Honduran Congress To Repeal Hourly Employment Law

A citizen work in coffee production, Honduras.

 | Photo: Twitter/ @BancoMundialLAC
Published 15 April 2022
 

This law entitles employers to boost half-time or hourly contracts, something articles 46 to 48 of the Labor Code forbids.

On Thursday, the Honduran pro-government Freedom and Refoundation (Libre) Party confirmed that it has sufficient support in Congress to repeal the hourly employment law, which was adopted under the far-right President Porfirio Lobo’s administration (2010-2014).

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Such law entitles employers to boost half-time or hourly contracts, the payment of which shall be agreed by them and the worker exclusively. The Honduran Association of Labor Lawyers (AALH) argued that this policy violates articles 46 to 48 of the Labor Code, which sets permanent hiring as a general rule in all employment relations.

"This law has worsening working conditions for Hondurans," the AALH added, recalling that workers hired part-time or hourly only receive a layoff payment of just 4 percent.

A Beverage Industry Workers Union (STIBYS) and Rights Center for Women (CDM) report showed that 57 percent of workers hired under this regime have worked the same hours as in full-time employment.



This report also revealed that about 75 percent of Honduran women with part-time work have not had access to maternity licenses or have been denied the right to breastfeeding.

"This situation has benefited employers who have amassed wealth as a product of exploitation," the AALH stated, recalling that poverty increased by 20 percent since the hourly employment law was passed.

"We expect Congress to repeal this law soon after Holy Week. More policies in favor of the Honduran people will be approved under President Xiomara Castro’s administration,” Libre legislator Juan Barahona stated.

Anti-Asian Racism Rising in the US


China Society for Human Rights Studies released a report saying that anti-Asian racism continues growing in the U.S. Apr. 15, 2022. 

| Photo: Twitter/CGCHINA_CTP
Published 15 April 2022 

On Friday, the China Society for Human Rights Studies issued a report which indicates that anti-Asian racism is growing in the U.S.

According to Friday's release of the China Society for Human Rights Studies in the U.S., anti-Asian racism has a growing tendency.

The report says that the U.S. still takes pride in recognizing itself as a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant country, adding that Asian Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are objects of discrimination and violations in several forms, pricing them off from enjoying their rights as human beings.

The report issued by the China Society for Human Rights Studies is subdivided into three sections: Asian Americans facing a rise in racist attacks amid the coronavirus pandemic; racism against Asian Americans not unique to the coronavirus pandemic; and reasons behind the rising anti-Asian sentiment amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The document refers that the increase in anti-Asian feelings has come along with some U.S. politicians' racist coronavirus attacks on China; the effects of white supremacy; "the model minority" label which entangles Asian Americans; the hostilities between Asian Americans and other U.S. ethnic minorities; as well as U.S. politicians' actions that seriously affect China-U.S. relations.



The report urged the international community to pay attention to the matter as it can be foreseen that in the post-pandemic era, even if the anti-Asian racism could be reduced, but in the other hand the racial attacks against Chinese Americans will continue to grow under the manipulation of anti-China politics promoted by U.S. diplomats and officials.

Ecuador: Parliament Fails to Rule on Veto of Rape Abortion Law


Ecuador's National Assembly failed to override presidential veto of abortion bill. Apr. 15, 2022. 

| Photo: Twitter/LifeNewsHQ
Published 15 April 2022

On Thursday, Ecuador's National Assembly (NA) 's plenary session was suspended without any resolution regarding President Guillermo Lasso's veto of the Law on Abortion in Cases of Rape.

During the debate, parliamentarian Pierina Correa presented a motion to amend the presidential veto of the law, which received only 17 votes in favor, 73 against and 40 abstentions.

For the motion of the Assemblywoman of the opposition bloc Union for Hope (UNES) to prosper, it was required to be supported by an absolute majority, namely 70 legislators.

Afterward, the president of the NA, Guadalupe Llori, adjourned the session without allowing the debate to continue.

The Parliament had until this Friday to pronounce itself on Lasso's veto to the law approved by the NA last March and which regulates the voluntary interruption of pregnancy in cases of rape in Ecuador.



According to the legislative procedure, this norm will be published in the Official Gazette but incorporating the objections formulated by Lasso's government.

Among those modifications made by the Executive Branch to the regulation voted in Congress is that in cases of rape, abortion may be performed up to 12 weeks of pregnancy and not up to 18 weeks as it was established for girls, adolescents, indigenous and rural women. In this respect, Lasso's government included that for this purpose, a complaint, a sworn statement, or a medical examination proving the sexual aggression must be presented.

Ecuadorian feminist groups have said that the Executive's objections impose impossible conditions for the victims to meet.

Argentine Carriers End Strike After Attaining 20% Freight Rise

Carriers protesting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, April 13, 2022. 

| Photo: Twitter/ @RadioPuntoGT
Published 15 April 2022
 

They argued that recent increases in diesel prices prompted by the Ukrainian conflict should be compensated with an increase in their freight rates.

The Argentinean Transporters Federation (FETRA) and the agricultural businessmen reached an agreement on Thursday so that grain, cereal, and oilseeds carriers receive a 20 percent increase in their freights.

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The Argentinean carriers argued that recent increases in diesel prices prompted by the Ukrainian conflict should be compensated with an increase in their freight rates.

In February, the price of freight transport in Argentina was about US$17.3 per ton for a distance of 151 kilometers. In March, however, it increased up to US$21.6.

"In these circumstances, we were forced to stop working because we did not manage to sustain our costs," FETRA member Ariel Juarez pointed out.

Carriers and businessmen on Wednesday held a four-hour meeting, which was called and conciliated by the administration of President Alberto Fernandez. Since this dialogue was unsuccessful, the parties agreed to hold a second round of negotiations on Thursday.



Juarez thanked the participation of Transport Minister Alexis Guerrera in the second dialogue process. "His contribution was decisive in agreeing on the tariff amount increase and summoning new negotiations meeting if fuel prices continue to increase,” he said.

During three days of strike, thousands of truck drivers paralyzed the roads of Argentina, the world's largest exporter of soybean meal and oil. This South American country is also one of the main exporters of wheat, soybeans and corn.

Synod for the Amazon: Cardinal Stella hails the ‘great beauty’ of celibacy in a priest’s life

THE FAILURE OF CELIBACY IS WHY THE CHURCH COVERS UP SEX ABUSE

“The Church has remained the only institution that preaches a commitment that last forever, for priests, consecrated life and marriage,” said Card Stella. This is “a great challenge and a tremendous inner need.”


Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Today the editorial committee reviewed and approved the final text of the final document of the Synod for the Amazon, two days before the final vote on the document, which will then be handed over to the Pope.

Speaking at today’s daily briefing, Card Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Congregation for the clergy, defined celibacy as "the great beauty in the life of a priest, but it must be nurtured because it is a treasure that we grow in clay pots”.

"I always tell the bishops: ‘Train the priests well, be very vigilant on the human aspects of the person as well’,” he said. “The Church has remained the only institution that preaches a commitment that last forever, for priests, consecrated life and marriage.” This is “a great challenge and a tremendous inner need.”

"The gift of celibacy today represents a great personal challenge for young people and for priests as well,” one that “must be taken up with great inner awareness after a time of training and personal preparation.”

For the prelate, “Prayer, discipline and personal commitment” are the three requisites that ensure that "celibacy can be lived, aware that we live in a world that does not view it as a value”. For this reason, "We must speak to young people and present the needs of the Latin priesthood as a great commitment and [something of] beauty.”

Celibacy indeed "is a vocation that, in order to be accepted, needs the balance of a healthy mind and transparent affectivity as well as preparation in a context of great human quality.”

With respect to the ordination of older married men, "what the Synod will be able to say about the new ministry paths, we leave it to the discernment of the Synod Fathers and the final discernment of the Holy Father, who has the task of the discernment of Peter.”

Mgr Ricardo Ernesto Centellas Guzman, bishop of Potosì in Bolivia and president of his country's Bishops' Conference, also spoke about the ministries.

Interviewed by Vatican News, he said he was "confident that the final document will give an indication so that the Church can work, starting with the Amazon, including highlighting the need for social compromise. Since the situation in the Amazon is not just about Latin America but a global issue, we must find a global solution."

As for the role of women, they could “for example officially take on the leadership of Christian communities and play a role in parish pastoral councils and diocesan councils. I see positively the future work of women in all this.”

Tatars in solidarity with Ukrainians

by Vladimir Rozanskij

After Dagestan, Tatarstan has the highest number of Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine. The Tatar authorities support Putin. Tatars in exile want to bring the Russian president to an international court. They do not want to submit to the "great-Russian" ideology.


Moscow (AsiaNews) - The Tatars of Russia are among the most shaken by the war events in Ukraine, which involve many young people sent into disarray with numerous victims among their ranks. Tatarstan is among the territories most tragically affected by the conflict, second only to Dagestan, even if the numbers of human losses among the Russians are not published. The Kazan authorities support Putin's war, but the population expresses a decidedly less favorable sentiment, which cannot manifest itself openly due to the strong repression at home.

Instead, the "exiled" Tatars expressed themselves, especially the representatives of the "Idel-Ural" independence movement, many of whom now live in Poland, where they have given life to a large demonstration against the Russian war. Leading it was Nafis Kašanov, against whom, together with his brother Rafis, an arrest warrant is pending in Russia for "extremism", as their organization is banned by the Russian authorities. The accusation dates back to 2015, and the two brothers were among the first convicted of "an attack on the territorial integrity of Russia".

The Kašanov brothers had condemned the annexation of Crimea, and their words were regarded as "discrediting the actions of the Russian Federation", the accusation that today is leveled against any internal criticism of the army and the authorities. After three years of concentration camps, Rafis is sheltered in Great Britain and Nafis in Poland, and they lead the protest of the Tatars from abroad. In Warsaw, Nafis spoke at the meeting stating that “Putin's bandits will end up before an international court… we Tatars are with you, Ukrainians! Your victory will be the liberation of Russia from the fascism of this regime ”.

Kašanov denounces the servility of the president of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, who with his predecessor Mintimer Šaymiev "swims in the millions received by Putin ... at first they supported us, then they convinced them with the money to kill us". According to Tatar opponents, Putin's regime is destined to collapse after this war, and therefore "not only the Tatars, but all the peoples of the Oltrevolga, Siberia, the Caucasus, even the Finno-Ugres will claim their freedom".

One of the peoples who have always sought autonomy from Russia, the Tatars recall, is made up of the Chechens, now also heavily involved in military operations. As Nafis recalls, "all the true leaders of Chechnya have been killed: Maskhadov, Dudaev, Kadyrov sr., Who was a worthy leader of his people, while his son Ramzan today in power is a traitor to Chechnya, a servant of Putin who he will end his life ”.

The aspiration for independence of the various ethnic groups is a significant factor in the motivations of the conflict in Ukraine, which constitutes an example and a stimulus for the ex-Soviet peoples since the 2014 uprising in Kiev in Maidan Square. Russia instead intends to suffocate them in every way, both with weapons and with cultural campaigns for the "traditions and values" of the Russians, to be integrated with those of the subjugated peoples.

Kašanov promises that "finally we will be able to use our native languages, our customs and our culture ... we will no longer be put in prison for our religious beliefs, for Islam or shamanism, which are accepted only in a sweetened and subjected version. 'Great Russian ideology ”.

Ambedkar's Vision Of Democracy: Why Its Revival Is Important For India

Babasaheb Ambedkar's version of democracy depicts a society devoid of any glaring inequality. According to him, there must not be a class that has got all the privileges and a class that has got all the burdens to carry.

Statue of Dr BR Ambedkar, the Father of the Indian Constitution PTI

 DALIT LEADER AND A MARXIST

Anjali Chauhan
UPDATED: 15 APR 2022 

As we celebrate yet another birth anniversary of Babasaheb BR Ambedkar, while lamenting the state of democracy in our country, it’s instructive to look back at his vision of democracy and analyse where we are going wrong.

Jean Dreze stressed that the future of Indian democracy depends a great deal on the revival of Babasaheb’s visionary conception of democracy. Ambedkar strongly believed that democracy is always changing its form and is always in flux. He believed that modern democracy not only places a check on an autocratic rule, but also brings about the welfare of the people.

He moved a step forward from Walter Bagehot, for whom democracy was a government by discussion and from Abraham Lincoln, for whom democracy was a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Ambedkar defined democracy as “a form and a method of government whereby revolutionary changes in the economic and social life of the people are brought about without bloodshed”.

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For the successful functioning of such a democracy, he puts forward certain conditions. Firstly, there must not be any glaring inequalities in society and there must not be an oppressed class. There must not be a class that has got all the privileges and a class that has got all the burdens to carry. At present, in the post-pandemic world, we are experiencing increasing socio-economic inequalities which are making democratic nations mere empty vessels.

Secondly, he emphasized on the existence of a strong opposition. Democracy means veto power. Democracy is a contradiction of hereditary authority or autocratic authority, where elections act as a periodic veto in which people vote out a government and opposition in parliament act as an immediate veto that curbs the autocratic tendencies of the government in power. Unfortunately, we now witness the weakening of democracy with a weakened opposition.

He also argued that parliamentary democracy develops a passion for liberty; liberty to express one’s thoughts and opinion, liberty to lead a respectful life, liberty to do what one values. But we can see a parallel fall of India in the Human Freedom Index along with a weakened opposition and consequently falling democratic credentials.

In its annual report on global political rights and liberties, US-based non-profit Freedom House downgraded India from a free democracy to a "partially free democracy". A Sweden-based V-Dem Institute said India had become an "electoral autocracy", and later described as a "flawed democracy". India has slipped two places to 53rd position in the latest Democracy Index published by The Economist Intelligence Unit.

Ambedkar also upheld equality in law and administration. Likes should be treated likely and there should be no discrimination based on class, caste, gender, race and so on. He brought forward the idea of constitutional Morality. For him, the constitution contains only the legal skeleton, but the flesh is what he calls constitutional morality. Noted academic Pratap Bhanu Mehta sums up Babasaheb’s idea of constitutional morality as a state marked by self-restrain, respect for plurality, scepticism about the authoritative claims to popular sovereignty and open culture of criticism. But India is now facing fundamentalism and growing intolerance towards oppressed groups and communities.

Lastly, Ambedkar stresses that democracy requires a functioning moral order in society, a vibrant public conscience, as there is no place for the tyranny of the majority over the minority in a democracy .

For him, parliamentary democracy was the negation of hereditary rule. However, the hereditary rule has modernised itself into dynasticism to suit the present time. This was made visible by Christophe Jafferlot, who profiled the 17th Lok Sabha to find out that a number of elected representatives belong to some political families across parties.

Ambedkar's vision of democracy needs to be rediscovered to fight hatred, violence, sectarianism and fundamentalism, to use it as a shield against casteist and religious fanaticism. To realise democracy not in its narrow sense, not only by counting votes while conducting elections but as Babasaheb in his vision explains it: “Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards our fellow men.”

(Anjali Chauhan is a PhD scholar from the University of Delhi.)

India remembers Ambedkar, but for disadvantaged groups little has changed

by Alessandra De Poli


Born 131 years ago, the Indian jurist fought for social equity for Dalits, Adivasi and women. Indian politicians like to cite him, but in practice nothing is being done to improve the situation of the poorest, who, according to the latest studies, are still discriminated with respect to the economy, healthcare and law. An award to honour him has not been given for years.



New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Yesterday India marked the 131st anniversary of the birth of Bhimrao Ramji “Babasaheb” Ambedkar, father of the Indian Constitution, an activist for Dalit, Adivasi and women’s rights who lived in the first half of the 20th century.

Political leaders and prominent individuals paid tribute to Babasaheb, the Respected Father. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that yesterday was a day to “reiterate our commitment to fulfilling his dreams” of social justice. President Ram Nath Kovind described Ambedkar as “the architect of the Constitution” who “laid the foundation for modern India”.

Yet, after the Modi administration came to power in 2014, the Ambedkar awards have not been handed out, and Ambedkar’s dreams have not been turned into reality; Dalits (scheduled castes, formerly known as untouchables) and Adivasi (scheduled tribes) still lag behind in terms of economic opportunity, legal protection as well as access to water and sanitation.

Ambedkar, a convert to Buddhism, was born Bhimrao Ramji Ambavadekar (later changed to Ambedkar) into a Mahar family, a Dalit caste. Between 1913 and 1917 he studied economics at Columbia University in New York and at the London School of Economics and also trained in the law at Gray's Inn, London.

After India’s independence in August 1947, he became Law Minister and set out to draft India’s republican constitution, to ensure a broad spectrum of civil and individual rights and freedom and abolish “untouchability”.

The constituent assembly included in the final text the principle of positive discrimination thereby reserving certain public service positions for members of disadvantaged castes and tribes. However, since the constitution was adopted (1950), little has changed for such groups.

According to a recent government report, the upper castes own over 60 per cent of small and medium-sized enterprises; by comparison, scheduled castes (Dalits) own 6.8 per cent and scheduled tribes (Adivasi) only 2.1 per cent. Scheduled castes and tribes are India’s historically disadvantaged ethnic and social groups.

Discrimination against these groups is clear even in Indian law, a situation acknowledged by Orissa High Court Chief Justice S Muralidhar who says that Indian laws are drafted in such a way that they penalise the poor.

More than half of the people awaiting trial are from disadvantaged groups, he told a conference yesterday. About 21 per cent of the prison population belongs to a scheduled caste, while 37.1 per cent belongs to "Other Backward Classes”, a collective term used by the Government of India for the disadvantaged. More than 17 per cent of the people on trial and 19.5 per cent of the detainees are Muslims.

In late March, Indians commemorated the anniversary of Ambedkar’s satyagraha (non-violent resistance) of 1927. At the time, lower caste Indians were not allowed to use water in public places used by upper caste Indians.

Ambedkar drank water from a tank in front of everyone in the city of Mahad, near Mumbai (then Bombay), and invited Dalit women to wear sari like women from upper castes.

Despite the struggles, official government data show that members of scheduled castes and tribes as well as Muslims have a shorter life span, with discrimination as the main cause.

About 26 per cent of upper caste children suffer from malnourishment, a percentage that rises to 40 per cent for scheduled castes and tribes, worse than in sub-Saharan Africa (30 per cent).

For women, access to hospital care varies according to social status and religion. Yet it is precisely the poorest sections of the population who need public services the most, argues Preshit Ambade, a public health policy researcher.

Developing an efficient welfare system based on Ambedkar’s concept of social equity would benefit a country with below than average socio-economic indicators.

But poverty and marginalisation are not aspects of Indian life that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government wants to show.

The Dr. Ambedkar National Award was created in 1993, followed three years later by the Dr. Ambedkar International Award, assigned each 14 April to individuals and organisations fighting inequalities in accordance with Babasaheb Ambedkar’s ideas.

Yet for the past eight years, the award has not been assigned, officially for “administrative reasons”, The Wire reported.

According to the Ambedkar Foundation’s guidelines, the call for submission of names takes place months before the award is given.

Everyone in India has used Ambedkar’s name for electoral purposes, but so far no one has said anything about the award not being handed out.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for DALIT 

Brazil’s Lula da Silva Announces Running Mate

April 15, 2022


Last Friday, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—the leading candidate in October’s presidential election—announced Geraldo Alckmin as his running mate during a press conference in São Paulo. Lula da Silva and Alckmin, who were once political rivals, appeared together at the press conference and expressed the importance of creating a united front against the Bolsonaro government, which they said threatens Brazilian democracy and institutions. On Wednesday, the national board of Lula’s Partido dos Trabalhadores officially approved Alckmin’s vice-presidential candidacy with 68 to 14 voting in favor. Lula and Alckmin are expected to kick off their campaign in May.

The 69-year-old Alckmin is a career politician who served as governor of the state of São Paulo three times and co-founded the center-right Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (PSDB). In Brazil’s 2006 presidential elections, Alckmin lost to Lula da Silva in the runoff election after receiving 40 percent (versus Lula’s 60 percent) of the votes. In 2018, he campaigned again in the presidential election but did not make it to the second round. Since then, Alckmin has criticized President Jair Bolsonaro, calling him an “authoritarian.” Late last year, Alckmin resigned from the PSDB and joined the center-left Partido Socialista Brasileiro–a move that many perceived as a way to seek a political alliance with Lula da Silva to unseat Bolsonaro.

This political development was followed by Brazil’s electoral authority inviting the European Union (EU) to oversee the upcoming electoral process in order to “amplify the transparency of its electoral system and make cooperation possible.” Similar talks are already underway with organizations that have previously overseen Brazilian elections, including the Organization of American States, the Carter Center, and the Mercosur Parliament. President Jair Bolsonaro, who has repeatedly cast doubts on the Brazilian electronic voting system, opposes the invitation extended by the electoral authority to the EU.

HALAL IS KOSHER AND VICE VERSA
In France’s election, a meaty issue unites Jews and Muslims

By JOHN LEICESTER

1 of 6

A butcher cuts halal meat in a butcher shop, in Paris, Wednesday, April 13, 2022. Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen is alarming both Muslims and Jews in France with a pledge to ban the ritual slaughter of animals if elected. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

PARIS (AP) — As she cooks lunch and talks politics, Sarah Gutmann has a nasty feeling — of would-be French president Marine Le Pen invading the privacy of her home and meddling with her Jewish faith and the plates of chicken and kosher sausages that she is frying for her husband and their eldest son.

That’s because the far-right candidate wants to outlaw ritual slaughter if she’s elected next Sunday. And that could directly impact how Gutmann feeds her family and exercises her religious freedom. She and her husband, Benjamin, say they would have to think about leaving France if a far-right government interfered with observant Jews’ kosher diets. Their fear is that under Le Pen, targeting ritually slaughtered meats could be just the start of steps to make French Jews and Muslims feel unwelcome.

“Attacking the way we eat impinges on our privacy and that is very serious,” Gutmann said as she busied herself in the kitchen of their Paris home.

“The intention is to target minority populations that bother her and send a message to voters who are against these minorities: ’Vote for me, because I will attack them and perhaps, with time, make them leave.’”

Muslim shopper Hayat Ettabet said her family might be forced to illegally slaughter at home to stay within their religious rules, bleeding out animals “in the bathroom, back to the way it was.”

Le Pen says all animals should be stunned before slaughter, and frames the issue as one of animal welfare. That’s unacceptable to observant Jews and Muslims who believe stunning causes unnecessary animal suffering and that their ritual slaughters for kosher and halal meats are more humane.

With the largest populations of Muslims and Jews in western Europe, the issue has major potential repercussions for France and could hit communities elsewhere that buy French meat exports. The issue is one of the many fault lines between Le Pen and incumbent President Emmanuel Macron and the starkly different visions of France they are presenting for next Sunday’s election runoff vote. It is expected to be far closer than in 2017, when the centrist Macron beat Le Pen by a landslide.

 

“We have never been so close to having an extreme-right regime,” Gutmann said. “The alarm bell is ringing.”

States scale back food stamp benefits even as prices soar

THIRD WORLD USA CAUSED BY AUSTERITY

By SCOTT McFETRIDGE

Tara Kramer sits in her apartment with her cat Busy, Friday, April 8, 2022, in Des Moines, Iowa. Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying food through the federal SNAP program are seeing their benefits plunge even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)


DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying groceries through the federal food stamp program are seeing their benefits plunge even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades.

The payments to low-income individuals and families are dropping as governors end COVID-19 disaster declarations and opt out of an ongoing federal program that made their states eligible for dramatic increases in SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture began offering the increased benefit in April 2020 in response to surging unemployment after the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the country.

The result is that depending on the politics of a state, individuals and families in need find themselves eligible for significantly different levels of help buying food.

Nebraska took the most aggressive action anywhere in the country, ending the emergency benefits four months into the pandemic in July 2020 in a move Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts said was necessary to “show the rest of the country how to get back to normal.”

Since then, nearly a dozen states with Republican leadership have taken similar action, with Iowa this month being the most recent place to slash the benefits. Benefits also will be cut in Wyoming and Kentucky in the next month. Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Tennessee have also scaled back the benefits.

Republican leaders argue that the extra benefits were intended to only temporarily help people forced out of work by the pandemic. Now that the virus has eased, they maintain, there is no longer a need to offer the higher payments at a time when businesses in most states are struggling to find enough workers.

But the extra benefits also help out families in need at a time of skyrocketing prices for food. Recipients receive at least $95 per month under the program, but some individuals and families typically eligible for only small benefits can get hundreds of dollars in extra payments each month.

The entire program would come to a halt if the federal government decides to end its public health emergency, though the Biden administration so far hasn’t signaled an intention to do so.

For Tara Kramer, 45, of Des Moines, the decision by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds to end the emergency payments starting April 1 meant her monthly SNAP benefit plunged from $250 in March to $20 in April. Kramer, who has a genetic disorder that can cause intense pain, said the extra money enabled her to buy healthier food that made her feel better and help her to live a more active life.

“My heart sank,” Kramer said. “All the memories from before the emergency allotment came rushing back.”

Alex Murphy, a spokesman for Reynolds, noted the extra benefits were always intended to help people who lost jobs because of the pandemic and said, “we have to return to pre-pandemic life.” Murphy pointed out that Iowa has over 86,000 job openings listed on a state unemployment website.

But Kramer said she’s not able to work and that even getting out of her apartment can be a struggle at times.

Vince Hall, who oversees public policy for the nationwide food bank network Feeding America, said ending the extra benefits ignores the reality that even as the pandemic wanes there hasn’t been a decline in demand at food banks.

Wages have been increasing in the United States and the national unemployment rate in March dropped to 3.6%, but those gains have been offset by an 8.5% increase in inflation compared to a year ago. Food is among items rising the fastest, leaving many families unable to buy enough groceries.

“The COVID pandemic is giving way to a hunger pandemic,” Hall said. “We’re in a real, real struggle.”

Feeding America, which represents 200 food banks, reports that demand for food has increased just as these organizations are seeing individual donations dwindle and food costs rise. The organization estimates the nation’s food banks will spend 40% more to buy food in the fiscal year ending June 2022 as in the previous year.

For people like Annie Ballan, 51, of Omaha, Nebraska, the decision by Ricketts to stop participating in the program reduced the SNAP payments she and her son receive from nearly $500 a month to $41. Both have health problems and can’t work.

“From the middle of the month to the end of the month, people have no food,” Ballan said, her voice rising in anger. “This is all the governor’s fault. He says he loves Nebraskans, that Nebraskans are wonderful, but he’s cut off our food.”

The demand on food banks will only grow as more states reduce their SNAP payments, which typically provide nine meals for every one meal offered by food banks, Hall said.

Valerie Andrews, 59, of St. Charles, Missouri, said the SNAP benefits that she and her husband rely on fell from $430 a month to $219 when Missouri ended the extra payments in August 2021. Andrews, who is disabled, said she tries to budget carefully and gets food regularly from a food pantry but it’s difficult.

“We’re barely making it from paycheck to paycheck,” she said. “It gets pretty rough most of the time.”

Officials at food banks and pantries said they will do their best to meet increased demand but there is no way they can fully offset the drop in SNAP benefits.

Matt Unger, director of the Des Moines Area Religious Council network of food pantries in Iowa’s capital city, noted the pantry’s cost for a 5-ounce can of chicken as jumped from 54 cents in March 2019 to a current price of $1.05.

“Costs are just going through the roof,” he said.

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AP writer Grant Schulte contributed to this story from Omaha, Nebraska.

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Follow Scott McFetridge on Twitter: https://twitter.com/smcfetridge

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The spelling of Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts’ last name has been corrected on first reference.