimulus funds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Emergency Assistance Food Program, Rosa Coronado, director of USDA’s Special Nutrition Program, said Thursday.
New Mexico, like other states, is receiving poultry, pork, canned fruits, peanut products and cheese.
The state also is receiving $173,000 to help agencies and organizations pay for the administrative costs required to handle the additional food, Coronado said.
