MILWAUKEE — Wisconsin’s State Assembly could make a decision this week, regarding whether to repeal the statewide mask mandate. Speak Robin Vos said the legislators halted a vote last week when they learned millions of dollars in federal assistance would be lost if they voted the mandate down.
Hunger Task Force Executive Director Sherrie Tussler said about $56 million in Emergency FoodShare benefits comes in monthly from the federal government. She says each month, around 738,000 Wisconsinites are supported by this food assistance. 25% are elderly, blind, or disabled.
“For seniors in particular, they’re frail and they’re elderly,” she said. “They need our assistance and we should be there to help them.”
The non-profit serves 10,000 seniors monthly just in Milwaukee County. It operates 122 stockbox locations in 12 Wisconsin counties. Tussler has a tough time thinking about what people in need will do, if these benefits end.
“For so long, they went with only $16 a month in FoodShare and now they’re at $204 and soon to be $234 with that 15% Biden jump,” she said. “If they take that emergency order away, the 15% will only amplify on that $16, which isn’t a lot of money.”
In January, nearly 243,000 Wisconsin households received $49.3 million in federal assistance according to the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. The COVID-19 aid bill passed by Congress in 2020 gives states the federal money only if they have emergency health orders in effect.
“At the onset of the pandemic, Wisconsin was paying out approximately $60 million in monthly federal benefits to aid the poor,” Tussler said in a statement last week. “In April 2020, that number escalated to nearly $160 million when federal Emergency FoodShare benefits became available due to the Emergency Declaration.”
Seniors lined the parking lot of a Hunger Task Force food distribution sight Tuesday. Each of them said without their FoodShare benefits, they’re not sure what the future would hold.
“A lot of people would be hungry and they’d be starving,” said Eva Knox of Milwaukee. “I just thank God that FoodShare comes through and I wish more people could get it.”
“I couldn’t even make it without my food stamps,” said Lee Humphrey of Milwaukee. “I’m diabetic and that means I have to have special foods, so if they discontinued my food stamps, I would literally starve.”
“The Legislative Bureau came out with a roughly $50 million statement about the benefits, but there were two months in the state where it was $100 million,” Tussler said. “It was when we had the first emergency order and then the second emergency order in August.”
Speaker Vos said the Assembly wants to ensure that any resolution passed would not have any negative financial impacts.