Day before Thanksgiving seems like a good time to take a look at hunger in the U.S.A. The good news is, hunger didn't worsen in the last year. The bad news is, it stayed as bad as it's been since the government began keeping track 15 years ago. (We began keeping track only 15 years ago?)
The number of Americans fighting off hunger stayed level last year, though food insecurity rates remain the highest they have been since the federal government began keeping track 15 years ago, a Department of Agriculture report released Monday found.
About 14.7 percent of U.S. households were "food insecure" in 2009, meaning they had difficulty feeding one or more of their members at some point last year due to a lack of financial resources, according to the report. That equates to 17.4 million households total, or roughly 45 million people.
That's about one in six Americans. And that includes some 17 million children. And this will come as no surprise: Hunger is most prevalent among racial minorities.
Black (25.7 percent) and Hispanic (26.9 percent) households experienced food insecurity at far higher rates than the national average.
It's a national disgrace. We're spending some four to six trillion dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (according to Joe Stiglitz) and we can't -- sorry, we don't -- feed our own people.
Hunger, fyi, is generally defined as an uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food. Outright starvation in this country is rare, but make no mistake, the problem does enormous damage.
The mental and physical changes that accompany inadequate food intakes can have harmful effects on learning, development, productivity, physical and psychological health, and family life.
Which makes sense. When I, a privileged pie-hole stuffer, don't eat for a half a day, I'm irritable and have trouble focusing. Day after day of that? I can't imagine. And the impact of hunger is most severe on developing bodies and brains:
[F]ood insecure low income [children] were more likely to experience irritability, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating compared to other children. Research has shown that food insecurity was associated with grade repetition, absenteeism, tardiness, anxiety, aggression, poor mathematics scores, psychosocial dysfunction and difficulty with social interaction among 6 to 12 year old children. Food insecurity has also shown to be associated with suicide and depressive disorders among 15 to 16 year old children after controlling for income and other factors.
And of course it's linked to other problems, like homelessness. For many people, soup kitchens are a lifeline. The excellent website I linked to above collects stories about people suffering from hunger, like Robert, a 57-year-old Vietnam Vet who lives in Connecticut.
Now living out of a van which he parks each night at local truck stops, Robert relies on the nutritional salads and vegetables he receives from the Community Kitchen. Often times, the hot meal they serve Robert on the four days they are open is the only food he can rely on for the day. In return, Robert spends many of his days helping out with the clean up after meals in the community soup kitchen, washing over 300 plates on their busiest days. Emotionally, he has embraced the community of staff, volunteers, and other clients as his own family, as they have done with him.
Robert’s hardest days are Wednesday and Sunday, when he doesn’t have the soup kitchen, meal, work, and friends to look forward to. He braces himself for a cold winter ahead and is gathering blankets and coats to keep warm in his van at night. Despite it all, he is looking forward to a festive Thanksgiving meal and to a holiday season where he feels blessed and thankful for the opportunity and support the Community Soup Kitchen provides him and others in need in the area.
So why didn't hunger get worse in the last year? Because of gubmint.
Hunger was alleviated by that horrible no good Wall Street-bailout known as the stimulus package. That, along with other federal programs, are, according to the New York City Coalition Against Hunger's Annual Report, preventing "a greater hunger catastrophe."
Demand at New York City's 1,100 plus food pantries increased by 6.8 percent overall in 2010, on top of a 20.8 percent increase in 2009. Despite this, most hungry New Yorkers were able to hang on, due in large part due to a massive increase in anti-hunger funding through the stimulus package...as well as higher rates of enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [Food Stamps]. Similarly in 2009, stimulus spending and food stamps program participation prevented a greater hunger catastrophe.
It takes government to correct the inevitable injustices of capitalism, which simply isn't capable of alleviating hunger or any other form of poverty. This is, as Chris Floyd says, "a blatantly obvious, common-as-dirt fact," one that Republicans don't accept and that Democrats are reluctant to mention even if they accept it.
The market is designed to make money. If you rely on the market to achieve social goals -- such as the allieviation of poverty, or the provision of public services necessary for the common good -- then you will fail.