MAZON in the News

This article was originally posted on Bloomberg Government on October 31, 2024.

Groceries were quickly running out. So was the money.

US Army Sgt. Peter Alfonce had tried skipping meals to feed his wife and teenage daughter. He thought about Uber as a side gig, but realized he couldn’t drive enough to make any money.

Desperate, he applied for food stamps. The government rejected him.

“I was, like, damn—we don’t have anything,” said Alfonce, who’s posted near Fort Cavazos in Texas. “They said I have too much money. I told them that that doesn’t make any sense.”

In a nation that spends more on its military than any other, more than a quarter of active-duty troops meet the US Department of Agriculture’s definition for food insecure, according to an April report by the department’s economic research arm. That’s nearly two-and-a-half times the rate for the US civilian population.

Congress has known of the problem for a decade. Advocates against hunger say that with annual defense authorization legislation and renewal of the five-year farm bill coming up at the same time, in the lame-duck session that begins Nov. 12, lawmakers have a rare opportunity to address simultaneously two of the biggest causes: low pay for junior enlisted personnel, and eligibility rules for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.

But most Republicans don’t want troops resorting to welfare programs, while the Biden administration and the Pentagon oppose the level of pay increases for junior personnel proposed by the GOP-led House. That reflects the gridlock that’s stopped other attempts to address the underlying issues.

“Being in the military, I didn’t assume we’d be rich, but that we would have the basics covered,” said Erika Tebbens, a Navy spouse who said she and her husband were rejected for SNAP benefits while she was pregnant and her husband was an active-duty Petty Officer Third Class.

Housing Allowance

The Agriculture Department defines food security as “access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.” Those more likely to be food insecure are early- to mid-career enlisted personnel “single with children, married without children, or a racial or ethnic minority,” a 2023 report by the analysis firm RAND concluded.

Beginning military pay can land below the poverty line. An Army private makes $24,206 a year, while a specialist or corporal with less than two years of experience makes $31,604 a year, according to Army pay charts. The poverty line is around $31,200 for a family of four; the figures vary depending on household size and location.

Troops who live on bases are provided meals in addition to housing. Those who live off base receive food and housing allowances. Single junior enlisted troops generally have to live on base, while higher ranking enlisted troops, single or married, can qualify to live off base or may have to if housing is unavailable at their duty station. Congress, a couple years ago, also authorized a basic need allowance to help active-duty members with dependents.

But the allowances are why so many younger military members are disqualified from SNAP. Federal law dictates that the Agriculture Department, which administers food assistance, consider housing allowances as earned income when calculating eligibility, even though they aren’t subject to income tax.

For Alfonce, who’s been in the Army for six years, that pushed his taxable income last year to $39,000, too much to qualify for SNAP, once his housing allowance was counted. As is often the case with military spouses, who tend to have trouble finding employment because of frequent moves, Alfonce’s wife doesn’t work outside the home.

“It would take Congress to make that change in order for individuals to have any additional income excluded or not counted for SNAP eligibility,” said Shavana Howard, USDA senior adviser for food, nutrition and consumer services.

Retiring Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich), who leads the Agriculture panel responsible for writing the farm bill, proposed a provision that would exclude the housing allowance from eligibility calculations for food assistance.

“Frankly, I think it’s a national embarrassment that 25% of all active-duty service members experience some kind of food insecurity, so we should have a sense of urgency about this,” Stabenow said in an interview.

Stabenow has yet to introduce legislative text for her farm bill priorities, and she acknowledged her military proposal doesn’t yet have bipartisan support. Lawmakers “have some major differences” to work out in the farm bill but there’s opportunity for deals on both fronts before the end of the year, she said.

Leading Republicans aren’t budging.

“What they are suggesting is that we do not include the housing allowance—that is pay,” Sen. John Boozman (Ark.), the top Republican on the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, said in an interview. “I’m really not in favor.”

Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who sits both on the Agriculture Committee and the Armed Services Committee—which writes military policy—wants to see pay increases.

“We don’t want our military members to be on SNAP. We want them to be paid for the work that they do,” Scott said in an interview. “My goal is that our military would be paid enough that they would not be on SNAP.”

House Agriculture Chairman GT Thompson (R-Pa.), is on the same page. “That salary isn’t adequate,” he said in a brief interview. Thompson said though he supports Stabenow’s idea, he opted not to change military access to food assistance in his version of the farm bill because “the fix is” in the annual defense authorization measure.

Pentagon Opposition

The House-passed defense measure proposes a 19.5% pay increase for junior enlisted forces. It would also set the threshold for the basic need allowance at 200% of federal poverty guidelines, up from 150% now.

The Biden administration opposes that, saying it would eliminate pay differentials between junior and more senior enlisted members. The Pentagon is also concerned about the cost, which it puts at more than $3.3 billion in fiscal 2025 and more than $21.9 billion between fiscal 2025 and 2029.

The Senate Armed Services’ version doesn’t include the sweeping recommendations made in the House bill. It’s proposing a 5.5% pay increase for junior enlisted members.

House and Senate lawmakers are working on a compromise defense policy bill, and troop quality of life ranks high in the negotiations.

“There are several ways to approach it: one is for military personnel to make the SNAP benefits more substantial, which I think makes a great deal of sense, and also to increase pay,” Jack Reed (D-R.I.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview, adding that he’s still weighing the 19.5% pay raise recommended by his House counterpart.

“Frankly, quality of life is one of the most critical issues for an effective force,” Reed said. “Food scarcity is not something we want to see and our goal is to find the smartest way to eliminate it.”

Lucky Ones

Tebbens considers herself lucky. She had a part-time job at a bank, and she and her husband were living below their means in a cheap apartment off base, she said in a telephone interview.

Even though she was pregnant, she and her husband gave up meat to save money on groceries. They used credit cards and borrowed money from family. Reluctantly, she applied for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which helps low-income women, infants, and children up to age 5 who are at nutrition risk.

“During the time when I first got WIC it took me several weeks before I finally decided to even try to apply for SNAP. I had a lot of guilt about applying because I felt like I shouldn’t need it in the first place as a military family,” Tebbens said.

Just as the Alfonces were, she and her husband were denied SNAP benefits because their housing allowance pushed them over the income threshold.

“When we were told we didn’t qualify I felt so defeated,” Tebbens said. “It felt like my last bit of hope to help financially had just been pulled out from under us.”

Even when services are available, a strong culture of pride and dignity among service members and their families can stop them from seeking government or local assistance, said Shannon Razsadin, the CEO of nonprofit Military Family Advisory Network.

“When you’re in a situation where you’re more financially vulnerable, that can put your security clearance at risk, and so you have service members and military families trying to figure out how to get by and get through,” Razsadin said.

The stigma of food insecurity has prevented the scope of the problem from being fully recognized, said Liza Lieberman, the communications director for Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger, an organization fighting to end hunger, that has been at the forefront of the military food insecurity issue.

“We have a real opportunity, certainly with the next farm bill and this year’s national defense authorization act,” she said. “Now it’s just a matter of political will.”

It took Alfonce two months after being rejected from SNAP to muster his own will to pursue his last resort: visiting local food banks. He now relies on them twice a month.

“I didn’t really want to go to the food bank, because I felt like they’re not gonna help me,” he said. “I make money, and there are people that need it more than me.”

Tebbens envisioned WIC as temporary and stayed on it for about two years. Now, away from military life and living in Michigan, she’s an advocate for fixing the system.

“I felt like I had failed; like we did something wrong,” she said. “That’s ridiculous. No American at all should feel shame with needing help with food.”