By Diane Petryk
SUNBURY — SUNBURY — Food stamp use, which doubled in Northumberland County in just under five years, now infuses $1 million a month into the Valley economy.
Combined with Union, Snyder and Montour counties, that’s $1.82 million a month, according to Gene DellaCroce, executive director of the Northumberland County Assistance Office.
In the four counties during the past year alone, participation in SNAP — Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program — the new name for the food stamp program, is up an average of 30 percent, but Northumberland County is the fourth-highest growth county in the state in terms of food stamp use, he said.
The growth is primarily due to people losing jobs and earning less. The number of Northumberland County seniors and disabled persons on food stamps, which account for about half the total, has remained steady.
Kathy Mordan, director of the Montour and Snyder assistance offices, confirmed that joblessness is driving the numbers up.
“Those people who recently lost employment or were downgraded in earnings may qualify now,” Mordan said.
The Reigels, of Mifflinburg, are typical. Charles Reigel was laid off from modular home builder Ritz-Craft in April. His unemployment compensation didn’t stretch far enough to feed a family of five, plus pay for other necessities, such as electricity.
“Right now, food stamps are helping to feed my children,” said Bonnie Reigel. “It’s like a blessing.”
Otherwise, she said, it was a choice of feed the children or pay the bills.
“If you buy food, you still need to pay the light bill to keep the food cold,” she said.
It’s not a choice the government wants people to have to make, said Stacey Witalec, spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Welfare in Harrisburg.
“We want families to qualify,” she said. “We want the numbers as high as we can get. That means families are getting access to nutritional food, they become more successful in school and work, and are able to get off assistance entirely.”
That attitude segues with food stamps’ new name — Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, SNAP for short. Whether SNAP ever replaces “food stamps” in the common lexicon remains to be seen. Already, however, the program has evolved from the stigmatized patch of welfare to something as ordinary and commonplace as the credit card. In fact, it is now a card — an access card. No longer must the user tear off the ticket-like “stamps” that were so conspicuous in supermarket checkout lines in the past.
Nationwide, more than 36 million people use the program.
“While the numbers have soared during the recession,” wrote Jason DeParle and Robert Gebeloff in the New York Times Saturday, “the path was cleared in better times when the Bush administration led a campaign to erase the program’s stigma, calling food stamps ‘nutritional aid’ instead of welfare, and made it easier to apply. That bipartisan effort capped an extraordinary reversal from the 1990s, when some conservatives sought to abolish the program, Congress enacted large cuts, and bureaucratic hurdles chased many needy people away.”
Today, “Between our efforts and the economy, I think we’re reaching most people,” said DellaCroce from his Chestnut Street office in Sunbury. He has worked in public assistance for 39 years. “I’m sure there are some folks who are missed, but I think we’re doing an excellent job.”
Still, Kevin Concannon, of the USDA, which initiates the program, told The New York Times he thinks 15 to 16 million people are being missed nationwide, about two-thirds of those eligible. This is largely dependent on how states run their programs.
Witalec said she has no figures that would indicate the number of eligible but unserved, in Pennsylvania.
Applicants must not exceed income limits set by federal poverty level related to the number of people in a household, but their resources are no longer taken into consideration, and applications may be made on line through the DPW Web site or www.humanservices.state.pa.us.
According to the DPW Web site, as of October, Northumberland County’s SNAP program assisted 3,979 households and 9,268 individuals. A year earlier, the figures were 3,065 households and 7,110 individuals.
This year’s figures for Union County are 1,108 households and 2,720 persons compared to 916 households and 2,181 persons last year. Snyder County serves 1,186 households and 3,064 persons currently, up from 942 households and 2,344 persons last year. Montour County, serves 857 households and 1,600 persons, up from 792 households and 1,388 persons a year earlier.
DeParle and Gebeloff, using state, USDA and census figures, determined the rate of food assistance usage in every county in the country for adults, children, whites and blacks, and computed the percentage of change between 2007 and 2009.
According to those figures, Montour County registered a 40 percent increase in usage of federal food assistance in that time period. DellaCroce said to keep in mind it’s a small county, so a little movement can register as a large percentage.
Nine percent of the Montour population receives food assistance, 12 percent of its children, 8 percent of whites, 10 percent of blacks.
The writers’ data show a 29 percent increase in food stamp use in Union County; 6 percent of the population receiving the assistance, 15 percent of children, 6 percent of whites, and 6 percent of blacks. Northumberland County registered a 28 percent increase; serving 9 percent of the population, 20 percent of its children, 9 percent of whites, and 14 percent of blacks. Snyder County had a 27 percent increase; 7 percent of the population, 14 percent of children, 7 percent of whites, and 20 percent of blacks.
Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, said a study based on 30 years of national data, released this month at Washington University in St. Louis.
It’s all about the kids, said Bonnie Reigel, who used to live in Sunbury. She said whenever her children would bring kids home she would ask if they were hungry and feed them if necessary — “even if I barely have enough to make it myself.”
