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

50 cents on the dollar, for cash which can then be spent on booze, drugs

I used to have a boyfriend that was a contractor. frequently they would get contracts to work in the inner city, rehabbing section 8 housing. ALL THE TIME, the guys would trade money for food stamps. Usually fifty cents on the dollar.

No reporter should be able to get by with reporting on the poor without citing the other benefits they are already getting from the government. HUD, food stamps, wic, health care, all of the programs for children which include breakfast and lunch at school. I know parents who bought DVD's and every conveivable new gadget on the market who are on food stamps, wick, and made the rounds of Christmas handouts for their children's gifts. Food stamps are bartered for money or whatever. This is not just one family, it has been going on for years. There is a culture of aid receipents who exchange information with each other as to what is available for any given circumstance. It is a mentality that has absolutely no shame in living off others labors. They will tell you it is government money and hence their entitlement and the govt is too rich to keep all that money. Facts and logic have no place in their world. If push comes to shove, they will become depressed and ill with the latest ailment to qualify for disability. You cannot win with these people and the RAT exploitation of their mostly self-induced plight.

All those films of bread lines during the great depression were black and white for one thing, not in living color.

The people in the lines were genuinely hungry, ragged and soul weary from looking for honest work of any kind, at any wage. They weren't calling themselves hungry because they couldn't afford what they wanted to eat, they didn't have anything to eat. There weren't signs in restraunts and other businesses all over the country that read,"Now hiring", and no takers, as there are today.

Most of the tales of a bad economy and bread lines is a fairy tale invented by the liberal demoncrats and blown out of proportion by their abetting, liberal media.

Before you put too much trust in sixty minutes II, remember their so-called expose of Food Lion and that Chevy pick up truck -why should we believe them now?

What are the food stamp work requirements and who must comply with them? (State of Maine)

Even if your income and assets are low enough to be eligible, you may have to register for work to get food stamps. You may also have to participate in an education and training program. You may also be penalized if you quit a job or refuse to take a job that the food stamp office finds for you.

You are not required to meet these requirements if:

Ø you live in an area with high unemployment (DHS decides which areas these are);

Ø you are under 16, or are 16 or 17 and not the head of a household;

Ø you are 60 or over;

Ø you have a physical or mental problem that makes you unable to work;

Ø you are caring for a child under 6;

Ø you are caring for a child 6 or over or an adult who needs help taking care of him or herself;

Ø you are already working 30 hours a week or are earning at least $154.50 (gross) per week;

Ø you are a migrant or seasonal farmworker and will begin work in 30 days;

Ø you are getting unemployment compensation or TANF; or

Ø you are a student enrolled at least half time in any school, training program or college and otherwise qualify for food stamps.

In addition, you do not have to take a job if it pays less than the minimum wage; subjects you to health or safety problems; you can’t get there because of transportation problems; there is a strike or lockout at the job; you would be required to join or quit a union; or the work violates your religious beliefs. You also do not have to take a job that is not the kind of work you have done before, if you have been registered for work with the program for less than 31 days.

Yeah it's Bushs fault and the taxpayers fault that these people wipe out all their food from food stamps in one week because they want to live an overweight lifestyle. It's our fault they have huge appetites. I'm tearing up over here.

In fact shut down the food stamp program and get back to the government cheese program. One crate of food to last the whole month per person of the cheapest stuff available. All the food groups represented and the crate contents approved of by the top nutritionist in the country. They'll find jobs real quick so they can get back to their bennigans or tgi fridays lifestlye. Plus with the daily caloric drop to normal ranges they should lose weight at the same time cutting down on health care costs. Killing 2 birds with one stone.

The difference between now and depression era is that back then it was shameful to take charity.

I have to agree. My Mom said her Father washed windows for 50 cents a day during the depression. That was the only work available for him...and there were 8 kids at home. Each child over the age of 8 was sent out to do "something" to help put food on the table......whether it be selling papers, cleaning yards, whatever. The whole family pitched in. Can you imagine that now? Most parents can't get their kids to be responsible enough to clean their rooms.....and then they want to be paid for it.

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