From the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (word doc) comes this shocking fact:
Despite the recent stock market boom, the number of city residents who lack sufficient food, as well as the number forced to use charitable soup kitchens and food pantries, continued to soar, according to a new report by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH).
During the most recent three year time period (2003-2005), 1,256,000 of the city's residents -- one in six -- lived in households that could not afford to purchase an adequate supply of food, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data analyzed by NYCCAH. During this time, 15.4% of city residents lived in those food insecure households, representing an approximately 112,000-person increase over the 2000-2003 time period, when 14.0% of New Yorkers lived in such households.
In 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, New York was the only state in the nation in which both poverty and overall earnings income increased, making the state a leader in inequality of wealth.
The Coalition Against Hunger’s survey report (available at http://www.nyccah.org)entitled "Hunger Hangs on: Despite Stock Market Boom, New York City's Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens Are Still Overwhelmed,” also concludes that hunger and poverty are increasing because low-wage workers are facing declining wages at the same time costs for housing, food, and other basic necessities are rapidly increasing, while the government safety net has failed to keep up with rising needs.
The report has a number of hair-raising statistics, as well as a fairly straightforward programme to work towards alleviating the issue. Taxing the rich may sound simplistic, but it is part of it, and when you think of it, it sounds pretty damn reasonable. Fighting poverty and inequality seems like such a basic, good cause - but somehow, I don't think the Republicans will do it.
It's good to see that measures like increasing the minimum wage, a first step, are part of the early measures announced by the Democrats.
Still, more than one million hungry people in NYC. How scary is that?
Update [2006-11-23 13:40:2 by Jerome a Paris]: As Migeru reminds me in the comments, the Wapo recently had a spooky article on this topic:
Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry
The U.S. government has vowed that Americans will never be hungry again. But they may experience "very low food security."
Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. But not this year.
Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."
The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.
Doubleplusgood