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A House panel is considering a $ 770 billion defense bill that includes a provision to provide basic welfare to lower-income military families – a grant that stakeholders believe would reduce stress and “food insecurity” among US forces .
The House of Representatives’ draft National Defense Authorization Act 2022, released Tuesday, contains a provision similar to the Senate proposal that provides service members with additional money for groceries and other staples if their household incomes do not exceed 130% of the federal poverty line – which is in 2021 meant $ 21,960 for a family of three, $ 26,500 for a family of four, and a little more for even larger families.
This is the third time the proposal has been included in the House Defense Policy Bill; Unlike previous years, it has also been included in the Senate Defense Act 2022, making it more likely it will be passed later this year.
For an E-4 with several years in the military, a spouse, and two children, the scholarship could be an additional $ 250 per month.
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Proponents say the deployment is needed as young service members face the stress of serving families in areas where spouse employment is low or childcare expenses make monthly bills difficult to pay.
“When I came to [Defense Department], I started talking about food insecurity and I really got a look that said, ‘We really don’t think we have a problem,’ ”Patty Barron, assistant assistant secretary of defense for military community and family policy, said at an event on the food insecurity of the military and veterans on Tuesday.
Data on the levels of food insecurity among military families is mixed. That year, the Department of Defense’s four-year military compensation review found an estimated 880 to 4,690 U.S. Soldiers utilize the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a rate between 0.08% and 0.42% of the troops. The civil use of SNAP, also known as food stamps, is 9.6%.
However, critics point out that the report extracted data from just two months of 2019, and the data doesn’t include figures from 40% of the states, including several with large military populations such as California, Hawaii, and Virginia.
“The reason we thought we didn’t have a problem is because we looked at the low SNAP numbers and we believe we are making good payments to our people and if not they will get out and these raise will solve the problem” added Barron.
“The department is much more aware of the problem now and she is one of the secretaries” [Lloyd] Austin’s top priorities, “Barron said during the discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
A poll released in May found that nearly 33% of more than 5,600 respondents in an unidentified army facility were rated as slightly food insecure, meaning they faced food shortages or struggled to ensure their food budget was met by the end of the month was enough.
And according to a report by the organization MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger, one in eight military families is food insecure, compared to one in ten civilians in the United States.
“The mental health of our soldiers is key to their long-term relationship with the military and the wellbeing of their families, and as we discover that soldiers’ mental health is linked to food insecurity, addressing food insecurity may be one way of addressing it [mental health issues]”Said Matthew Rabbitt, an economist with the USDA Economic Research Service, during the CSIS event.
The House of Representatives Personnel Subcommittee will review its portion of the National Defense Authorization Act 2022 on Wednesday. The bill is expected to be debated in the full committee on September 1st and must be checked against the Senate version before it can become law.
The proposed law provides for a 2.7% wage increase for military personnel in 2022 and a number of other benefits, including an extension of parental leave for military personnel and certain caregivers and foster parents, the expansion of the home, children and care pilot program and the establishment of an advisory board to support the Services’ Extraordinary Family Membership Programs.
– Patricia Kime can be reached at Patricia.Kime@Monster.com. Follow her on Twitter @patriciakime.
Related: Should Low-Income Military Families Receive Food Allowance? White House says no
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