Duckworth and Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., have been working on a provision to the National Defense Authorization Act that would help raise the income of some service members whose basic pay is close to or below the poverty line.
On a recent visit to the makeshift food pantry at Dewey Elementary, Melissa Carlisle, a mother of two whose husband serves in the military, picked up a bag of potatoes that she plans to spread out over three different meals and freeze the rest for later.
“They have this military illusion that we’re just rolling in dough, but we’re not,” Carlisle said. “…We’re just really good with the little bit of money that we get.”
Almost everyone who gets groceries at the Feeding San Diego pantry at Dewey Elementary is military, and everything is free, so Carlisle and other military spouses start lining up early to fill their bags with fresh produce, snacks for the kids, and basic staples such as flour and bread.
At a school where almost 80 percent of students are the children of active-duty military personnel and more than 70 percent are eligible for free and reduced lunches, the biweekly free groceries often make the difference between struggling to pay the bills or simply going hungry.
When she’s not getting free food from Feeding San Diego, Carlisle normally shops at the military commissary, which is tax-free, or at Ralph’s, a grocery store in San Diego where purchases of food accrue points she can use on gas. “You don’t need to decide, ‘Do I need gas, or do I need food?‘”
But Carlisle said that even with help, just getting by is a constant worry.
“I wouldn’t say check to check, but pretty darn close. If you sneeze hard, a flat tire goes out, that’s it,” she said.
The lower-ranked enlisted service members in all branches, those with pay grades from E-1 to E-5, make somewhere between $18,648 and $40,759 in basic pay, depending on their rank and years of service. This doesn’t include their allowances for housing and food or special compensation like combat pay.
But the housing allowance, which can range widely depending on where a service member lives, is often enough to push a family out of the eligibility bracket for federal food assistance.
Even so, 2017 data from an annual Census Bureau survey showed that more than 16,000 active-duty service members received food stamps, known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
In 2016, the Government Accountability Office published a report recommending that the Defense Department start tracking data on service members’ and their families’ use of food assistance programs such as SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, but aid groups and lawmakers question whether the department is collecting meaningful data.
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