Although the longest federal government shutdown in our nation’s history has ended, and payments to the one in eight U.S. residents who rely on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have resumed, the problem of hunger in America remains unsolved.
Kids are still going hungry, inflation is out of control and the food-assistance policies that Americans overwhelmingly back have been tossed aside in favor of cold-blooded partisan maneuvering.
During the slow and anemic government response to the pandemic, the organization I head, One Fair Wage, launched an emergency relief fund that quickly raised $23 million for restaurant and gig workers who suddenly lost income.
Now, One Fair Wage and others are stepping up again to fill the gap left by our legislators and big business. We’ve reopened our emergency fund for service workers as a short-term fix for a crisis that never should have happened.
Despite re-opening, the federal government is neglecting its legal and moral responsibility to American workers and families by failing to fully fund the SNAP program. We are living in an affordability crisis created by leaders who swore to protect us, and by business groups such as the powerful corporate lobby National Restaurant Association, which continues to block efforts to raise the minimum wage.