Here’s the 2013 CalFresh Calculator, including the new LIHEAP benefits/automatic SUA provisions.

We all know that food benefits help low income households fight hunger. California Buget Policies and Priorities has issued a new report on how SNAP benefits also help support work efforts, and that this role has increased substantially in recent years. View the full report or the executive summary.

The Center on Budget Policies and Priorities has issued this paper with links to the addresses for each state’s SNAP web pages, and also provides an overview of the types of information and services that states provide. Comes with analysis of policy areas for advocacy, if your state is lacking.  Click here for California.

FNS recently approved a waiver to permit California to continue with the Quarterly Reporting system, until the end of September. Counties must implement semi-annual reporting by 10/1/13.

A new FRAC Report finds that the SNAP “Thrifty Food Plan” formula is seriously inadequate. The Thrifty Food Plan has its roots in the 1930s. SNAP benefits are calculated using the Thrifty Food Plan, which is the lowest of four cost plans and has its origins in one that was developed for short-term or emergency use.

A new study finds that providing access to food stamps to individuals either in utero or as a child results in improved outcomes as adults. Food in childhood led to a large and statistically significant reduction in the incidence of “metabolic syndrome” (obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes) as well as an increase in reporting to be in good health as adults. It also concluded that for women, but not men, access to food stamps in early childhood led to an increase in economic self-sufficiency, defined by an index that incorporated education, poverty status, employment status, receipt of public benefits and earning. Finally, the study provides evidence that these effects are greatest for children who received food stamps in early childhood, before the age of 5.

According to USDA’s most recently SNAP characteristics study, nearly half of SNAP recipients are elderly or children, and the majority receive no cash assistance (welfare) and live in small households. Overall, the program has a “powerful anti-poverty effect.”

The state and the 3 county automation consortia have developed a new e-ICT process, to guide Inter County Transfers (all programs).

Quick-draw Jessica Bartholow has updated the “Food Stamp calculator” to reflect the latest allotment adjustments.  Check back in January for the new figures that will include LIHEAP.  Test your skills! Using the search box see how many places you can find this document!

FRAC has made a bunch of charts available compiled from the 2011 American Community Survey, released by the Census Bureau on September 20th.  They contain a wealth of information , including the ability to look at SNAP participation in 2011 by households at the state, county, and congressional district level. Charts available on FRAC’s website include:

1. States sorted alphabetically (pdf), and by rank (pdf) of percent of population participating in SNAP;
2. Counties (with populations of more than 65,000 people) sorted alphabetically (pdf), and by rank (pdf) of percent of population participating in SNAP; and
3. Congressional districts sorted alphabetically (pdf), and by rank (pdf) of percent of population participating in SNAP.