(The Center Square) – More Illinoisans are getting taxpayer subsidized food assistance now than from before the pandemic.
State Rep. La Shawn Ford, D-Chicago, is calling on lawmakers to do more to aid struggling state residents after the number of individuals relying on food assistance sharply jumped over the past five years.
Data composed by the Illinois Department of Public Health shows more than one million households across Illinois were reliant on food assistance as recently as last October, representing a 12% increase since 2019.
In addition, almost 2 million Illinois residents, or one out of every seven, made use of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits over that time, with roughly half of them being residents of Cook County. All told, the number of Illinoisans now using SNAP roughly stands at about 212,000 above pre-pandemic levels.
Ford argued he’s long seen the handwriting on the wall, given the state is now home to the third-highest unemployment rate in the country and, since the pandemic, its overall recovery rates as the fifth worst among all 50 states.
“I think we definitely need to look at the struggling working class,” Ford told The Center Square. “People are still receiving SNAP at the rate that they were receiving before inflation. Senior citizens and people on fixed incomes should automatically get some extra support from the federal government.”
Ford said all the persistent struggling has left many of the state’s most vulnerable residents feeling as if they’ve practically been cast in an impossible situation.
“I would say it all stems from the price of goods and services increasing while wages remain stagnant,” he said. “People have utility bills that’s going up. They have food prices going up, rent prices going up, insurance going up, property taxes going up. These are demands that they have to pay in order to live in their homes and sometimes food becomes secondary.”
Researchers also found that although Cook County residents composed just 41% of the state’s population, they accounted for 46% of SNAP residents with Chicago at nearly 67% of that total and 31% of all individuals receiving such benefits.
In the end, Ford said changing some of what we see coming out of Springfield could go a long way toward alleviating at least some of the suffering.
“I think that we as a state, as a government should look at more business-friendly policies to support small businesses so that they can hire more people, pay higher wages,” he said. “That money will automatically come right back to the state in revenue because people are going to spend it.”
