When Irene Edwards of Anchorage, Alaska, learned that she likely wouldn’t get all of her November food stamp benefits, she stocked up on staples like big bags of rice and dried beans. Though Edwards, 30, does not have children, she provides child care in her home, feeding two boys and a toddler on a federal benefit meant for one adult.
Once Nov. 1 arrived without the funds, Edwards started eating less and skipped the large box of electrolyte drink mixes she normally bought to help with health conditions that include anemia. In October, she said, “I just started rationing halfway through the month.”
For several weeks, more than 40 million Americans have been facing uncertainty over the status of federal food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Those worries have been especially sharp for residents of Alaska and Hawaii, the two states with the highest food costs in the nation.
Many states, including Hawaii, have taken steps to help SNAP recipients by tapping into state funds or shifting money around to make up for the cutoff, at least temporarily. Although there were signs Sunday night that Republicans and Democrats might be able to reach a compromise to end the government shutdown, the concerns of food aid recipients far from Washington were not likely to be fully eased until a final deal was official and their payments were back to normal.
According to the most recent report by the USDA, the agency that administers SNAP, a “thrifty” household of four could eat on $999.50 a month in the 48 contiguous states. But the cost is nearly 28% higher in Alaska, and nearly 51% in Hawaii, the August report said.
Prices can vary widely at supermarkets, but at one store in Honolulu, a gallon of milk was $9.19.
Food is more expensive in those states largely because it costs more to bring it there. Gov. Mike Dunleavy of Alaska has said that the state imports 95% of its food from other places, much of it coming to the Anchorage Port of Alaska by barge a few times a week. New tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada add to these costs.
In the remote communities dotting the islands and fjords of southeast Alaska, many towns rely on a single grocery store, supplied by food shipped in over water, said Dan Parks, 38, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Food Bank.
Subsistence hunting, fishing and berry picking also play a big role in rural Alaskans’ diets, but far-flung communities like Nome and Kodiak still rely on grocery-store staples, too.
The state has pledged to provide weekly benefits and have the state Department of Health work with food banks to help those in need, but it was unclear Sunday how much funding SNAP recipients would receive for the entire month.
Edwards said she did not know precisely what her monthly SNAP benefit was, but that it’s around $370 or $380 a month. On Sunday, she said she had received $193 so far.
With November SNAP payments ensnared, more residents have been turning to Alaska’s food banks for a lifeline, Parks said. But even before that, things had been getting more difficult for the pantries in his network, because the cost of food was up, along with the cost of freight.
“The emergency food system in Alaska is pretty fragile, but that’s because the entire food system in Alaska is pretty fragile,” he said.
In Hawaii, 85% to 90% of the food is imported, according to a report by the Hawaii Department of Agriculture. “The cost of food is astronomical,” said Joseph Campos II, the state’s deputy director of the Department of Human Services.
The state created a special fund to help make up for lost federal benefits, and last week it announced that November recipients would receive their full monthly payment. Gov. Josh Green also directed a $2 million infusion to the state’s food banks.
But Campos said that even with full SNAP payments, “a high majority experience food insecurity toward the end of the month.”
And what happens in the weeks to come was anything but clear. “The unpredictability and uncertainty is just incredible,” Campos said.
Julia Sativas, 32, who lives with her husband in Pahoa on the Big Island said she was concerned because she had not received her household’s monthly SNAP benefit of $450 yet, even though the state had said it was working to load her card.
When the government shutdown began in October, Sativas began cutting back on calories — to as little as 800 per day. She said she was grateful for the assistance but added that $450 for two people to get groceries in Hawaii was challenging. Potato chips are about $8 a bag, and bread can be as much as $10 a loaf, she said.
She said that she used to be able to get locally grown produce at half the cost with her SNAP benefits, but as grocery prices have gone up across the country, so have the fruits and vegetables grown by nearby farmers.
The couple are trying to leave Hawaii. “The costs here are just crushing,” she said.
In Juneau, Alaska, Sylvia Geraghty, 87, said Sunday that her SNAP benefits had not arrived. She said she was avoiding going to the grocery store as much as possible, adding that she was using spare food in her freezer, leftover potatoes from her garden and eggs from chickens she kept.
The prices in Juneau are high even relative to other parts of the state, like Anchorage, she said. And she knows that a trip to the grocery store could quickly exhaust her limited funds.
“The only way we can get groceries is on barges that come from Seattle,” Geraghty said. “So it’s very expensive.”
In Anchorage, Katherine du Plessis, a 43-year-old single mother who has a master’s degree in conservation biology and receives SNAP benefits, said that she went to Costco to load up on “things that can last” — sardines, tuna fish and seaweed, which she said she and her daughter eat frequently.
Du Plessis said she was terrified about what was happening with SNAP. But she tried to remain hopeful. She was planning to have dinner Sunday with other SNAP recipients, where they could brainstorm ways to get by.
“I see a change coming,” she said, fighting back tears.
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Source: The Garden Island
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