Posted on 11/22/2004 5:48:16 AM PST by 68skylark
Former Senator Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas who was known for his orneriness, once said, "We're the only nation in the world where all our poor people are fat."
That particular example of compassionate conservatism came to mind as I looked over a report from the Department of Agriculture showing that more than 12 million American families continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves.
The 12 million families represent 11.2 percent of all U.S. households. "At some time during the year," the report said, "these households were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food for all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources."
Of the 12 million families that worried about putting food on the table, 3.9 million had members who actually went hungry at some point last year. "The other two-thirds ... obtained enough food to avoid hunger using a variety of coping strategies," the report said, "such as eating less varied diets, participating in federal food assistance programs, or getting emergency food from community food pantries or emergency kitchens."
These are dismal statistics for a country as well-to-do as the United States. But we don't hear much about them because hunger is associated with poverty, and poverty is not even close to becoming part of our national conversation. Swift boats, yes. Sex scenes on "Monday Night Football," most definitely. The struggle of millions of Americans to feed themselves? Oh no. Let's not go there.
What does that tell you about American values?
We are surrounded by poor and low-income people. (The definitions can be elastic and easily blurred, but essentially we're talking about individuals and families that don't have enough money to cover the essentials - food, shelter, clothing, transportation and so forth.) Many of them are full-time workers, and some have more than one job.
A new study by the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit research group, found that more than 550,000 families in New York - a quarter of all working families in the state - had incomes that were too low to cover their basic needs.
We just had a bitterly contested presidential election, but this very serious problem (it's hardly confined to New York) was not a major part of the debate.
According to the study: "Most low-income working families do not conform to the popular stereotype of the working poor as young, single, fast-food workers: 88 percent of low-income working families include a parent between 25 and 54 years old. Married couples head 53 percent of these families nationwide. Important jobs such as health aide, janitor and child care worker pay a poverty wage."
In its introduction, the study says, "The implied bargain America offers its citizens is supposed to be that anyone who works hard and plays by the rules can support his or her family and move onward and upward."
If that was the bargain, we've broken it again and again. Low-income workers have always been targets for exploitation, and that hasn't changed. The Times's Steven Greenhouse had a troubling front-page article in last Friday's paper about workers at restaurants, supermarkets, call centers and other low-paying establishments who are forced to go off the clock and continue working for periods of time without pay.
The federal government has not raised the minimum wage since 1997, and has made it easier for some employers to deny time-and-a-half pay to employees who work overtime.
Franklin Roosevelt, in his second Inaugural Address, told a rain-soaked crowd, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
I can hear the politicians in today's Washington having a hearty laugh at that sentiment.
There are advocates and even some politicians hard at work addressing the myriad problems faced by beleaguered workers and their families. But they get very little in the way of attention or resources from the most powerful sectors of society. So the health care workers who can't afford health insurance will continue emptying bedpans for a pittance. And the janitors will clean up faithfully after the big shots who ignore them.
These are rough times for the American dream. But times change, and the people who have broken faith with the dream won't be in power forever.
And yet, you can drive through poor neighborhoods in DC and see Navigators and Escalades with rim jobs worth more than some cars.
I read elsewehere that most of our poor are third world immigrants.
Poor families...That's the new "talking point" this week. NPR went on and on about that this morning.
You know where they are going with this line when the word "UNDEFUNDED" gets repeated 20 times in fifteen minutes like a mantra.
They are preparing for Bush making tax cuts permanent.
Teachers have them for six hours a day. The street has them for 18. Which do you think has a better chance of winning them over?
Excuse me? Who's yapping endlessly about fat people? Now it's a conservative plot to pretend that there are all these fat poor people out there? Whatever happened to the so-called "obesity epidemic?" I suppose statistics on the correlation between obesity and poverty will now get shoved under the rug, along with all the other incompatible statistics like correlations between poverty and low IQ, poverty and out-of-wedlock births, etc.
Does this mean we can all go back to our cheese-and-jalapeno nachos without the liberal Fat Police breathing down our necks?
Stuff like this really gets me ticked off...
There is NO reason that anyone in America should go hungry, with all the gov't assistance, private charities, and the like. Our parish will give food to people who need it, and does so all the time. We know people who send their kids to public schools, and the school is always trying to sign up their kids for the 'free lunch' program. This family is middle class with their own home and two cars--they can obviously pay for their own kids' food, and they always tell the school that. The school says 'it doesn't matter, they can still get a free lunch.' They drop off their kids at school, only to see the other kids being drop off for the free breakfast program, their parents driving nicer cars than most of us have and the kids wearing nicer clothes than my own kids wear.
When we first married, we were pretty broke, husband was an E-4 in the military and we lived in S. California. We lived in the not-so-nice area of town because it is what we could afford; we used double coupons and frequent shopper cards to stretch our grocery money; we didn't eat out much; and we drove an older pickup truck. We qualified for food stamps, but we didn't take them and somehow we ate and had a roof over our heads. Looking back now, we did pretty well considering we didn't have a lot of money.
It's pretty sad that when our poorest poor have cable television, cars, and homes, they still complain. What do they call the children in third world countries who can only dream of having a home, three meals a day, and decent clothes? They should be on their knees every night thanking God that they live in the USA and not some hell-hole in Africa. But all we hear about is how people are 'starving' here in America.
I also noticed we didn't hear a damn thing about this when x42 was in office, did we?
Further reality checks: "These people wouldn't know what to do with a 10 lb bag of oats." Say what? It's called get a pot and boil the water. They're showing them at this food center how to make "no bake cookies," but they can't show them how to make oatmeal, which is a perfectly nutritious breakfast.
So the people live so far away from "civilization" they "can't get to a food bank." From what I've seen of rural W. Virginia, people smoke like chimneys. They're obviously able to get cigarettes, so they're travelling *somehow.* Besides, if you live that far away, what's with not gardening or hunting? Raising a pig or goat?
This article lists one sob story after another, but it doesn't hang together. Maybe we're not talking a poverty problem - maybe we're talking a true, serious problem with *mental retardation.* That's another story altogether.
I don't think so. Illegal immigrants know how to cook. I see Mexican families (not necessarily illegal) all the time around here at the places where I shop. They shop at the cheapest stores; they're very frugal. They buy 50-lb sacks of rice and beans; tomatoes and peppers by the box; fruits and vegetables off the discount bins. They probably feed their families on a tenth of what most Americans spend. I don't like *illegal* immigration, but one point in these folks' favor is that they know how to make a dollar squeak. It's just these virtues that the both the rural & urban American poor seem to have lost long ago.
Right, Bob. And that is only because members of Congress are big bad meanies doing the bidding of evil corporations. It has absolutely nothing to do with the law of unintended consequences--concern that raising the minimum wage would result in some minimum wage earners actually losing their jobs because their employers could not afford the increase.
No, we're talking about sheer laziness, thugs with no job who wear $300 sneaks, and spendthrifts who would buy a carton of cigs before putting food on their kids' table.
-ccm
Fruit Loops and any "brand name" cereals are expensive, but if you buy the store brand, the price is nearly halved... The same is true of lots of other food items.
There used to be something called the "macaroni and cheese index." Don't know if still exists. It measured poverty. Mac 'n Cheese is cheap, filling and tastes good so, when consumption goes up, it means there is a problem.
This might be in interesting read Nickel and Dimed:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805063889/qid=1101139648/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/102-2106495-8894505?v=glance&s=books
Though anybody who think you can make it alone on $6 per hour is silly.
That was my point. Six bucks per hour means needing a roomate. Two live much cheaper together than alone. Getting married and buying a house actually put me a little ahead, though part of it is that I don't spend so much money on books and restaurants anymore - too busy kiddie wrangling.
Further reading of the document reveals that only .07% of those with children were hungry:
"Prevalences of Food Insecurity
and HungerNational
Conditions and Trends
Eighty-nine percent of U.S. households were food
secure throughout the entire year 2002 (fig. 1). Food
secure means that all household members had access
at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.5
The remaining 12.1 million U.S. households (11.1 percent
of all households) were food insecure at some
time during the year. That is, they were uncertain of
having, or unable to acquire, enough food for all
household members because they had insufficient
money and other resources for food. About two-thirds
of food-insecure households avoided hunger, in many
cases by relying on a few basic foods and reducing
variety in their diets. But 3.8 million households (3.5
percent of all U.S. households) were food insecure to
the extent that one or more household members were
hungry, at least some time during the year, because
they couldnt afford enough food.
In most households, children were protected from substantial
reductions in food intake and ensuing hunger.
However, in some 265,000 households (0.7 percent of
households with children), food insecurity was sufficiently
severe that 1 or more children in each household
were also hungry on 1 or more days during the
year because the household lacked money for enough
food."
I would gladly live for a year or longer on a $6 an hour salary if, by doing so, I could shut up all the people who whine and moan about how hard it is to live in mean, cruel America.
The truth is, $6 an hour buys a very well-to-do standard of living by any world standard -- it puts someone in the top 20% to 25% of the world.
American is a Garden of Eden compared to anywhere else in the world. I feel sorry for people like Herbet who can only see doom and gloom. And I get angry when the want to tear apart the traditions that made us so great.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.