12月23日VOA聽力：聯邦救濟贊助紐約累贅不起食品的工薪階級
It is Christmas time at the South Bronx apartmentof Jose and Oleyda Gutierrez.
Their spirits are high, the food budget is low.
Jose is the sole income producer working at arestaurant employee for minimum wage plusminimal tips.
“The money we make is not enough, we cannotafford to buy enough food because at the end of the month,sometimes even at the end of theweek, Thursday or Friday, the refrigerator is almost empty or sometimes empty.
We cannot afford to have meat or different things.
We have basic things like beans, rice, milk, eggs.
We want to have something else like a little treat. It is not possible.”
The federal nutritional “food stamp” assistance program helps poor family with some basics.
With significance cuts pass will looming federal budget and nutritious diet may be a thing ofpast for the working poor.
Philomena Acebedo is coordinator for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger,“Even thoughthey are working, they still need food stamps because it is not enough.
Whatever they earn, they have to pay their rent, and, whatever they have left, it is not enoughto put on their table.”
In West Harlem, the poor and the hungry line up outside the Food Bank for New York City'scommunity kitchen and food pantry.
Margarette Purvis is president and CEO：“We serve families, and to be in the city, most of thosefamilies are going to have to work, and they do.
They work every day, they work hard for their living.
Unfortunately, they don't make enough to actually cover the rent and the food and the childcare expenses.”
Across the city, Food Bank for New York City distributes 120 free meals every minute.
Previous cuts to the federal nutrition program two years ago cost the city 5.3 meals a month.
Many of those meals were targeted for working families.
Still, the White House says that in 2014, over 2 million children benefited from foodstamps,impacting their lives well beyond their childhood years.
The study cites benefits for health, education and economic self-sufficiency.
In New York, the benefits have been available to 400,000 preschool-aged children.
Meantime, back in the Gutierrez apartment, Christmas is very much on the minds of the twochildren and of course on their parents.
The father reviews the children desires toy lists.
“Most of the Christmas they want, I know I cannot afford all of them，but I'm going to makesure they're going to have a Merry Christmas.”
Jose says he will buy two youngest kids gifts as soon as he gets his next paycheck,but he isworried it would not be enough to many gifts or enough for holiday food.
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