Nutrition Supports

This year, 28 million American children lived in low-income families. Unfortunately, children lacking economic security at home face many disadvantages ranging from poorer health to lower achievement in school. For this reason, First Focus believes that federal investments in children, particularly investments that help lift them out of poverty, are essential to improving their health and ensuring their success in the future.

In many ways, the food stamp program, found in the Nutrition Title of the Farm Bill and up for reauthorization this year, is the cornerstone of federal initiatives on childhood nutrition. More than half of the participants in the food stamp program are children, and nearly one in five children receive these vital food assistance benefits.

The program provides nutritional assistance only to those families most in need. In fact, nearly 90% of all food stamp beneficiaries are in households at or below half of the federal poverty level, about $10,000 a year for a family of four, and the program makes a key difference for many of these families, lifting over a million children from extreme poverty each year.

Unfortunately, the value of the food stamp benefit has been in steep decline, and the benefit amount per meal is now only $1.05 per meal per person or just $3.15 per day. To highlight this problem this spring, several prominent Americans have joined the “food stamp challenge” and agreed to eat for a week on a food stamp budget of just $21.00 per person. No American child should be subject to such limited nutritional support.

First Focus' Position
Nutritional assistance programs, like the food stamp program, are essential to improving children’s health and ensuring their success in the future. First Focus urges Congress to pass a Farm Bill with a strong Nutrition Title by:

Increasing the value of the food stamp benefit to ensure that children and families are able to have nutritious, complete meals.

Restoring food stamp benefits to legal immigrants who meet the program’s stringent eligibility requirements so that all American children can grow up strong.

Expanding the Simplified Summer Food Program to support children’s health all year long and not just during the school year.