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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Anti-Hunger Advocates: Food Stamp Recipients Are Not “Doing Too Good”

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Wednesday, September 16, 2015   

NEW YORK - Anti-hunger advocates have been quick to respond to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's statement that jobs go unfilled because people in the federal food-stamp program, now known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, are "doing too good."

The remark was quoted in Politico, a political news journal.

Joel Berg, executive director of the New York Coalition Against Hunger, said most people receiving SNAP benefits already are working, or looking hard for a job.

"Among SNAP households with at least one working-age, non-disabled adult, more than half work while receiving SNAP," he said, "and more than 80 percent work in the year before or the year after receiving SNAP."

He praised New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for pledging to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour, a move Berg said would be a major step toward ending hunger in the state.

Berg said the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is well below the poverty level for a full-time worker.

"No one in America should go hungry," he said, "but if you're working hard and playing by the rules, it's particularly outrageous that you might not have enough food to feed your family because you just don't earn enough."

SNAP benefits for an individual average $126 a month, or about $1.40 per meal.

The Politico article is online at politico.com.


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