Clip of the Week: Food Banks

The wage gap in the United States has been an issue for centuries. The disparity in income has divided the upper, middle, and lower class families in our country, although the government has done many things in an attempt to bridge the gap. In the 1960's and 1970's programs for lower income families were implemented: Food Stamps (now known as SNAP), Medicaid, Medicare, and Section-8 were all created to sustain a base level of living and provide a safety net.

Since the 2016 Election, we have received a whole lot of promises from Donald Trump–one being tax cuts that were supposed to help the middle class, but ended up only providing cuts to the 1%. With major tax cuts, funding for programs dedicated to help lower income families were negatively impacted. Last year, over 3.5 million Americans were cut off from food stamps, and now President Trump’s 2020 budget plans to cut an additional 3 million people off of food stamps, according to CBS News.

On this episode of Represent NYC, guest-host New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli discusses the 15 billion dollars in lost money his office oversees, and talks with Dr. Camesha Grant, VP of Community Outreach for Food Bank For New York City about what the non-profit has been working to end food poverty in the five boroughs.