Cuts to food stamps will hit red state residents hardest

[one...two...tree 2,762]

While cutting food stamps remains atop the Republican agenda, a new Gallup poll reminds us that hunger continues to run rampant in America. The GOP (along with a pliant media) has spent a lot of time trying to connect the increase in food stamp spending to expanded eligibility, to wit: the slumming 20-something hipster who uses the benefit to bolster his shopping list. But Gallup demonstrates that hunger is everywhere in the U.S. right now. According to the poll, over 18 percent of Americans “say there have been times when they could not afford the food they needed” during the last year. In 15 states, that figure jumps to one in five Americans.

There’s an odd political angle to this poll. The top-10 list for states with the highest hunger rates includes the GOP strongholds of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Louisiana. More than half of those states are as red as they come, i.e. even in a landslide these states wouldn’t back Obama.

But here’s the kicker: Gallup mapped the percentage of people who “lacked money for food.” What do you notice?

Red America suffers from the highest hunger rates generally — the exception being the Plains states that have been enjoying, up until recently, an agriculture boom.

A cynic would thus observe the deep irony that Republicans have dubbed Obama the “Food Stamp President,” while the Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, the party’s acknowledged deep-thinking wonk, wants to cut food stamps by $133 billion over the next decade.

This might be a good time to refer back to this excellent Economist analysis of food-stamp recipients:

It is also hard to argue that food-stamp recipients are undeserving. About half of them are children, and another 8% are elderly. Only 14% of food-stamp households have incomes above the poverty line; 41% have incomes of half that level or less, and 18% have no income at all. The average participating family has only $101 in savings or valuables. Less than a tenth of recipients also receive cash payments from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programme (TANF), the reformed version of welfare; roughly a third get at least some income from wages.

The fact that Republicans have utterly abandoned the economic interests of vast swaths of their supporters in favor of whatever it is that Grover Norquist and the Koch brothers want policies that tilt toward the rich doesn’t represent irony as far as I’m concerned. Rather, it’s tragedy.

http://grist.org/food/new-data-says-red-state-residents-going-hungry-while-the-gop-plans-food-stamp-cuts/

[^_^ 5,021]

They can pray for food.

God always listens. That's why historically mass starvation events have only occurred in predominantly atheist societies.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

They can pray for food.

God always listens. That's why historically mass starvation events have only occurred in predominantly atheist societies.

Red states have ammo and hate furry creatures. They won't starve.

[^_^ 5,021]

Red states have ammo and hate furry creatures. They won't starve.

Yum.

[JohnR! 5,495]

[rocks 494]

This is the same poll that I got this from.

One in Four Mississippi Residents Struggle to Afford Food

[mawilson 2,133]

Why not just send them food - specifically, healthy food, e.g. vegetables? Create jobs for local producers and growers, and tackle the obesity problem in one shot.

[^_^ 5,021]

Why not just send them food - specifically, healthy food, e.g. vegetables? Create jobs for local producers and growers, and tackle the obesity problem in one shot.

That's socialism.

[mawilson 2,133]

That's socialism.

So?

[^_^ 5,021]

So?

Socialism is a gateway drug that ends in evil.

[mawilson 2,133]

Socialism is a gateway drug that ends in evil.

Food stamps are socialist evil to begin with.

[^_^ 5,021]

Food stamps are socialist evil to begin with.

That's why we're gonna get rid of them. People should only eat what they can afford. Food is a luxury, not a right.

Just because you're alive doesn't mean you get food. Someone has to grow that food! If food is a right then farmers are slaves.

[rocks 494]

Why not just send them food - specifically, healthy food, e.g. vegetables? Create jobs for local producers and growers, and tackle the obesity problem in one shot.

They give out "food" at the WIC centers here. If you like rotten apples and sweet potatoes that leak black gunk on your floor, it's great food. If this could be done properly, it would be a great idea.

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

Why not just send them food - specifically, healthy food, e.g. vegetables? Create jobs for local producers and growers, and tackle the obesity problem in one shot.

Because then they would have to exert a lot fo effort to sell and trade that food for lottery tickets beet and Press on Nails.

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

http://grist.org/food/new-data-says-red-state-residents-going-hungry-while-the-gop-plans-food-stamp-cuts/

Mississippi has the highest obesity rate. Explain.