Getting the government out of our lives may sound like a good idea in the abstract, but abruptly halting the government hurts the people that can least afford to take the hit most. While our elected officials are busy arguing about who is to blame, about 14,000 people in New Jersey won’t be getting paid this week. Unless they have a nest egg, that will make it hard to pay this month’s bills.
But as with many of the economic hurricanes that seem as uncontrollable as Mother Nature – the financial crisis, the Sequestration and now the government shutdown – the youngest and the oldest will bear more of the burden than the rest in the most basic ways.
At the beginning of the year, the Sequestration (also known as the “fiscal cliff”), a process of across-the-board government spending cuts, forced cuts to many of the government-funded programs. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), a program that increases the health and dietary intake for pregnant women and children under 5 was cut, reducing their eligible caseload by about 11,000 in New Jersey. Head Start, a program that provides education and formation to the very same young children, was cut by $7 million affecting 1,700 New Jersey children.
On the other end of the age spectrum, Meals on Wheels, a program providing seniors and those that are disabled with a well-balanced meal, and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP) serving the same population with groceries every month, found they were not exempt. A survey by the Meals on Wheels Association found that nearly 70% of Meals on Wheels programs had to reduce the number of meals they served by an average of 364 meals per week. With the current government shutdown, these very same programs are now without funding at all.
As of this writing, the meal programs are using reserves in resources and hoping to ride out the latest storm without having to close. On Friday the state of New Jersey assured WIC recipients that they would be able to use their vouchers for October. The CSFP grocery program will continue to serve and be able to use the reserve commodities in the warehouses for the time being. This will not be possible in a week or two.
By November other social programs will begin to be cut, and non-profits that rely on any government funding will begin to feel the cash-flow pinch. Much as we would like to believe it, private charity can never make up for the magnitude of the cuts facing these programs. These organizations are still struggling to keep up with the demand for services brought on by the financial crisis and the Sequestration.
Many years ago I struggled to find a definition of social justice that could be a framework to use for discussions surrounding poverty. This one came close: Social injustice is a concept relating to the perceived unfairness or injustice of a society in its division of rewards and burdens. The young and the old in these difficult days are bearing far too much of the burdens of our society and drifting further and further away from attaining the benefits. Jesus calls us to do more than even this limited definition. Call on your member of congress. Urge them to provide leadership without further burdening our most vulnerable.
You can find contact information for your Representative at www.house.gov/representatives/find. Contact information for Senators is available at www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.
The Rev. Diane Riley is a deacon in the Diocese of Newark, chair of the diocesan Justice Board, and Director of Advocacy at the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.
