DEPRESSION- ERA FOOD LINES

George W. Bush's America as seen by CBS News: Bread lines, reminiscent of the Depression-era, made up of average Americans with jobs. Over video of a long line in Marietta, Ohio, on the January 8 60 Minutes II, Scott Pelley ominously intoned: "The lines we found looked like they'd been taken from the pages of the Great Depression. It's not just the unemployed, we found plenty of people working full-time but still not able to earn enough to keep hunger out the house. If you think you have a good idea of who's hungry in America today, come join the line. You'd never guess who you'd meet there."

While Pelley never uttered the name George W. Bush once during his 12 minute piece, the implication came through. Pelley noted, for instance, how "since 1999, the number of people getting emergency food aid in Ohio alone has grown from 2 million to 4.5 million." Pelley contended in relaying the view of a groups which wants more government spending: "Nationwide, the problem is not just in rural scenes like this. The U.S. Conference of Mayors says the need for emergency food aid in major cities jumped 19 percent last year alone."

Pelley's emotions over facts style of reporting included this line: "Pre-schoolers come here with their parents and play in boxes as empty as the day's want-ads."

Pelley asked, "When you look at this line, what do you see?" And answered the question himself: "You know what I see? Some pretty average looking Americans." When Pelley suggested "a lot of people in this country would be surprised to see this line, surprised to see a food line in America again," a local Ohio food bank operator declared in a comment which ended the story: "Oh yeah, we've gone backwards. This is what I heard from my mom and dad. This is what it was during the Depression era. That, you know, people stood in line to get government commodities. We haven't come very far, have we?"

Though Pelley highlighted some heartbreaking cases, he refrained from examining the poor personal decisions which led his victim families to their plight. All the families he looked at receive food stamps.

Pelley began his report, which was brought to my attention by MRC analyst Brian Boyd: "We met some people standing in a line the other day, a nurse with a new baby, an army vet, three ladies who spent a lifetime working in the same factory. All of them and hundreds more were drawn to the line by hunger. We are about to show you bread lines in America that you may find hard to believe. With the recession there has been a sudden leap in the number of people on emergency food assistance. The lines we found looked like they'd been taken from the pages of the Great Depression. It's not just the unemployed, we found plenty of people working full-time but still not able to earn enough to keep hunger out the house. If you think you have a good idea of who's hungry in America today, come join the line. You'd never guess who you'd meet there."

Over video of a long line Pelley explained: "This is the head of a food line forming outside Marietta, Ohio. We're going to show you the end but that will take a while. The people in front came at dawn. Sometimes the food runs out before the line does. So it's best to get in early. "They've come with empty boxes and baskets and little red wagons and if they wait, up to five hours, they carry away groceries that will last a few days. Lately, the food's been coming once every few weeks. And each time the crowd is getting larger, stretching like the line on a graph marking the recession. "This day, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, the line was the longest it's been. Through the fair ground parking lot, out to the street and beyond. How many? We counted 896. One line from a thousand walks of life."

Pelley asked a woman: "Why do you have to come here?" Marslyn (sp?) Clark: "Because we really, my husband really doesn't make enough for all of our groceries." Pelley: "Is he working full-time?" Clark: "He works full-time." Pelley: "Usually Marslyn and her husband both work, but Marslyn is taking time off now for her new born, a girl named Autumn." Clark: "I'm a nurse and I have a good job, but this is just something that we have to do to get by right now."

After showcasing a veteran of World War II and the Great Depression, Pelley turned to Bob Garbo, head of the local affiliate of America's Second Harvest. He opined: "This is going in my mind backwards, I mean this is, we're doing things that we did before food stamps, before we had various programs. And quite frankly it's a little bit hard to watch sometimes." Pelley added: "Bob Garbo is watching as head of the local affiliate of the non-profit group America's Second Harvest. The food being distributed in his line comes mostly from government programs and from private donations. "This day the line grew so long that they brought an extra truck -- they hadn't done that before. But since 1999, the number of people getting emergency food aid in Ohio alone has grown from 2 million to 4.5 million. There are a lot of reasons: housing costs are rising and medical costs. Unemployment is up, and many jobs that are available are minimum wage." Garbo: "Our jobs are not high paying jobs. In rural America most of these jobs folks are getting when they come off of public assistance are $6 and $7 and hour jobs -- with no benefits, by the way."

Pelley soon profiled his first victim: "The issue is the working poor. Forty percent of the families in these lines have one parent working. Rick Payne is working full time in one of those big home improvement stores. But he's supporting a wife and four kids on $7.50 an hour. When we sat down with Payne, his wife Alexis and 12-year-old, Brandon, they had $17 to their name."

On a 40 hour a week basis over 50 weeks $7.50 an hour would total, by my calculation, $15,000 a year. Plus, as Pelley noted, the Paynes get $300 a month in food stamps. Yet at the end of the month they live on potato soup. Sounds to me like really bad money management.

Trying to generate viewer sympathy, Pelley asserted: "Almost half the people fed by these lines are kids. The Agriculture Department figures one out of six children in America faces hunger. That's more than 12 million kids. Nationwide wide children have the highest poverty rate. Pre-schoolers come here with their parents and play in boxes as empty as the day's want-ads."

Pelley talked with kids who wanted food and then profiled a woman who said she must mix milk with water to make it last for her baby, though she gets both welfare and food stamps.

Pelley conceded: "Most of the people in line don't look like they're starving. We noticed some were even overweight. But hunger in America isn't starvation, it's malnutrition -- children too hungry to concentrate in school, the pain of skipped meals. There may be some in line who are taking unfair advantage of a free food program even if they have to wait for hours. But it's also true that many in these lines are new to hunger: losing jobs or getting hit with medical bills, for example, just months or weeks ago. "We visited another line in McArthur, Ohio, where the holidays were closing in and so was the weather. This line is about 40 percent longer than it was just three years ago. Nationwide, the problem is not just in rural scenes like this. The U.S. Conference of Mayors says the need for emergency food aid in major cities jumped 19 percent last year alone."

On to his third victim family, Pelley highlighted a woman whose marriage broke up and the kids now only can eat at school, but the 12-year-old brings some food home. The family supposedly can't eat, yet Pelley reported they get $700 a month in welfare and food stamps.

Garbo compared the situation to the fear of terrorism: "I'll tell you in all honesty I sense a fear. It's a fear. We talk about terror nowadays. The terror is fear. And if you really get to visit with families who are really up against it, there's a fear."

Back to the Payne family, they figured out you can work more than just one job and now make some money for cleaning their church each Sunday. But, and in the TV world of victims there is always a but, the father teared-up as he related how he cannot afford to pay his son the promised $5 a week for helping with the church clean-up.

Pelley wrapped up his anecdotal piece with this exchange between himself and Garbo: "When you look at this line, what do you see?" Garbo: "You see pain." Pelley: "You know what I see? Some pretty average looking Americans." Garbo: "Oh yeah, sure, this is southeast Ohio, buddy. This is it, this is it and you'll see this pretty well all over the country probably." Pelley: "I think a lot of people in this country would be surprised to see this line, surprised to see a food line in America again." Garbo: "Oh yeah, we've gone backwards. This is what I heard from my mom and dad. This is what it was during the Depression era. That, you know, people stood in line to get government commodities. We haven't come very far, have we?"

If true, that would be quite an indictment of the billions spend in the war on poverty, but Pelley didn't broach that liberal failure.

As for how the Bush era has brought us full circle to Hoover, remember that the GDP is growing at a healthy rate, inflation, which most ravages the poor, is at a historically low level, unemployment is at barely 6 percent, well below where it stood in 1980, and the full welfare state is humming and sending out checks and food stamps to all of the poor.

For the Web-posted version of Pelley's story: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/01/08/60II/main535732.shtml

For a picture and bio of Pelley: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/06/23/60II/main51732.shtml

Any indication of how much these poor people have to pay in income tax? Any mention of the lawsuits and trial lawyers who are helping to drive up the cost of medicine, and possibly other essentials. The Agriculture Department figures one out of six children in America faces hunger.

And if we didn't have an Agricultural Department, IRS, ATF, DHHS, DEA, Education Department, HUD, and other unnecessary bureaucracies (and you know they're out there) to fund, perhaps a smaller proportion of kids would face hunger.

Postponing is not cutting, true... but theoretically when you retire and take the money out your income will be much lower than when you put them in so your marginal rate will be lower. Hmmm... now that I see that in print I don't like what I see. Especially the part about my income being so much lower when I retire.

Also a question: What happens when people who don't pay taxes get a tax cut or credit. Do they get a 'welfare' check over and above a refund of anything they've put in?

Also a question: What happens when people who don't pay taxes get a tax cut or credit. Do they get a 'welfare' check over and above a refund of anything they've put in?

I think that's what our Democratic Socialists call a "rebate".

If you are a middle-class person your stocks are in a 401(k), your dividends are already tax-sheltered.

Until they come out, whereupon they are taxed unmercifully--just at the point where you can't AFFORD high taxes.

I know wealthy people who would be sent into fits of ecstacy if they had the chance to get free food. Most old people I know would sell their grandchildren into slavery for the opportunity to wait in a food line.

Given that I'm suprised that the best example of an average person you can find is a minimum wage earner. The average American does not work at Home Depot. This is especially true for those that are old enough to have 12-year-old children.

Never have their cable TV (color tv of course) turned off.

When i was in Highschool I had to go on a police ride along and write up a report on it. One of the calls we went to was to assit paramedics who were tending to an overdose. The house didn't have a scrap of furntiture. There were no beds, no refridgerator, nothing except for a pillowcase someone had nailed to the wall and a TV with a cable-box.

Of course its a poor management issue. I have a whopping $400 per month allotted in my budget to feed my family of 4, and that includes going out. Going to Costco and spending $200 will net 2+ months worth of staple food. Food stamps worth $300 a month is extremely generous, however, I get the sense that these folks are pissing it all away on Ho-Ho's and Cocoa Puffs, so of course it will never be enough.

Mr. Pelley forgot to mention (conveniently?) that this individual would have gotten approximately $4,034 in Earned Income Credit, tax-free, from the federal government (you and me) in 2002.

That's the equivalent of an additional $2 per hour, tax free.

As a lad, I shamefully took food stamps (during a few hard months of my many years as a hardcore liberal) and remember being amazed at how much food you could get for a few bucks if you concentrated on staple foods, which are really cheap. For example, ten bucks will buy one enough grits or tortillas to feed a family for a month, and even processed foods like mac & cheese, tuna, and cold cuts are inexpensive if you stick to store brands.

I'm not saying being poor is a barrel of laughs. I'm saying that it is impossible for an adult in possession of his or her faculties to starve to death in America today as a result of joblessness. Besides food stamps, there's federal WIC, various missions, homeless shelters, night shelters, and food banks to turn to -- not to mention churches and private individuals. Hell, if it came down to it a person could knock on any door in my neighborhood and say "I'm hungry" and they'd get fed!

To the queue-standers, I say "Instead of wasting all day standing in line for free food, folks, why not spend the day looking for a job? Even a crappy job at minimum wage is better than nothing."

Bottom line: "If any one will not work, let him not eat." [2 Thess 3:10 RSV]

(This applies only to those capable of working, of course. Little kids, the aged, and the truly infirm deserve our generous support).

"As a lad, I shamefully took food stamps (during a few hard months of my many years as a hardcore liberal) and remember being amazed at how much food you could get for a few bucks if you concentrated on staple foods, which are really cheap. "

Were you ashamed because you took charity, or because you knew you could do better and just didn't?

My daughter and her husband had food stamps for a year or so, when they absolutely had to have them. Then my son-in-law worked three jobs at once for a while and got them past the rough spot. (My daughter didn't work much at that time because she had, IMO, more important duties - staying home and raising their baby.)

I see no shame in food stamps if someone really needs them, for a short period. It's the people that stay on them for generations that should be ashamed.

Also, my daughter said the same you did. She had no problems at all feeding the three of them with their food stamp amount. The basic staples worked just fine for them, too.

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.