Wyoming has the lowest with six percent.

When the country entered the Great Recession in 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) allowed for extended funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. When that Act expired earlier this month, state officials in Mississippi braced for the worse. As recipients were notified of the decrease, the negative effects were almost immediate. MDHS agents saw a surge in complaints and concerns due to the impending change in benefits.

Less than a month ago, SNAP recipients at a Philadelphia, Miss., Wal-Mart caused a near riot when a computer glitch with the Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards refused to expend their benefits. Dozens of carts, overflowing with groceries, were abandoned in the aisles as customers marched out angry. Fearing reprisals and the safety of their patrons and employees, management called police and temporarily closed the store.

MDHS said thus far, no such disturbances have been reported with the recent decrease in benefits.

Rickey Berry, the executive director of MDHS, said the latest figures show that more than $83.4 million in SNAP benefits are being dispensed throughout the state each month. MDHS said they won’t have the final numbers of what the cuts will amount to until the end of November. But analysts predict it will be substantial.

As an example of how a household in Mississippi will be affected, Berry said a family of four receiving the maximum allotment of benefits at $668 will now receive $632, a reduction of $36 a month. Similar cuts will take place across the board.

But those numbers are far more reaching in that federal cuts will not only affect SNAP recipients, but the state’s entire economic climate as local stores feel the pinch of the food assistance cuts.

“We live in a town where we have a large EBT card trade here and it will hurt some because that’s money they won’t have to spend,” said Randy Mills, Assistant Manager of Food Giant in Aberdeen. “I personally feel it should make them spend their money better. But it’s not going to put anybody out of business. But from a store’s point of view, the more they get, the more we get.“

Food Giant has about 26 stores in Mississippi including the Aberdeen/Monroe County location. Monroe County has 7,557 people receiving SNAP benefits totaling $890,905 per month.

Mills said he often sees a lot of those benefit dollars wasted.

“I’m in my 50s,” Mills said. “And I worked at a store when I was young, And older people back then who got assistance, they cooked. And people who get it now, they don’t cook. They buy a lot of things they don’t need and it’s just wasted. And that’s just the way it is.”

Mississippi is home to 82 counties. MDHS Spokesperson Julia Bryan confirmed that eight of those receive 40 percent or more in SNAP benefits per month. Four counties in particular top out at more than 43 percent: Tunica and Washington counties tie with 43.5 percent; Sharkey at 45.6 percent, and Humphreys – with more than half the populace – with 50.7 percent.

Tunica, which oddly enough now stands as the third largest gaming region in the United States, behind Las Vegas and Atlantic City, is home to nine casinos and draws huge crowds each month with their gambling and concert attractions.

But out of a population of 11,800 (74 percent are black), 4,693 receive SNAP benefits.

“We’re in the gaming industry, but the wages are not the best,” said James Dunn, Executive Director of Tunica County Community Development. “They’re not livable wages. They pay $8, $9 and $10 an hour and most of those are service jobs. And a large percentage of the population here are employed in the gaming industry.”

Dunn said because of technology and gaming competition from surrounding states, Tunica doesn’t see as much tourism as it has in the past, resulting in a cut in employee hours.

“The industry has downsized,” he said. “So, with the price of gas and things like that, instead of people driving to Tunica, so many choose to stay close to home and patronize the casinos in their area.”

Tunica has faced staunch criticism in the past when a report on “60 Minutes” in 1985 exposed the segregation and degenerate conditions of black residents living in Sugar Ditch Alley.

While Tunica, located in the Mississippi Delta, boasted at least three dozen millionaires living in colonial-style homes at that time, the scene was much different a few miles away where black families were living in dilapidated, wooden shacks with no drinking water, no inside toilets and an infestation of roaches. Residents were forced to defecate in portable containers which they then carried outside their doors and threw in the “Sugar Ditch.” At the same time, the county was receiving millions of dollars in grant funding for county improvements in the “white” areas and the construction of a new airport.

The last tenants of Sugar Ditch Alley moved out in 1991, and Tunica is now a force to be reckoned with as they attract international industries to their county. But the majority of its black citizens still don’t have a voice in the community and rely heavily on governmental assistance.

“Thirty-three percent of our population is still below the poverty level and it’s been that way for years,” Dunn said. “That issue has not been addressed and many of them have not been able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”

Dunn said his organization is community-service based and assists with affordable housing and credit counseling. The area once known as Sugar Ditch Alley is now a series of housing units for the elderly and disabled, many of whom receive SNAP benefits. The other residents were moved to 202 or HUD homes where they also receive SNAP benefits.

“A lot of those individuals are employed. But once again, when you have large families and a fixed income coming into the household, you’re still below the poverty level,” said Dunn. “So, this is going to impact the community and those really dependant on those benefits to put food on the table.”

MDHS officials, however, said that counties like Tunica, Coahoma and Leflore in the Mississippi Delta overall have the highest cases of fraud.

“The highest fraud numbers and the counties which will be hit the hardest by the decrease in benefits would be in the counties with the highest number of SNAP cases and highest rate of poverty,” Bryan said. “[But] the agency is always actively pursuing those whose intent is to defraud a system in place to assist those in need with teams of investigators dedicated to looking at individuals and stores.”

Bryan said MDHS administers SNAP benefits to the elderly and those with children according to federal guidelines and they are bound by those regulations until they are changed on a national level. And they will continue to adhere to the allowable benefit levels to help those truly in need.

“SNAP is meant to be a supplement to one’s income to help ensure nutritional needs are met,“ she said. “Nationally, SNAP is the largest program in the domestic hunger safety net. As the holidays approach, those who face food insecurity are urged to visit a local office and apply for the program. Despite cuts to SNAP, help is available for those needing assistance to meet their nutritional needs.”

“I don’t think the cutback will hurt the average family,” Mills of Food Giant said. “If they will be just a little bit more conscious of what they’re buying.”

Well, this is a state run by the Republicans and stagnant in poverty for decades, wealthy by Latin American standards but poor by US standards. Like father Jansen I’m not against free trade, I don’t believe if you placed high tariffs all the factory jobs will come back but the Republicans need to offer more than service jobs that don’t have management opportunities or large tip opportunities to advance. The Republicans need to encourage online business particularity in poor Southern States run by them. One reason why you are seeing strikes for higher wages for Walmart which has lots of its employees one welfare is more of these jobs are done by adults with families.

Cynthia,

Thank you for your observations. I’d be interested in the sources in Byzantine & Russian law that address property rights. My comment in the essay was not directed toward the tradition. Rather, as Fabio comment illustrates, I was responding to those Orthodox Christians for who don’t see the importance to a right to private property. For example, the Diocese of Alaska (OCA) recently expressed their support for the Arctic 30 (see here: http://oca.org/news/headline-news/alaskan-clergy-faithful-support-release-of-arctic-30), a group of environmentalists who attempted to board a Russian oil platform as part of a Greenpeace protest against oil drilling. Whatever might be the prudence of their position, the Arctic 30 we’re violating the property rights of the oil company. Nor was their protest peaceful.

As for Acton and poverty in Central and Latin America, while it must be done lawfully, immigration is certainly something that is compatible with the moral tradition of both the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. I’m not aware that Acton has a position beyond affirming a general right to immigrate.

If you’ve not seen it already, you might want to take a look at the Acton program PovertyCure http://www.povertycure.org/. The goal of the program is to help people in the developing world move away from foreign aid and self-support through enterprise and the free market. Where other programs are concerned with the cause of poverty, Acton is looking at the cause of wealth and how these can be applied to folks in the developing world. The website has several short videos and articles as well as links that you might find of interest.

Fabio,

Thank you for your thoughtful analysis of the economic and political situation in Latin and South America. There is, as you note, more than a little irony in the fact that many Orthodox Christians are enamored of the ideas of the Left. You have said things better than I could so I will simply say thank you!

In Christ,

+FrG

The only way to reduce poverty in Latin America is by strengthening local pro-liberty groups. I’ll speak from a Brazilian perspective, because that’s my country and the only one I can speak with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

Despite much of what people say, Brazil has never been capitalist. It’s been traditionally mercantilist all its history. If anyone here follows South American economy, you may be aware of the case of Eike Batista. From “common” millionaire up to one of the world’s richests in a couple of years, he is now in disgrace having lost most of his fortune. Only the uninformed are surprised. *Every* rich person in Brazil owns it to the government directly or indirectly. Either they depend on the government buying their services or providing loans, or from favors and the right “friendships” among the politicians. The government can create and uncreate them with a snap of their fingers. People talk of corruption, as if enterpreneurs bribed government officials “buying” them. That’s just half truth. Most of the “corruption” can more accurately be described as *extorsion* from those government officials upon enterpreneurs. I’ve met more than one company owner that have confessed they’d rather not pay anything to anyone but they receive threats all the time.

On top of that, Brazil is the radical left’s playground. Democrats-style liberalism is painted here as radical American conservatism and everything to the right of that the product of moral monsters. Leftist cultural hegemony here is pervasive. In a country with 201 million people there are exactly 5 conservative journalists and the left – in power since 1995 – paints that as a horrible conspiracy of the right.

That, though, is a local consequence of the fall of the URSS. When it fell, Lula and Fidel Castro founded the “Foro de São Paulo”, in their words, “to reconquer in Latin America all that was lost in Eastern Europe”. Also, to organize the funding of leftist parties, since the URSS was no more. The substitute was the local drug trade. The Foro is a kind of “mutual help” and “strategy organization” conference group. Lula has also confessed on video that the rise of the left in the continent is due to the Foro activities.

To fight poverty in Latin America, it’s necessary to: 1) Classify the Foro de São Paulo as the strategical enemy of the free-world that it is; 2) Take whatever measures are necessary to destroy it and destroy leftist hegemony in the continent; 3) support the few scattered groups that defend true liberty. South America is no Middle East though. Most of this action is *cultural*.

The left rose to power in Brazil precisely during the military regime. The military had an official policy they called “Pressure Pot Strategy”: zero tolerance with guerrillas, but let some steam out by allowing the left to have the cultural world because that is irrelevant. Today we pay the price for that monstrous decision. Lots of initiatives from the very poor are anihilated in its roots because being a “accumulator of capital” is an evil thing and one’s life has to depend on social welfare for the poor, government jobs for the middle class and governmental loans for the rich.

At the same time, sound economical theories and practices are shunned by them as imoral, cruel and inhumane. No other practice in the world has moved, in the long term, more poors up to a middle class level of material prosperity than the free-market and capitalist practices. And yet all those “kind-hearted” people hate it, educate their children to hate it and, when they can, fight against it.

Ironically, whether they notice it or not, they just help the meta-capitalists, those individuals and/or groups who have achieved mammothian fortunes and who are reknown for financing leftist ideals and groups around the world.

Eric, I though Fr. Greg’s essay was solid, and as such I’d also be interested in hearing your rational for why you consider Fr. Greg’s defense of property rights to be sophistry.

Can you help me out Eric? What did I do wrong?

Could you unpack that for us Eric? Give us the reasons why you are surprised.

Wow. It is rare to see casuistry employed in such a textbook way! I’m amazed.