Quote:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – More than 49 million Americans -- one in seven -- struggled to get enough to eat in 2008, the highest total in 14 years of a federal survey on "food insecurity," the U.S. government said Monday.
While Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said programs such as food stamps softened the impact of an economic recession, anti-hunger groups pointed to the huge increase from the preceding year when 36.2 million people had trouble getting enough food and a third of them occasionally went hungry.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091116/ts_nm/us_hunger_usa
I am stunned by this information. No one, but no one should ever go hungry in the US. I have a handicapped friend who is the mother of two children. Last week she joked about fixing them all leaf soup. But the problem she has is very real. Not everyone qualifies for food stamps, and those who do receive them often get a miniscule amount. Example: people in my county who have a total income of $700.00/month qualify for a whopping $10.00 in food stamps. The spendthrifts who go through their $10.00 before the end of the month can go get commodities from the Good Samaritans. They will give you a box or so of canned food each month – no milk, no fresh fruit or veggies, no fish or meat. You do get plenty of pasta and rice. If they’re feeling generous that day, you may luck out and get 8oz of dried pinto beans. Its certainly not great nutritionally, but it is food. I find it an outrage that 49 MILLION Americans apparently do not get even that much to eat. The government keeps on talking about ramping up the fool stamp program, but out here in the real world, I see little evidence of this supposed increase in government largesse.