The Harsh Reality

In yesterday's post, "Forced to Be More Flexible", I highlighted a Brandweek report indicating that current economic conditions are leading consumers to rethink what they eat. Regardless of personal preferences, many are switching to cheaper alternatives or trading down to private label food products.

But a growing number of people are being faced with a more unsettling concern. They are not so focused on which products they should buy; they are worrying about how they are going to get enough food to eat at all. The following three reports detail the harsh reality for more and more Americans:

"Food Banks Nationwide Report More First-Timers" (Associated Press)

Prentice Jones worked construction jobs around Chicago for most of his 60 years and is quick to boast of a foreman job he once held at a revamped city college and 23 years at a steel company.

But these days, work has been so scarce that the man with a penchant for cowboy hats has been forced to move in with his mother and do something this week he never expected - visit a food pantry.

"There's no work now," Jones said while waiting in line at St. Columbanus Parish for a frozen turkey and bags of apples, bread and potatoes. "I pray it's temporary."

A surge in first time visitors has contributed to the greatest demand in years at food banks nationwide, according to Feeding America, a Chicago-based national food bank association. Many of the first timers were middle class but lost jobs or had their wages cut.

"They were doing pretty well," said Ross Fraser of Feeding America. "They've completely had the rug pulled out from under them."

Federal agencies and national organizations have just started tracking first timers. But anecdotal evidence and statistics from individual pantries is clear: More and more new faces are appearing among the approximately 25 million Americans who rely on food pantries each year.

"Food Stamp Use Soars, and Stigma Fades" (New York Times)

With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.

While the numbers have soared during the recession, the path was cleared in better times when the Bush administration led a campaign to erase the program’s stigma, calling food stamps “nutritional aid” instead of welfare, and made it easier to apply. That bipartisan effort capped an extraordinary reversal from the 1990s, when some conservatives tried to abolish the program, Congress enacted large cuts and bureaucratic hurdles chased many needy people away.

From the ailing resorts of the Florida Keys to Alaskan villages along the Bering Sea, the program is now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.

There are 239 counties in the United States where at least a quarter of the population receives food stamps, according to an analysis of local data collected by The New York Times.

"Report: Seniors Face Growing Hunger Crisis" (Star-Gazette)

The report, entitled "Senior Hunger in the United States: Differences across States and Rural and Urban Areas," also indicates that New York ranks 28th among the nation's most hungry.

To make matters worse, the rate of food insecurity among seniors in the state is 5.03 percent, according to the report.

"We are so disturbed and appalled to learn that so many seniors are going hungry in New York and around the country," Darlene Ike, Meals on Wheels of Chemung County executive director, stated in prepared remarks.

"More seniors are going hungry and it's directly related to the economy," said the Rev. Bobby Smith, pastor at Shabach Tabernacle in Elmira, whose church had a free Thanksgiving dinner for the community Thursday.

"Think about it. When you have churches and community centers closing, seniors have to find someplace else to go. They count on those places."

"At our Meals on Wheels program, we work every day to provide our clients not only with nutritious meals, but also with companionship," Ike stated.

"Our program has pledged to join the national movement to end senior hunger by 2020, and we want everyone in Chemung County to do the same.

"The need is great and now more so than ever is the time for all Americans to step up."

The national movement, available online at www.mowaa.org/pledge, comes at a time when about 700,000 more seniors faced the threat of hunger in 2007 than did in 2001, according to the report.

Seniors who live in the South are also at greater risk, the report states.

"We released our first study a year ago, and now the most recent research has found that there are 20 percent more seniors facing the threat of hunger in America, Enid A. Borden, president and CEO of MOWAA, stated in prepared remarks.

Comments

[Kid Dynamite]

Michael - didn't you get the memo? The recession is over - everything is ok - the economy is rebounding, and unemployment numbers are improving.

don't sweat the fact that people literally cannot afford to put food on their tables... it's irrelevant - the economic model says so.

/sarcasm

[kevinearick]

The economy has already devolved to 1996, with no change in the behavior at issue.

If capital allocation is not restored to within the required parameters, the economy will fall through 1982, and temporarily land somewhere in the neighborhood of 1974.

Opportunity costs are accelerating exponentially. If you cannot calculate these costs, you are an economic slave. If you are in a position to break out of this psychology, now is the time to do it at the least cost.

Do not expect assistance.

[RPY]

This is a link to an interactive map showing foodstamp usage across the country, on a county by county basis:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/11/28/us/20091128-foodstamps.html

[idoc]

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai-1664368.html

with all the financial implications of Dubai swirling around since last wks bomb, i believe the world is missing the larger damning question that needs to be asked directly to Obama on national TV in front of a world audience, which i will phrase from a personal standpoint:

why, as a physician and healer of Americans, are my hard earned tax dollars (along with theirs) being funneled to Citigroup in the form of a multi billion dollar US taxpayer bailout, who then openly funds Dubai World who then uses those same funds to setup slave camps, kidnap multinationals, force inhumane labor conditions which then lead to the shearing of families, suicides, and death?????!!!!!!!!

i believe this larger issue is the one which Obama cannot escape and could lead to his political downfall. no one on Capitol Hill seems to care that he's in bed with the banksters. perhaps someone up there will care that he is condoning human rights violations.

[Martin, the Netherlands]

I agree with Kid Dynamite: the recession has officially been declared to be over, and all this talk about people being hungry and mortuaries flowing over because people cannot afford to bury their relatives is nog going to help. Why don't you limit yourself to reporting about things that really matter, like Wall Street bonuses and CEO compensation packages?

/sarcasm, too.

[roger]

I wonder how many of these poor souls have been fooled by the rhetoric
of the Reagan's, Thatcher,Friedman,Greenspan and all the other advocates
of the so called "FREE" market.Did they ever consider that slavery was a
product of this illusion called FREE market.

[jogleaso]

I was out this weekend. It didnt look like anyone has less than two portions per
meal in the US. If you look at the waistines, you couldnt possibly think there is hunger in our county.

[chrisanthemama]

@jogleaso: Cheap food (Ramen, $1 menu at McD's, mac & cheese, etc.) is unhealthy food. Most poor people are fat because they eat unhealthy, cheap, high-fat, high-fructose-corn-syrup food.