Hunger in America growing at staggering pace

hvactec

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Jan 17, 2010
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(CNN) - It’s hard to believe, but one in seven Americans – 15% of the country – now need government-provided food stamps simply to survive.

The new numbers just came out from the United States Department of Agriculture, which administers what’s officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Nearly 46 million Americans receive food stamps out of a population of some 311 million people. That’s the highest number on record.

The continued high unemployment and the weak U.S. economy have contributed to the explosive growth of the food stamp program – with no end in sight to the monthly increases.

Here’s some context:
- In October 2007, some 27 million Americans were on food stamps.
- A year later, October 2008, the number had reached nearly 31 million.
- By October 2009, the number was approaching more than 37 million.
- Last October saw the program increase to 43 million.
- By the end of May, 45,753,078 Americans were dependent on food stamps.

So how much money in food stamps do they get?
- An eligible individual gets $200 a month in food stamps – in the form of a debit card that can be used at supermarkets and stores to buy authorized food.
- A two-person household gets $367 a month.
- A three-person household gets $526 a month.
- And a four-person household gets $668 a month.

That’s certainly not a lot of money to purchase food for adults and children, but that’s what so many American families have to live on. Many of them simply don’t have any other money.

By the way, the just-approved first round of nearly $1 trillion in debt ceiling spending cuts over the next 10 years exempted any cuts in the food stamps program.

Read Full Story on cnn BLITZER
 
Funny, all I see is some statistics about food stamps. If hunger is growing at some sort of staggering rate why doesn't the article actually talk about that, instead of going on about food stamps and how one idiot that spends $500 on his shoes cannot imagine surviving on food stamps?
 
Just because there's more people gaming the system doesn't mean they are starving.
 
ff_welfare_race_of_tanf_recipients.png
 
People havin' a tough time keepin' food on the table...
:eusa_eh:
One in Seven US Households Struggles to Afford Food
September 07, 2011 - More than 17 million American households had trouble affording adequate food in 2010, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
That's basically unchanged from 2009, but up sharply from 13 million in 2007. "This report today underscores what we know: that household food insecurity remains a serious problem in the United States," says USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon. The USDA report shows the lingering effects of a bad economy. More people have struggled to afford adequate food ever since the economy crashed in late 2007. About one in ten households had trouble affording food that year. In 2008, that figure went up to one in seven. The new report shows it has stayed there ever since.

"Slow-moving disaster"

"This is a disaster. It's a slow-moving disaster," says Dave Krepcho, head of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, which provides food for 3.5 million people in six Florida counties. Krepcho knows about disasters. When hurricanes hit the state -- as they do fairly often -- Second Harvest helps distribute food to people in need. Four hurricanes struck Florida in 2004. But those were short-term events. "For the past two years," he says, "our monthly distribution exceeds...our disaster relief after four hurricanes criss-crossed the state. Every single month is beyond that." One relative bright spot in the USDA report is that the number of households in the most which someone actually went hungry declined slightly last year, from 6.8 million to 6.4 million.

Private sector steps up

Donations from the private sector have helped take food banks take on some of the extra burden, says spokesman Ross Fraser with the Feeding America national network of food banks. "Corporate America has really stepped forward and has helped us both with food and with funds," he says. Major supermarket chains, big retailers and food manufacturers have made big donations in the last few years, according to Fraser, and farm groups contributed 270 million kilograms of fresh produce in the last year alone. "For a hunger relief organization to be able to provide fresh produce to low-income Americans for whom produce is often out of reach financially has been tremendously helpful," he adds.

Federal programs grow...and get cut
 
People havin' a tough time keepin' food on the table... One in Seven US Households Struggles to Afford Food September 07, 2011 - More than 17 million American households had trouble affording adequate food in 2010, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture....
Of course they're having trouble getting food, they also have a color tv set, dvd player, car, microwave, cable/satellite --all that stuff adds up.
(CNN) - It’s hard to believe, but one in seven Americans – 15% of the country – now need government-provided food stamps simply to survive....
The only thing that's hard to believe is America has 43 million people who'd rather starve to death than give up their color tv set, dvd player, car, microwave, cable/satellite. Then again may be so, they'd rather keep that stuff than get off food stamps.
 
US Food Prices To Soar...
:eek:
Get your peanut butter -- before prices soar
October 14, 2011: Brace yourselves, peanut butter lovers -- prices are set to spike following one of the worst peanut harvest seasons growers have seen in years.
Prices for a ton of runner peanuts, commonly used to make peanut butter, hit nearly $1,200 this week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's up from just $450 per ton a year ago. It won't be long before consumers see this price increase reflected on store shelves. Kraft will raise prices for its Planters brand peanut butter by 40% starting Oct. 31, while ConAgra expects increases of more than 20% for its Peter Pan brand. A spokesperson for Unilever (UL), which makes Skippy, would say only that it's watching the situation "very closely."

Representatives for J.M. Smucker (SJM, Fortune 500), which makes Jif, did not respond to a request for comment, though the Associated Press reported that Jif's wholesale prices are set to rise 30% in November. What's to blame for this sticky situation? The intense heat and drought that hit the southern U.S. this year, said John Beasley, a professor of crop physiology and management at the University of Georgia. "It was just unmerciful, and we had a lot of problems setting the crop," he said. "I literally walked some fields that had zero yield."

In addition, Beasley said, high prices last year for other crops, such as cotton, corn and soy beans, led farmers who might otherwise have grown peanuts to focus their efforts elsewhere. Overall, U.S. peanut production will hit 3.6 billion pounds this year, down 13% from last year, according to a Department of Agriculture report released this week.

Americans spend almost $800 million a year on peanut butter and consume more than six pounds of peanut products each year, according to The National Peanut Board, a farmer-funded research group. Sales may not be so smooth during the looming price crunch. In any case, though, a shift in peanut butter consumption shouldn't make a huge difference to the nutritional quality of most Americans' diets, said Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University. "For the average person in America," she said, "it would be a good idea to eat less of almost everything."

Source
 
You just can't make a claim that "hunger" is growing because people apply for food stamps. It's like saying there is a flu epidemic because people get free vaccine shots. The "poor" in America have a living standard that compares to the middle class in many Eoro countries. The left can't use starvation which was a real crisis in America during FDR's first three terms during the depression so they use the ambiguous word "hunger" to try to create a crisis. At the same time the left claims that obesity is a major problem in America.
 
Obesity is the number one killer in the US. Childhood obesity is an epidemic that requires presidential intervention.

The left is perfectly capable of holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time.
 
Obesity is the number one killer in the US. Childhood obesity is an epidemic that requires presidential intervention. The left is perfectly capable of holding two contradictory thoughts at the same time.

American Poverty Statistics |...hunger in the United States is shortterm and episodic rather than continuous.16....


.... While overweight and obesity are prevalent problems throughout ...

"Today, as many as 70 percent of low-income adults are overweight, about 10 percent more than the nonpoor. Adolescents from low-income families are twice as likely to be overweight (16 percent vs. 8 percent). Racial disparities are even greater. Almost 80 percent of African-American women, for example, are overweight---a third more than white women. Even more serious, about 50 percent of African-American women are obese---two thirds more than white women."
http://www.welfareacademy.org/pubs/foodassist/testimony-040303.pdf
 
Thanks to Food sippliment payments people are NOT starving in the USA.

And fopr many of us still paying for our own food?

Thanks to Food suppliment programs, those stores we shop at are STILL going concerns, too.
 

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