Good morning George:

I paid a visit to your website this morning. I was interested in Blake’s resolution about same-sex civil unions.

I noticed an article about the Poverty Diet Experience that the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy is sponsoring today.

The article accurately reported that the average Food Stamp benefit in Virginia is $77 per month, so today’s experience will use $2.55 as the daily food allowance. This is somewhat misleading—the maximum benefit level for a single person is $149, or $4.96 per day.

The Food Stamp program calculates benefit levels using income received and allowable deductions, so the benefit received is based on part of the household’s income being available to buy food. Most people on Food Stamps have some kind of income—nationally, only about 9% of households have no income, so the average benefit level is not the maximum level. For today’s experience to have been more realistic, the $4.96 figure should have been used.

Best regards,

Catherine Pemberton (electronic mail, November 16, 2004)

Food Stamp Unit, Division of Benefit Programs, Virginia Department of Social Services