Food Stamps

State welfare director Bruce Wagstaff’s comment that the food stamp program “is not conducive to working families” evidences a disturbing ignorance of the program (“State Underpays Many Who Rely on Food Stamps,” May 9). Food stamps provide critical support to low-income people transitioning from welfare to work, helping to raise family income by as much as one-third.

Ensuring that California’s low-income workers have the resources to purchase an adequate diet for themselves and their children is in the best interests of our state and our nation. If the government encourages and requires welfare recipients to go to work--an admirable goal--then why not provide them with the kind of support that makes work possible?

SUSAN CRAMER

Exec. Director, MAZON

Jewish Response to Hunger, L.A.