Land of the free, home of the hungry

[^_^ 5,021]

Nowhere is the chasm between America's political class and its working poor more vast than in the demand to cut food stamps

On Monday afternoon this week, Rachelle Grimmer went into a Department of Health and Human Services in Texas with her two children, Timothy, aged 10, and Ramie, aged 12, and asked for a new case worker who could assist her application for food stamps. She had first applied in July but had been told she hadn't provided enough information and, by most accounts, had been struggling to get by and get help since she moved from Ohio.

She was taken to a small room, where she pulled a gun, sparking a seven-hour standoff with police. Shortly before midnight, three shots were heard. Rachelle had shot both herself and her kids. Police rushed in to find the mother dead and Ramie and Timothy in critical condition. Earlier that morning, Ramie had posted a Facebook message, saying: "may die 2day". She actually hung on until Wednesday. Timothy's condition remains critical.

The tragic unravelling of this particular episode is hardly typical. But the desperation that underpins it is. For, in this period between Thanksgiving and Christmas (when many Americans are worrying about what overindulging will do to their waistline), a significant number is wracked with an entirely different concern: not having enough to eat.

This is no marginal group, no handful of unfortunates and ne'er-do-wells in a time of crisis. Indeed, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, food insecurity is a common, growing and enduring problem. According to Gallup polling, one in five Americans reported not having enough money to buy food in the past 12 months – the highest level since the month Barack Obama was elected. Around the country, food banks are feeling the pinch of market forces: as poverty climbs, demand is rising and supply is falling as people who would have donated have less left to spare.

An analysis by the New York Times revealed a 17% increase in the number of school students receiving free and reduced lunches across the country between 2006/07 and now. In Rockdale County, east of Atlanta, 63% of students now have subsidised food – up from 46% four years ago.

Between 2008 and 2011, the number of those living on food stamps, assistance to those who lack sufficient money to feed themselves and their families, soared by 50%, putting one American in seven in the programme. Catholic Charities recently revealed that requests for the working poor were up 80% over the second quarter, and up 59% for the middle class.

Similarly, Operation Homefront, a national organisation that feeds the families of military personnel, has seen demand for help double over the last two years. The Washington Post reported that in Fort Hood, Texas, military families stayed up after midnight to register for a free turkey online for Thanksgiving. The 450 birds were gone within an hour. Even as soldiers fight for empire abroad, their families struggle for food at home.

You would think this would be a national disgrace. The land of the free – and the home of the hungry. The sheer scale and intensity of the problem refutes any suggestions of the undeserving poor.

But want has become a term of political abuse, with Newt Gingrich launching his campaign earlier this year by branding Obama "the food stamp president" and continues to berate him as such. Indeed, behind the partisan posturing over deficit reduction, it is rarely noted that rather than impose taxes on millionaires, Republicans are eager to balance the budget on the stomachs of the hungry.

As editor of the Left Business Observer, Doug Henwood, points out in a recent blog posting, these benefits are not particularly generous. "The average [food stamp] recipient gets $134 a month in assistance, which works out to $4.40 a day. That's 10% less than the US Department of Agriculture's "thrifty" meal budget, and about half its "moderate" budget. For your average well-fed American, living on a daily ration of less than $5 for food prepared at home would be hard to imagine. But without SNAP benefits, 46 million people would be in a state of anguish rather than just scraping by."

Yet, this is one area the Republicans are keen to target for cuts. They want to reduce spending on food stamps by around 20%, and in June, voted to slash a different health and nutrition scheme (WIC) for poor pregnant women and children by 10%, which would have denied assistance to around a quarter of a million people.

This will be the primary terrain on which the forthcoming elections will be fought: the needs and aspirations of the working poor. Not so much the destitute – America is always forgetting about them – but the working poor and those who fear descending among them. But for the Democrats to capitalise on these anxieties, they will have to shift the country's sense of what it takes to be poor and convince them that government has a role in alleviating that condition before desperation kicks in.

You'd think that would be straightforward. But illusions of meritocracy, equal opportunity, class fluidity and social mobility die hard. This a country where, according to a Pew survey in 2008, 91% believe they are either middle-class, upper middle-class or lower middle-class, and a Gallup poll in 2005 showed that while only 2% of Americans described themselves as "rich", 31% thought it very likely or somewhat likely they would "ever be rich". Sooner or later, though, reality tends to intrude.

As thousands of people gathered at New Orleans convention centre following Hurricane Katrina, Michael Brown, the hapless head of the disaster relief agency, Fema, was asked why he was not tending to them with shelter and water.

"We're seeing people that we didn't know exist," he said. This has been the official policy of America's political class for some time. "This is a special interest group that not many people talk about because they don't have the wealth to lift a candidate to be president of the United States," explained D Jermaine Husser, the former executive director of South Carolina's Low Country Food Bank.

But there is only so long you can pretend that such a large group of people doesn't exist, and as the poverty rates grow, more and more people who are likely to vote become ensnared in it. Gallup's Basic Access Index, which tracks access to basic needs like food, shelter and healthcare or medicines, is at the lowest it's been since its inception in January 2008. A new measurement of poverty by the Census Bureau, which takes regional cost of living, medical payments and other expenses that do not intrude on the official poverty count, found a third of Americans are either in poverty or desperately close to it.

"These numbers are higher than we anticipated," Trudi Renwick, the bureau's head poverty statistician, told the New York Times recently. "There are more people struggling than the official numbers show."

Poverty may be relative but hunger is absolute. The third world is alive and struggling in the heart of the first. No one can deny it exists. And those who claim they can't see it, either refuse to see it for what it is or simply do not want to look.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/dec/09/land-of-free-home-of-hungry

Edited December 27, 2011 by \

[Susita 175]

Yet, this is one area the Republicans are keen to target for cuts. They want to reduce spending on food stamps by around 20%, and in June, voted to slash a different health and nutrition scheme (WIC) for poor pregnant women and children by 10%, which would have denied assistance to around a quarter of a million people.

As I've said before, my tax dollars fund lots of questionable things that I'm not in agreement with, but I have no problem with them feeding the hungry.

I do have a problem with WIC though, where women are feeding their babies formula at $25/can when they have no reason not to breastfeed (but that's topic for another discussion)! I don't think it's so much their fault as it is lack of education & understanding. There is a big "#######" stigma in this country.

Just FYI, WIC will provide nursing mothers with foods that will nurture them & their babies and they also provide baby cereals to supplement.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

all these people dependent on government assistance.

This is a liberal Democrat's dream!

[Danno 1,228]

Nowhere is the chasm between America's political class and its working poor more vast than in the demand to cut food stamps

On Monday afternoon this week, Rachelle Grimmer went into a Department of Health and Human Services in Texas with her two children, Timothy, aged 10, and Ramie, aged 12, and asked for a new case worker who could assist her application for food stamps. She had first applied in July but had been told she hadn't provided enough information and, by most accounts, had been struggling to get by and get help since she moved from Ohio.

She was taken to a small room, where she pulled a gun, sparking a seven-hour standoff with police. Shortly before midnight, three shots were heard. Rachelle had shot both herself and her kids. Police rushed in to find the mother dead and Ramie and Timothy in critical condition. Earlier that morning, Ramie had posted a Facebook message, saying: "may die 2day". She actually hung on until Wednesday. Timothy's condition remains critical.

The tragic unravelling of this particular episode is hardly typical. But the desperation that underpins it is. For, in this period between Thanksgiving and Christmas (when many Americans are worrying about what overindulging will do to their waistline), a significant number is wracked with an entirely different concern: not having enough to eat.

This is no marginal group, no handful of unfortunates and ne'er-do-wells in a time of crisis. Indeed, in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, food insecurity is a common, growing and enduring problem. According to Gallup polling, one in five Americans reported not having enough money to buy food in the past 12 months – the highest level since the month Barack Obama was elected. Around the country, food banks are feeling the pinch of market forces: as poverty climbs, demand is rising and supply is falling as people who would have donated have less left to spare.

An analysis by the New York Times revealed a 17% increase in the number of school students receiving free and reduced lunches across the country between 2006/07 and now. In Rockdale County, east of Atlanta, 63% of students now have subsidised food – up from 46% four years ago.

Between 2008 and 2011, the number of those living on food stamps, assistance to those who lack sufficient money to feed themselves and their families, soared by 50%, putting one American in seven in the programme. Catholic Charities recently revealed that requests for the working poor were up 80% over the second quarter, and up 59% for the middle class.

Similarly, Operation Homefront, a national organisation that feeds the families of military personnel, has seen demand for help double over the last two years. The Washington Post reported that in Fort Hood, Texas, military families stayed up after midnight to register for a free turkey online for Thanksgiving. The 450 birds were gone within an hour. Even as soldiers fight for empire abroad, their families struggle for food at home.

You would think this would be a national disgrace. The land of the free – and the home of the hungry. The sheer scale and intensity of the problem refutes any suggestions of the undeserving poor.

But want has become a term of political abuse, with Newt Gingrich launching his campaign earlier this year by branding Obama "the food stamp president" and continues to berate him as such. Indeed, behind the partisan posturing over deficit reduction, it is rarely noted that rather than impose taxes on millionaires, Republicans are eager to balance the budget on the stomachs of the hungry.

As editor of the Left Business Observer, Doug Henwood, points out in a recent blog posting, these benefits are not particularly generous. "The average [food stamp] recipient gets $134 a month in assistance, which works out to $4.40 a day. That's 10% less than the US Department of Agriculture's "thrifty" meal budget, and about half its "moderate" budget. For your average well-fed American, living on a daily ration of less than $5 for food prepared at home would be hard to imagine. But without SNAP benefits, 46 million people would be in a state of anguish rather than just scraping by."

Yet, this is one area the Republicans are keen to target for cuts. They want to reduce spending on food stamps by around 20%, and in June, voted to slash a different health and nutrition scheme (WIC) for poor pregnant women and children by 10%, which would have denied assistance to around a quarter of a million people.

This will be the primary terrain on which the forthcoming elections will be fought: the needs and aspirations of the working poor. Not so much the destitute – America is always forgetting about them – but the working poor and those who fear descending among them. But for the Democrats to capitalise on these anxieties, they will have to shift the country's sense of what it takes to be poor and convince them that government has a role in alleviating that condition before desperation kicks in.

You'd think that would be straightforward. But illusions of meritocracy, equal opportunity, class fluidity and social mobility die hard. This a country where, according to a Pew survey in 2008, 91% believe they are either middle-class, upper middle-class or lower middle-class, and a Gallup poll in 2005 showed that while only 2% of Americans described themselves as "rich", 31% thought it very likely or somewhat likely they would "ever be rich". Sooner or later, though, reality tends to intrude.

As thousands of people gathered at New Orleans convention centre following Hurricane Katrina, Michael Brown, the hapless head of the disaster relief agency, Fema, was asked why he was not tending to them with shelter and water.

"We're seeing people that we didn't know exist," he said. This has been the official policy of America's political class for some time. "This is a special interest group that not many people talk about because they don't have the wealth to lift a candidate to be president of the United States," explained D Jermaine Husser, the former executive director of South Carolina's Low Country Food Bank.

But there is only so long you can pretend that such a large group of people doesn't exist, and as the poverty rates grow, more and more people who are likely to vote become ensnared in it. Gallup's Basic Access Index, which tracks access to basic needs like food, shelter and healthcare or medicines, is at the lowest it's been since its inception in January 2008. A new measurement of poverty by the Census Bureau, which takes regional cost of living, medical payments and other expenses that do not intrude on the official poverty count, found a third of Americans are either in poverty or desperately close to it.

"These numbers are higher than we anticipated," Trudi Renwick, the bureau's head poverty statistician, told the New York Times recently. "There are more people struggling than the official numbers show."

Poverty may be relative but hunger is absolute. The third world is alive and struggling in the heart of the first. No one can deny it exists. And those who claim they can't see it, either refuse to see it for what it is or simply do not want to look.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/dec/09/land-of-free-home-of-hungry

Okay, I'll be the bad guy.

THis is typical leftwing propaganda naturally built on half facts and all emotion.

Beginning with a story of the crazy lady who pulls out a gun to relieve the hunger ...by killing her kids in a public display.

In fact this emotional-motivation is nothing new I am reminded of the same tacit Charles Kuralt used what back in the early days of the "great society".... when the war on poverty was just ramping up. Why he did a segment on his "On the road" weekly show in which he visits the country in a winabago type set up.

He was somewhere in the South and seeking to move the nation he presented a withered baby, dead, and he claimed "this is the face of hunger in America"

implying that the child and untold others are starving to death when in fact the baby was born pre-mature and did not die of nutrition at all, never mind it did boost the countries desire to spend more to feed the non-existant swollen stomachs around the country.

The numbers offered here I suppose are accurate though presented a little deceptively.

"The average [food stamp] recipient gets $134 a month in assistance, which works out to $4.40 a day. That's 10% less than the US Department of Agriculture's "thrifty" meal budget, and about half its "moderate"

In reality that comes to 536 for a family of 4 which isn't a bad piece of help,

in fact I am more than certain I could feed a family of 4 on that alone, but are food stamps really suppose to totally feed everyone in a family? Can people do nothing to contribute to their own food budget?

But maybe we have the typical single mother with small children, how can she work> For one we pump billions into the public daycare program called "head start", which its self can not be justified by teat results but thats another govt industry sink hole.

So we have a young mother, with three young kids, certainly she is picking up a WIC allowance as well, why no mention of that in the story?

YOu say the kids are past the age? THey must be in school right, school now provide breakfast and lunch, thats two meals a day per child X 5 days a week.

If the kids are in school certainly the mother can get at least a part time job no?

The story mentioned the food banks, these some of these same people who are collecting WIC, collecting Food-stamps and having their kids fed at school 10 meals per week... per child are also showing up at food banks, reliving the drain on the food stamp card so it might be used in exchange for cab fare money, alcohol or cigarets.

The facts are, the most overweight kids come from the very homes in which this article claims kids are crying themselves to sleep at night in hunger.

I have known in the past year 4 single healthy 20 something people on food stamps (all white) and they seem to have money not only to shop at the more expensive stores for food (Harris Teeter) they always have money for beer and pot too.

NO DOUBT THERE ARE FOLKS WHO FALL THROUGH THE CRACKS, those are the folks who need help.

If I knew of anyone, any family in need, I would (and have) helped out, but we spend 77 billion a year to feed the hungry and here we are told -we just aren;t doing enough.

Here is how you get rid of the scam to a large degree,

-end the Food stamp program as it exists,

-recognize once more that these are "charity cases."

-Open up mini ware-house distribution points which deal in no frills foods, only healthy food, rice, beans vegetables , fruits, basic meats etc. If middle America is buying "Great Value" brands to save money why are charity cases buying Delmont'e?

No kid should go hungry because of a sh_tty parent, no family should starve when they fall on hard times but at the same time, no one living off charity has a right to demand to enjoy

the highest cost, lowest value food at my expense..... it simply breeds fraud and dependency.

As I've said before, my tax dollars fund lots of questionable things that I'm not in agreement with, but I have no problem with them feeding the hungry.

I do have a problem with WIC though, where women are feeding their babies formula at $25/can when they have no reason not to breastfeed (but that's topic for another discussion)! I don't think it's so much their fault as it is lack of education & understanding. There is a big "#######" stigma in this country.

Just FYI, WIC will provide nursing mothers with foods that will nurture them & their babies and they also provide baby cereals to supplement.

Up to what age?

[Susita 175]

But maybe we have the typical single mother with small children, how can she work> For one we pump billions into the public daycare program called "head start", which its self can not be justified by teat results but thats another govt industry sink hole.

Just to clarify, Danno... Head Start is a pre-school program, not a daycare program. It's aim is to get children ready for kindergarten. It's typically half-day (at least here in my area it is about 4 hours/day). Allowing for travel time, a parent would only be able to work 3 1/2 hours per day tops. Most jobs have minimum 4 hour shifts, so I don't think that would quite work out overall. Just saying.

Some counties/states may have subsidized day care programs, but the income requirements are very, very low, even here in New York. It kind of encourages women not to work or to only work part-time, because if you're even $5 over the limit you do not qualify AT ALL. IMHO, a sliding scale would be more appropriate (you earn more, you pay more), but it doesn't work that way.

Up to what age?

I'm not sure what you're referring to with this question. How long they provide pregnant/nursing mothers with WIC benefits? I think it's until the child turns 5, although they reduce significantly after the child turns 1. They only provide staples (milk, beans, 100% fruit juices, cereals... IMO nourishing, healthy foods).

If you were asking about breastfeeding, it's up to the mother when she wants to stop but they say that after a year babies can drink cow's milk.

[lostinblue 1,989]

If she landed in North Dakota instead of Texas She could have found a job.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-03-16-north-dakota-census_N.htm

The superstar of North Dakota is its economy. The state's unemployment rate hasn't touched 5% since 1987. The state's per capita income rose over the decade from 38th in the nation to 17th, the biggest advance of any state.

"We've had an absolutely stellar few years," says University of North Dakota economist David Flynn. "In all honesty, when you look ahead, we should continue to do well for quite a while."

North Dakota is enjoying an oil boom in the western part of the state, drawing workers from across the country. Williston, in oil country, grew 17.6% to 14,716. The oil windfall has created a $1 billion state budget surplus.

People just have to use their head and care about their children.If you are going to move go to a state that is looking for workers.

[Danno 1,228]

Just to clarify, Danno... Head Start is a pre-school program, not a daycare program. It's aim is to get children ready for kindergarten. It's typically half-day (at least here in my area it is about 4 hours/day). Allowing for travel time, a parent would only be able to work 3 1/2 hours per day tops. Most jobs have minimum 4 hour shifts, so I don't think that would quite work out overall. Just saying.

Some counties/states may have subsidized day care programs, but the income requirements are very, very low, even here in New York. It kind of encourages women not to work or to only work part-time, because if you're even $5 over the limit you do not qualify AT ALL. IMHO, a sliding scale would be more appropriate (you earn more, you pay more), but it doesn't work that way.

Thanks for your thoughts, I would of course reply in regards to Head-Start, of course it supposed to give kids early education in order to move them along when they reach school, only problem is: If that is their aim (as you contend ) they have failed and wasted all those billions of dollars as test scores show any improvement vanishes within just a few years.

In other words Head Start kids score no better than kids not in head start within just a few years.

Thats why I refer to it as a baby sitting service and people who are vary familiar with the program have agreed.

As for the hours, you are right each State I believe manages their own program and so there are variances in hours and so forth but

it's clearly a waste of money for the tax payers but a another windfall for the industry which has sprouted up from it.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I don't know why they need food stamps. The food banks around here give out so much free food, that the needy set up market stalls nearby to sell the food they don't need for cash.

[웃 910]

If I knew of anyone, any family in need, I would (and have) helped out, but we spend 77 billion a year to feed the hungry and here we are told -we just aren;t doing enough.

Here is how you get rid of the scam to a large degree,

-end the Food stamp program as it exists,

-recognize once more that these are "charity cases."

-Open up mini ware-house distribution points which deal in no frills foods, only healthy food, rice, beans vegetables , fruits, basic meats etc. If middle America is buying "Great Value" brands to save money why are charity cases buying Delmont'e?

No kid should go hungry because of a sh_tty parent, no family should starve when they fall on hard times but at the same time, no one living off charity has a right to demand to enjoy

the highest cost, lowest value food at my expense..... it simply breeds fraud and dependency.

Maybe stop the war spending and nation rebuilding experiments? A decade in Iraq / Afghanistan or feed/educate every child on earth for 32 years (using the $465 billion and 3 trillion numbers below).

There is something wrong with this picture (defense spending, the red bars, went from $300 billion to $700 billion in 9 years)...That is a lot of tax payer money to spend a year, don't you think?

[Ban Hammer 13,508]

There is something wrong with this picture (defense spending, the red bars, went from $300 billion to $700 billion in 9 years)...That is a lot of tax payer money to spend a year, don't you think?

all defense spending does not equate to the war on terror.

[Danno 1,228]

Maybe stop the war spending and nation rebuilding experiments? A decade in Iraq / Afghanistan or feed/educate every child on earth for 32 years (using the $465 billion and 3 trillion numbers below).

This is where you and so many other miss the point, if we were running trillion dollar surpluses we still have no business enabling people to live off of others.

It is wrong for both parties, the giver is using coupons while the taker feels no need.

The giver works for what he consumes, the taker has arraigned his life in such a way that he contributes nothing..... and then imposes guilt on everyone else if the taker does not have equal in quality and value as the giver enjoys.

Again, I don't want to let people starve, no matter how pathetic they might be but I also want to avoid creating "comfortable poverty" which leaves little motivation to better ones self.

-Here is your bag of beans, Rice, powder milk eggs and cheese.

Has anyone else noticed the near disappearance of back yard gardens by the poor? It's usually the middle income folks who toy with it. (Myself included)

My dear Granny worked a garden into her late eighties.