Every year billions of dollars worth of readily available government aid goes untapped.

If you thought that by now we’ve covered all the opportunities for hunger-fighting groups to pick up massive efficiencies, we have a surprise for you. In a vast majority of states, doing what is recommended in this chapter could, on its own, end hunger.

All levels of government are ultimately concerned with the well being of the people they were elected, appointed or hired to serve. So every level of government to some degree offers some level of assistance to people who are experiencing difficulties.

The most well known of those forms of aid in this country are:

But these are only the tip of the iceberg. Less well known are a host of additional federal, state and local assistance programs, usually administered by units of government, but sometimes also available through nonprofit groups deputized to provide specific services.

 

Available help is going unused

The bottom line: there is a lot of government help out there available to people who need it, but most of the people who need it never access it because they don’t know about it. Without that government help, they will suffer more than necessary or they will tap local charity resources more than necessary.

This is huge! Every year in the United States billions of dollars worth of readily available government aid goes untapped because people who need it and qualify for it don’t apply for it.

 

This results in at least three very negative outcomes:

It subjects households to suffering beyond what could or should have been the case. They don’t get help because they don’t know about it, or they don’t know how or where to apply, or they don’t realize that they qualify for it, or can’t get to where one needs to go to apply for it, or need help filling out the application or some other reason. A local charity may help somewhat, but only rarely can local charities equal or surpass the amount of aid the government can provide.
It places a lot of extra stress on local charity programs that are pressed to compensate for aid that people don’t get from government sources. For example, in a community of 30,000 people with a poverty rate of about 12 percent, it is likely that at least 5000 people would qualify for about $70 per month in food stamp assistance. But it is even more likely that only about half of them will receive that help. That works out to $2.1 million per year ($70 x 2500 x 12) in needed aid that the government can provide but charity agencies struggle to provide instead. This is crazy! Charity agencies should only be trying to cover what the government won’t cover and not be beating ourselves to death trying to replace the government, particularly since our doing so can hurt the local economy.
It hurts the local economy by not drawing on these federal and state resources. As in the above example, an additional $2.1 million in the local economy has about the same impact as does having 70 area families get $30,000 per year jobs! That is a lot of extra buying power that will show up in local stores and restaurants, likely creating enough additional economic activity to create a number of new jobs. It puts extra resources into the local economy just as tourism or a festival might.

If you add up all the resources that can be drawn in by getting help to everyone who is eligible, the dollar amounts are astounding. It could revive a failing community or neighborhood.

Take a look at this table that shows the gap between food resources and unmet need. It plots out for all 50 states and the District of Columbia

As you will see, for a majority of states that dollar amount is larger than the number of pounds of food that are needed to end hunger!

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