Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Back to Opinion

$31.50 a Week

The last time that Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, tried to live on an average budget of food stamps for a week, it was 2007, and the allotment was $21. He ate a great deal of lentils, rice, onions, eggs — not such a hardship, since he’s a vegetarian — and a bag of cereal lasted as breakfast for the week. He could afford very little fresh fruit and vegetables, and he forgot to buy coffee.

Gutow says he’s not making that same mistake this year, as he joins the fourth annual campaign of faith leaders trying to persuade Congress not to cut the program now known as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. This year, the allotment is $31.50. And this year, he plans to buy a small jar of instant coffee for the week.

Sure, it’s a gimmick, and he’s the first to admit it. After seven days, he can spend $4.50 on a cup of coffee instead of a day’s worth of food and drink. But that’s the central problem with our understanding of poverty and depravation. It is so removed from our ordinary lifestyle of abundance and choice that it takes a gimmick like this to enter, if only for a limited period of time, the world of the 45 million Americans who rely on food stamps, and Congress, to eat.

Hundreds of people have signed up for this latest challenge, which begins on October 27, including members of Congress and the faith leaders from JCPA, Catholic Charities and the National Council of Churches who argue that “God does not expect any of us to turn our backs on others in need.” As gimmicks go, this is a worthy one.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.