Final Project Milestone Three: Research Question Formation FOOD SECURITY

COMMENTARY Hunger in a“Land of Plenty”: A Renewed Call for Social Work Action Kathryn Libal, Stephen Monroe Tomczak, Robin Spath, and Scott Harding O ver the past three decades levels of pov- erty in the United States have remained largely stagnant and various forms of social inequality have increased. Simultaneously, social welfare programs to ensure social protec- tion have contracted through conservative political mobilization to“downsize big government.”When the economic recession hit in 2007, Food Stamps (renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Action Pro- gram, or SNAP, in 2009) became one of the most important social benefits available to affected indi- viduals and families. By 2009, when President Barack Obama took office, some 32 million indi- viduals used SNAP to meet basic food needs. High unemployment, underemployment, instability in the housing market, and widespread home loan foreclosures have led to unprecedented participa- tion in food assistance programs by low-income or poor individuals and families (Hoefer & Curry, 2012). The rate of households affected by food insecurity in 2012 was 14.5 percent, a significant increase from an average of 11 percent in years immediately prior to the recession (Coleman- Jensen, Nord, & Singh, 2013;Nord,Andrews,& Carlson, 2008). SNAP usage and expenditures have grown rapidly since 2009 to meet this increased demand. In 2013 more than 47 million individuals, approximately one in six people in the United States, received SNAP benefits, reflecting ongoing economic hardship (Food Research and Action Center, n.d.). Moreover, a deeper crisis of food insecurity is suggested by low participation rates in SNAP—only 79 percent of those eligible received benefits in 2011 (the latest date for which data are available; note also that only 39 percent of elderly and 42 percent of eligible individuals with incomes above the poverty level participated;Food and Nutrition Service, Office of Policy Support, 2014).

In this context, rising opposition to the SNAP program and other vital social supports should because for action by social work educators and prac- titioners. In 2013, one member of Congress argued for substantial cuts to SNAP on biblical grounds, citing 2 Thessalonians:“The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat”(Fincher, 2013). Stereotyping of food aid recipients as loafers or undeserving of government assistance occurs not only in the halls of Congress, but also in conservative news outlets, in which it has reached a fever pitch. And, with little organized advocacy by social work professional organizations, many in Congress aim to transform the federal SNAP program to a block grant, follow- ing the model that dismantled Aid to Families with Dependent Children, popularly known as AFDC, in the 1990s.

The Agricultural Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-79), popularly known as the Farm Bill, included changes in the SNAP application process that may result in up to $8.5 billion in cuts to the SNAP program over 10 years, while securing increased benefits to agri- business (Bolen, Rosenbaum, & Dean, 2014). Thanks to organizing by food justice advocates, some of the harshest proposed changes to who can receive SNAP were not included in thefinal legislation.

Still, there is mounting support in Congress to weaken SNAP and incorporate work requirements and drug testing (already in place in a number of states) as a way“to encourage self-sufficiency and independence”( Sheffield, 2013).

The muted response of the social work profes- sion to the mounting assault on food security is dis- turbing. Little visible advocacy on this issue has been carried out by NASW at state or federal levels.

Efforts to strengthen resources for SNAP and other food assistance programs can mean more than ensuring adequate nutrition for millions of Ameri- cans. Indeed, sustained activism also would under- mine the ongoing assault on public efforts to address key social problems. In short, this is a critical time for social workers to challenge those who portray doi: 10.1093/sw/swu029 © 2014 National Association of Social Workers 366 SNAP as little more than a drain on the country’s resources.

Since the Great Recession began in 2007, only a handful of presentations have been made at the annual program meetings of the Council on Social Work Education about food insecurity, hunger, and food assistance programs. Professional publica- tions also include few works reflecting research on this topic. Yet, the current lack of attention by social work to hunger issues is no historical anomaly. For decades there has been little focus in social work literature or advocacy on these critical issues. In debates over how to respond to hunger and food insecurity in the United States, the profession has an uneven history at best.

High-profile statements regarding hunger issues in the social work profession have been relatively rare and have most frequently arisen during economic crises. At the 1937 National Conference of Social Work, Faith Williams of the Bureau of Labor Statis- tics contended that“some form of consumer subsidy is needed if children and adults in the marginal- income groups are not to suffer that most serious form of hunger, the hunger of malnutrition”(Williams, 1937, p. 541). Speaking to the 1961 National Con- ference, then New York Commissioner of Welfare, and later dean of the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service, James R.Dumpson (1961)asserted,“There are children in our country whodogotobedhungry;[and]therearemany more whose fundamental nutritional needs are not met”( p. 89).

Concern over hunger seems to have generated a professional response only when it became a major political issue. In 1988, after nearly eight years of cutbacks in social welfare programs instituted under the Reagan administration, hunger again received recognition in an editorial inSocial Workby a public health expert, J. Larry Brown.Brown (1988)wrote that the United States was“on the way to eliminat- ing the problem of hunger in the 1970s through a combination of economic growth and expanded government programs”(p.99).However,inthe 1980s“America has changed greatly”and now had millions more hungry (Brown, 1988).Brown (1988)presciently wrote,“America is at a cross- roads. We will either continue down the road of growing disparity and increasing inequality, or we will change course to rectify the unfairness” ( p. 100). Sadly, it is the former prediction that has come true.It is our contention that how the profession defines the problem of hunger and food insecurity matters significantly. Hunger received renewed attention in the early 1980s due to the recession and simultaneous Reagan administration budget cuts in food aid and public assistance programs. A concern with increasing hunger led to the forma- tion of a Presidential Task Force on Food Assis- tance, which issued a report indicating the need to better define and measure hunger in the United States (Task Force on Food Assistance, 1984). Fur- ther efforts to assess hunger led to a report issued by the Life Sciences Research Office, which included the conceptual defi nitions of terms widely accepted and used today:“food security,”“food insecurity,” and“hunger”(Anderson, 1990).Food securityis defined as“access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life and includes at a minimum: a) the ready availability of nutrition- ally adequate and safe foods, and b) the assured abil- ity to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways”(Anderson, 1990, p. 1560).Food insecurity occurs“whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire foods in socially acceptable ways is limited or uncer- tain”(Anderson, 1990, p. 1560).Hungeris defined as“the uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food [and] the recurrent and involuntary lack of access to food . . . which may produce malnutrition over time”(Anderson, 1990, p. 1598).Anderson (1990)made the case for this new conceptual framework, indicating that“examining hunger problems in the United States in terms of food security may allow both researchers and policy- makers to confront this issue on a more objective basis”( p. 1575); these measures were adopted and remain in place today. The federal government col- lects annual survey data on food insecurity using these concepts.

Although this framework is useful from an aca- demic and policy perspective, the use of the term “food insecurity”in public discourse arguably diminishes the urgency of this issue. Not only does the social work profession need to play a more prominent role in public policy debates, we must have a central voice in the broader discourse— placing an emphasis onhungeras a major social problem.

AsBiggerstaff, Morris, and Nichols-Casebolt (2002)noted more than a decade ago,“the social work profession directs little attention to the issues Libal, Tomczak, Spath, and Harding /Hunger in a“Land of Plenty” 367 of hunger and food assistance programs”(p. 275).

This assessment remains true today, with few excep- tions ( for example,Hoefer & Curry, 2012;Jacobsen, 2007;Kaiser, 2013;Kaye, Lee, & Chen, 2013). It is in this context that the profession should participate in promoting rights-based organizing to address food insecurity and hunger within urban, suburban, and rural communities across the United States (Chilton & Rose, 2009). In the past decade social workers have played key roles in administering the patchwork of 10 federally funded programs that make up the food“safety net.”But the profes- sion’s advocacy on this issue has been limited. One significant action would be to join the small but growing alliance of advocates calling for a national plan to end hunger and food insecurity (New York University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic, 2013). This national strategy would entail creative rights-based policy analysis and ef- forts to translatefindings to broader publics that stress participation of those experiencing hunger and food insecurity. Other steps could include inte- grating food justice, food policy, and rights-based notions of food and food security into the social work curriculum and to foster research at local, state, and federal levels on the adequacy of current policies and approaches to secure the basic human right to food for all in the United States. Social workers, both as individuals and through their associations, could work more effectively with state- and national-level organizations, such as the Food Research and Action Center. To ensure pro- fessional social work involvement in policy evalua- tion, monitoring, and rights-based reform efforts, social work educational institutions must also initi- ate innovativefield learning opportunities for stu- dents, as well as collaborations across professions and with local and state organizations to build capacity for policy change. Community organizers can assist in raising awareness about the reality of hunger and food insecurity in all communities.

At the forefront of this effort should be the desire to address hunger and food insecurity, not as a mat- ter of charity, but as a fundamental human right necessary to ensure the dignity and well-being of all individuals.

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Kathryn Libal, PhD,is associate professor of policy practice, School of Social Work, and associate director, Human Rights Institute, University of Connecticut, 1798 Asylum Avenue, West Hartford, CT 06117; e-mail: [email protected].

Stephen Monroe Tomczak, PhD,is assistant professor of social welfare policy and community organization, Department of Social Work, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven.

Robin Spath, PhD,is associate professor in the administration concentration andScott Harding, PhD,is associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor of community organization, University of Connecticut, West Hartford.

Original manuscript received November 10, 2013 Accepted November 18, 2013 Advance Access Publication July 29, 2014 Libal, Tomczak, Spath, and Harding /Hunger in a“Land of Plenty” 369 Copyright ofSocial Workisthe property ofOxford University Press/USA anditscontent may notbecopied oremailed tomultiple sitesorposted toalistserv without thecopyright holder's expresswrittenpermission. However,usersmayprint, download, oremail articles for individual use.