i know there are... and THAT, is a crime. all so we can give welfare to illegals and drunken dopeheads
Posted on 11/22/2015 4:37:42 PM PST by daniel1212
Food hunger in America: More Hype than Reality. Why?
He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit. (Proverbs 12:17)
We see often such claims in the media such as that "millions in people here in American could be staring at an empty plate," "49 million people [approx. 1 out of 6 in American]...face hunger," "millions of Americans go to bed hungry," "1 in 7 people struggles with hunger in the US," (Feeding America) or "1 in 6 people in America faces hunger every day," (https://www.dosomething.org) or "50 million Americans—including 1 out of every 4 children—do not know where their next meal is coming from," (Huffington Post) or "For one in ten Americans, hunger is an everyday reality." (thehungersite.greatergood.com)
Yet these are misleading claims, often used to raise funds, which claims they can make because technically they can claim they are true, and they could claim even higher figures if they dared, for most every person experiences some degree of hunger every day, this being an everyday reality which precedes eating, versus a characteristic lack of not being able to obtain food. In addition, not knowing where your next meal is coming from can be due to having many places to choose from, and many stare at an empty plate before it is filled, especially seeing as Americans spend half of their food dollars eating out, (http://ushfc.org/about), spending $232 per month eating meals prepared outside the home, with the average cost for a meal per person outside the home being $12.75 vs as low as $2.00 per person for home-prepared meals. (http://www.thesimpledollar.com/dont-eat-out-as-often-188365/)
Forbes reports, In 1901, according to a 1997 Bureau of Labor Statistics study, the average family spent almost half of their budget on food. Just 3% of that went to meals away from home. Today, we only spend an average 13.3% of our budgets on food–but 42% of that money is spent in restaurants. But the cost of housing has increased 100% since 1960, so that the average American household spends about one third of their yearly budget on shelter, with low-earning groups tending to spend more proportionally on shelter than top earners. (http://www.forbes.com/2006/07/19/spending-income-level_cx_lh_de_0719spending.html)
Yet even the typical low-income individual ate nearly 30% of meals outside of the home in 2002. (http://www.nutrition411.com/content/thrifty-food-plan-tfp)] Moreover, according to the 2011-12 National Survey of Children's Health, families with the lowest incomes have the highest percentage of children who are overweight or obese. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/national/snap-child-obesity) Which is partly due to eating the wrong kinds of foods, and too often.
This is in stark contrast to so many "third world countries" where the problem of real hunger is a common reality, which many organizations work to combat. But going back to the subject of what can be called hype on hunger in America, one organization guilty of such claims (not all are) is Feeding America. In Sept. 2014, the New York Post carried an op-ed by written by William Benson Huber titled, Feeding America: ‘Public service' lies" in which he challenged their radio ad claim that "Why, in a country as rich as America, should I have to go to bed hungry?†Huber points to the basis for Feeding America’s claim as being from US Department of Agriculture surveys, which I examine below.
Huber states that Census polling asked "heads of households if any member of the family missed even a single meal, on one day a year, because of a lack of resources: Only 0.01 percent said “yes†— one out of 1,000. This is what US taxpayers should expect: We spend almost $1 trillion a year on state and federal safety-net programs for the 46 million people defined as living in poverty ($21,000 per individual, nearly $87,000 per family of four)." "Never mind that 35 percent of poor kids are obese." That millions of Americans go to bed hungry has no real support that I found and likely is specious extrapolation.
Huber finds that the Feeding America spots are distributed via the Ad Council, which the US Department of Agriculture is a major Ad Council client of. And "By feeding the false perception of rampant child hunger, the Ad Council is aiding and abetting the eternal bureaucratic demand for more studies, more personnel, greater influence and bigger budgets."* — http://nypost.com/2014/09/28/feeding-america-public-service-lies/
Another researcher asks, Is America Struggling with Hunger? (Jeremie T.A. Rostan, October 28, 2009 ;https://mises.org/library/america-struggling-hunger) and finds (excerpts):
The now-famous statistic comes from the annual Food Security Survey (FSS) of the United States Department of Agriculture.[1] ...
So, just how many Americans do face hunger? Well, households with "very low food security" have represented a consistent third of all food-insecure households in past years — around 4 percent of total households. Yet, this still does not mean that one in twenty-five Americans struggles with hunger...
...until 2005, the FSS divided food insecurity into "food insecurity without hunger" and "food insecurity with hunger." It then replaced those labels, without any change in their statistical definition, with "low food security" and "very low food security," respectively. Thus, the famous "one-in-eight" hungry Americans include all Americans living in households that, until 2005, were described as food insecure, but without hunger...
...activists obviously point out the case of children. Yet, a close look at the actual data reveals that less than 1 percent of households with children had very low food security among children.[5]...
...only 15 percent of households with incomes below the poverty line have very low food security.[7]...
Certainly, this constitutes a problem; even more certainly, the truth is far from the collective-emergency myth that "one in eight Americans is struggling with hunger."
[1] A brief summary is accessible at the US Department of Agriculture website.
[2] Household Food Security in the United States, 2005, Economic Research Services, United States Department of Agriculture, p. 10.
[3] US Department of Agriculture.
[4] Household Food Security in the United States, 2005, p. 6.
[5] US Department of Agriculture.
[6] Household Food Security in the United States, 2005, p. 13.
[7] Household Food Security in the United States, 2005, p. 16.
[8] The criterion I use to classify households as "lacking economic resources" is the Poverty Line x 1.3 ratio.
Survey Questions Used by USDA to Assess Household Food Security, and findings
Below are questions and answers from the 2013 from the 2013 Household Food Security in the United States in 2013 Statistical Supplement (http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1565415/err173.pdf;) with my comments in brackets.
The findings are in italics, and which are the type likely to be declared by nutritional alarmists, without qualification, yet these (see p. 5), up to number 11, refer to the 5.6% of households judged to be "severely food insecure," and which figure is obtained based on if they reported six or more (8 or more if with children) food-insecure conditions at any time during the previous 12 months (pp. 4,10), although for three-fourths of these households, the conditions were recurring, experienced in 3 or more months of the year (p. 11).
However, the questions also seem to be purposely worded, with sufficient ambiguity, to obtain the highest alarmist numbers. See below. Moreover, as the report also states, while they reported multiple indications of food access problems and reduced diet quality at least once during the year, they typically reported few, if any, indications of reduced food intake.
It is upon which that we see the misleading claims in the media.
1. "We worried whether our food would run out before we got money to buy more." Was that often, sometimes, or never true for you in the last 12 months?
99 percent reported having worried that their food would run out before they got money to buy more.
[Meaning in the context of the survey, that 5.6% of households were worried (at least once — "ever") during the last year that their food would run out before they got money to buy more. Most any persons could say yes to this question, as worded, for it could even refer to not having enough money one day at the check out counter, or as being due to wanted to buy more pizza.
In addition, by that measure I lived in food insecurity all my childhood, as my parents had often to scrimp, and I remember being normally restricted to one cup of soda pop (at a nicket a quart) person week. Yet we ate balanced meals, with eating out being a rare treat to a burger chain which had 15 cent burgers (circa 1965), and were better fed than my shorter parents. Generations of food insecurity!
2. "The food that we bought just didn't last and we didn't have money to get more." Was that often, sometimes, or never true for you in the last 12 months?
98 percent reported that the food they bought just did not last and they did not have money to get more. [Once again, this refers to whether 5.6% of households ever faced this during the past year. Most everyone with kids can say “yes†at least once during the year, even if not having enough money for another order of fries.]
3. "We couldn't afford to eat balanced meals." Was that often, sometimes, or never true for you in the last 12 months?
94 percent reported that they could not afford to eat balanced meals.
[Meaning for 5.6% of households if they "ever"faced this during the last year. And just how many low-income homes today know or try to provide balanced meals for their kids. “52% of Americans (that were polled) believed doing their taxes was easier than figuring out how to eat healthy.†(https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-american-eating-habits) Not being able to afford to eat balanced meals is likely is due to not knowing how to create meals from scratch, versus prepared foods.]
4. In the last 12 months, did you or other adults in the household ever cut the size of your meals or skip meals because there wasn't enough money for food?
97 percent reported that an adult had cut the size of meals or skipped meals because there was not enough money for food.
[So it is an alarming statistic that even once during the past year 5.6% of households had to do this? And what is meant by skipping meals does not mean such had to go hungry for long, since often there are no meal times, and there may have to eat snacks until someone comes up with some money.
Yet two out of three U.S. adults are overweight or obese (69 percent) and one out of three are obese (36 percent). — http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/obesity-prevention-source/obesity-trends/obesity-rates-worldwide. including 31.8% of children and adolescents being overweight or obese. — http://frac.org/initiatives/hunger-and-obesity/obesity-in-the-us. Sounds like not enough meals are skipped or downsized.]
5. (If yes to question 4) How often did this happen--almost every month, some months but not every month, or in only 1 or 2 months?
89 percent reported that this had occurred in 3 or more months.
[So all this needs to mean is that over the course of 3 months the size of a meal was downsized by 5.6% of households due to lack of money. Which could even mean skipping dessert = “food insecurityâ€.]
6. In the last 12 months, did you ever eat less than you felt you should because there wasn't enough money for food?
95 percent reported that they had eaten less than they felt they should because there was not enough money for food.
[Same restricted class even if once during the year. Which could mean they did not bring enough money when eating out, since even low-income households spend 30% of meals (approx. 1 out of 3) outside of the home. And considering that obesity rates are as high or higher among those on low-income, then what one thinks they should eat is often too much, or the wrong kind of food.]
7. In the last 12 months, were you ever hungry, but didn't eat, because there wasn't enough money for food?
66 percent reported that they had been hungry but did not eat because they could not afford enough food.
[Which again, covers the span of an entire year. And besides being beneficial to health if occasional, this hunger can happen because one did not have enough money with them at the time. The question also does exclude eating out.]
8. In the last 12 months, did you lose weight because there wasn't enough money for food?
45 percent reported having lost weight because they did not have enough money for food.
[Same restricted class, and even if once during the year. Yet how many went to bed hungry, or needed to lose weight (69% of all Americans), or simply lost weight for a day?]
9. In the last 12 months did you or other adults in your household ever not eat for a whole day because there wasn't enough money for food?
29 percent reported that an adult did not eat for a whole day because there was not enough money for food.
[I find it very hard to believe that even 29% of adults in 5.6% of households went a whole day without food for any reason in the last 12 months, at least in any major city, and had zero money even for a snack, or could not find any food.
As with other responses, the honesty factor is an issue, especially in dealing with how much good one does (most people exaggerate how often they attend church for instance) or how much they suffer.] It is also very hard to believe that going without food for a day would be detrimental, especially for the 68.8 percent of adults which are considered to be overweight or obese (35.7 percent) — http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/Pages/overweight-obesity-statistics.aspx]
10. (If yes to question 9) How often did this happen--almost every month, some months but not every month, or in only 1 or 2 months?
23 percent reported that this ha d occurred in 3 or more months.
[Even more hard to believe. At least in the city, one can obtain food daily without any money. Just one program for senior, Meals on Wheels, is estimated to serve about million people.]
(Questions 11-18 were asked only if the household included children age 0-17)
â–º The following is from the statistical Supplement to Household Food Security in the United States in 2014, AP-06 9 (http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/1896824/ap069.pdf) referring to all households (except rich households which did not indicate any problems with food access in response to questions 1+2).
11. "We relied on only a few kinds of low-cost food to feed our children because we were running out of money to buy food."
15.5% said they did so.
Which refers to anytime during the year, and simply does not necessarily translate into a lack of money for good food, as home-cooked meals are low cost. Likely for many (not all) this answer largely refers to eating snacks due to wasting money before on eating out and or otherwise buying prepared food. Or just eating too much. The first two possibilities are consistent with the findings that modern Americans in general spend less time in food preparation, with an approximate halving of time for women (1975-2006) and only slightly more than half spend any time cooking on a given day. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3639863/) That, combined with the abundance of readily available low-cost food (snacks, etc.) and advertisements geared toward children for them (and characteristic lack of structure and child discipline) means that much money is wasted on junk and or prepared food.
Today, relying on only a few kinds of low-cost food means they do so at the end of the month or week, because after the cable TV bill and eating out there was not enough to buy steak. “Americans spend half of their food dollars eating out.†(http://ushfc.org/about), spending $232 per month eating meals prepared outside the home. (http://www.thesimpledollar.com/dont-eat-out-as-often-188365/) And the typical low-income individual ate nearly 30% of meals outside of the home in 2002. (http://www.nutrition411.com/content/thrifty-food-plan-tfp)]
â–º News stories:
*Consider the disturbing tale of Feed The Children, an Oklahoma City organization that has a long, controversial history. The non-profit takes in roughly $1 billion annually in cash and in-kind contributions, making it one of the nation's largest charities. The charity's claim that it spends 91% of donations on programs likely makes donors assume that the charity is doling out 91 cents worth of food for every $1 raised, but that claim is completely misleading, said Laurie Styron, an analyst with the American Institute of Philanthropy, which examines the finances of some 500 large national charities and sponsors a charity rating service at charitywatch.org.
When you take out the fudging, AIP says this group spends less than 25 cents of every donated dollar feeding children. Roughly 65 cents of every dollar is spent raising money, largely by running heart-rending radio and television advertisements and sending out direct-mail appeals, according to AIP's analysis. Feed The Children has plenty of other problems too, including a legal dispute between its board and founder Larry Jones, who was recently ousted...
Feed The Children spends $20.7 million on administrative expenses, including six-figure salaries for Larry Jones ($234,937); Frances Sue Jones ($187,052) and Larri Sue Jones ($166,320), according to Charity Navigator. But, with reported contributions exceeding $1 billion, these expenses account for less than 2% of Feed The Children's budget...(Charities Fake Their Numbers to Look Good" http://www.cbsnews.com/news/charities-fake-their-numbers-to-look-good)
Feed The Children Paid Founder $800K
By Mark Hrywna - May 30, 2013
Feed The Children (FTC) has paid its estranged founder $800,000 as part of a legal settlement reached in January 2011.
The settlement was for an undisclosed sum and paid last year, but appears on the latest tax filing for the Oklahoma City, Okla.-based charity’s fiscal year ending in June 2012. The $800,000 payment to Larry Jones was reported as “other compensation†and described in the tax information form as a severance payment. — http://www.thenonprofittimes.com/news-articles/feed-the-children-paid-founder-800k/
I can remember when I was "poor." That is, I was just out of the military and working as a rental agent. I could only get 30 hours a week, I didn't qualify for any aid because I had no children, and it was difficult to get another job because I had no car and few skills. So I just worked and went without car, without phone, without insurance, without ever, ever dining out, without anything other than basic cable (I had to be able to watch the news.) Lived on ramen, and rice and beans, and a few veggies and tuna and peanut butter.
But even then, I knew I was lucky. I was living in a nice little one bedroom apartment in a safe part of town. There were a few thrift stores on the bus line. I was comfortable enough. And I knew that by American standards, I was poor. But by India standards... I was doing pretty good! LOL!
I’m laughing because I just had this conversation with my mother last week. I was at an upscale supermarket here in Pittsburgh. All I wanted was one of those rotisserie chickens in the prepared foods section so I grabbed it and headed to that department’s little checkout counter. A woman in front of me had a plate piled high of gourmet prepared foods. $13 I think her total came to and she whipped out her food stamp card to pay for it. This was around two weeks ago so it was early November. My mom is a retired public assistance case worker; I was telling her this and she lost it saying that’s precisely why she doesn’t donate to any food banks. She said the food stamp people spend their money irresponsibly then show up at the local food banks once their food stamps have run out for the month or the use the food bank for their staples and buy junk w/ the food stamps.
Unreal. The system is totally broken.
Oh yeah I would add that I, too, am all for helping the poor but when I look around, it seems to me we have more spiritually poor people in this country than materially poor. Pray for our nation.
There was a time when my mom and dad, both gone now, had to do that. I bought my dad’s heart meds many times because they couldn’t afford them. Before Medicare part D.
Not so sure that’s the case now. The ones who may be hurting are the ones not quite old enough for Social Security. The working poor.
The pastor read this story in church today....
The Rich Family in Our Church
I’ll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy 12, and my older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us knew what it was like to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money. By 1946, my older sisters were married, and my brothers had left home.
A month before Easter, the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give sacrificially. When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our grocery money for the offering. Then we thought that if we kept our electric lights turned out as much as possible and didn’t listen to the radio, we’d save money on that month’s electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning jobs as possible, and both of us baby sat for everyone we could. For 15 cents, we could buy enough cotton loops to make three potholders to sell for $1. We made $20 on potholders.
That month was one of the best of our lives. Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we’d sit in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in our church, so we figured that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 times that much. After all, every Sunday the Pastor had reminded everyone to save for the sacrificial offering.
The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change. We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money before. That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn’t care that we wouldn’t have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering. We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We didn’t own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it didn’t seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet, but we sat in church proudly, despite how we looked. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I felt so rich.
When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us girls put in a $20. As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch, Mom had a surprise for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our fried potatoes!
Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn’t say a word. She opened the envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one $10 bill, and seventeen $1 bills. Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn’t talk, but instead, just sat and stared at the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white trash.
We kids had had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn’t have our mom and dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and see whether we got the fork or the spoon that night. We had two knives which we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn’t have a lot of things that other people had, but I’d never thought we were poor. That Easter Day I found out we were poor. The minister had brought us the money for the poor family, so we must be poor.
I didn’t like being poor. I looked at my dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed that I didn’t want to go back to church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor! I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew we were poor. I decided I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was all the law required at that time.
We sat in silence for a long time. Then it got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn’t know. We’d never known we were poor.
We didn’t want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn’t talk on the way. Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made buildings out of sun-dried bricks, but they need money to buy roofs. He said $100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, “Can’t we all sacrifice to help these poor people?”
We looked at each other and smiled for the first time in a week. Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the offering plate. When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over $100. The missionary was excited. He hadn’t expected such a large offering from our small church. He said, “You must have some rich people in this church.”
Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that “little over $100.” We were the rich family in the church! Hadn’t the missionary said so? Deep down, I knew that we were actually a rich family.
by Eddie Ogan
https://bible.org/illustration/rich-family-our-church
There is ZERO hunger in the USA. Zero. There are no poor people in the USA.
I’ve tried to give away things that I just couldn’t. 15 years ago those items could have been sold instead of given away, yet, no takers.
There are no poor in America.
i know there are... and THAT, is a crime. all so we can give welfare to illegals and drunken dopeheads
LOL, part of being young is to want to get ahead, and not have the means or experience to do so.
I have never, ever, wanted for the basics.
Ever. (Unless you count being in the military and spending all your money stupidly at the beginning of the month, then having to eat but Wonder bread and tub margarine with powdered ice tea to drink for the rest of the month. But that is more stupidity than “want”.)
But, even though I have never experienced real hunger or physical privation due to poverty, I have striven my entire life never to take that for granted.
But part of being young in an affluent society was, for me, the desire to work hard, learn when I could, and move ahead.
I think that happens to a combination of people who thought they might have things handled, and didn’t because of changes in the economy, those who aren’t going to apply for welfare, and those who don’t know how to or are at the edge of qualifying.
I can tell you “yes” to several ofbthose questions. We definitely had to cut back on our grocery bills for lack of money but we’ve always had enough to eat. If everything keep’s going up because of the shyster in office we may not though. Just a few years ago we were producing income in excess of $200K for many years. Taxes kicked our tail every year.
Plus, air conditioning, wheels and iPhones.
Every year, our family has always done something charitable, for example donating food. Then, the past few years, for the first time, we fell on hard times.
I’ve always been very careful with my money, but sometimes circumstances beyond your control happen.
The worst period was this past summer when, for a few weeks, I had less than $1. I’m serious.
When you have no money and a family to feed, you’d be amazed by what you can make with whatever’s in your cupboard, even just flour and water.
Once the cupboard is empty, you’d be amazed at what you can sell, even junk around the house, for some quick cash.
Even though other people would’ve happily helped us, if they’d known, I didn’t want to ask for help. At one point, my sons and I were in a store, with a few dollars, trying to figure out what to buy that we could stretch out. A sweet lady (who happened to be black, a detail I add just because of some of the stuff people write on this forum) must’ve realized what was going on and tried to hand me a $20 bill. I thanked her very much but refused to take it. She looked angry at me, but I knew we were just going through a tough period.
Eventually, everything did work out. But, now I have no trouble believing there must be some very poor people, with very little food to eat, in this country.
Oh, the people who know how to game the system are doing fine, in some cases better than the rest of us.
I’m thinking more of the disabled and/or elderly and/or ill people who might’ve fallen on hard times.
They are eating too much junk foods, fatty foods, chips, sugary foods full of bizarre additives that make them sick and give them diabetes. Diabetes is a rapidly expanding expense for Medicaid.
You are right they are nutritionally deficient from all those crap foods. They are starving themselves this way but not from not getting enough taxpayers money to eat well enough, eat a decent diet. We all know how fat our poor people are these days. Mostly from a high junk food diet and watching their 50" LED TVs all day. Its not hard to cook and eat a lot of beans and rice plus chicken, meat, vegetables and fruits. They choose not to plus some are too dumb to do so.
Their children are also vegetating and become miniature Michelin Tire Men like the six year old boy I saw the other day
the caste system is wonderful.
Hardest time for me was going from a weekly paid job to a monthly paid job. I like the Biblical, pay at the end of the day rule. Electronically they could do it.
Good analysis. I’m continually annoyed by those public service radio ads. They’ve always seemed phony to me too. They act as if there’s a war on hunger in this country, but we haven’t quite won it, and need donations to do so. Actually this asking for donations for food is part of the system. It’s been going on for decades. I suppose doing that is better than just taking more money from people through taxes, though. People can contribute voluntarily and feel that they’re doing a good deed. There’s plenty of food in America, though.
I’m technically classified as poor myself, merely because I retired early on very little income. I have a paid-for house, paid-for car, computer, big-screen tv, and savings, though, and don’t use food stamps or access food banks. I just live frugally. I’ve had savings since I was a poor kid, and collecting discarded bottles for the two-cent deposit to buy candy bars and 50-cent paperbacks. I never made the effort to become rich, but never really suffered any lasting hardships either.
I favor food banks for others because well-intentioned persons who just aren’t very prudent (and a few who are, as others have pointed out) may occasionally find themselves without any money. (And, again, with a few it may be chronic.) They’re irresponsible, but with many persons willing to contribute money for food, there’s no need for them to go hungry or have to beg for food. I just wish I didn’t have to hear the ads. :-)
I'd agree with that, too. :-)
My sister-in-law works for a food bank and says many of the people they help are professional beggars who hit one bank this week, another next week, then another and another till they come back around here.
She sees whole families who are without work because all the family including adult kids living at home are “bipolar” and can’t work.
She can tell the scammers from the people who really need help but must not turn away anyone.
She sees many who cannot speak English and have a child interpret. When she mentions government aid she sees mom’s eyes lite up and knows then that mom can really speak English but pretends not to understand.
Our local pastors at churches who help people in need also know the circuit riding scammers who go from church to church looking for “help”.
But she did face hunger every day (thus she ate), and likely an empty plate (before filling it) and maybe did not have enough money to but the food she (thinks) she needed. Thus she faces food insecurity.
Meanwhile there really are some starving people in the world. At least some agencies like Grahams Samaritan's purse i think, are giving them the heavenly as well as earthly food.
Yes, this is the most Biblical illiterate and morally confused generation America has ever raised.
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