Hunger in America

[phildonnia]

I saw another plea to sign an online petition today, regarding proposed cuts to the SNAP program (formerly "food stamps") in the US. (http://tinyurl.com/k3h2twh) I remain a "hunger skeptic", though I am perfectly willing to be told that this is due to my ignorance. There are three main legs of my skepticism:

1. Food is cheap. Within 2 miles of my house, I can get 80 tortillas for $2, a pepperoni pizza for $5, a pound of oatmeal for $0.50, a package of ramen for $0.25 etc. Wherefore hunger?

It is de rigeur in any discussion of Hunger in America for proponents of increased benefits to participate in the "Food Stamp Challenge" in which they try to feed themselves and their family on $4.50 per person, per day. Ironically, this challenge is most often taken by the activists, rather than the skeptics, who, it would seem, could be more educated by the experience. As a skeptic, I considered attempting the Challenge, but a quick query of Quicken revealed that my family has already been subsisting on $2.66 per person per day, rather consistently, for the last ten years, without even trying. And mind you; I eat whatever and whenever I want. Dinner lasts until everyone is full.

2. The expected consequences of 18% of the population being hungry have not appeared. Oh, yes, we have panhandlers, begging for some spare change. But there are so few of them! If I or my children were really in danger of severe malnutrition, I would be right out there on a freeway off-ramp with a sign, if not stealing bread from the store. Where are they?

During the summer, our city offered free lunches to children (to offset the loss of free lunches at school during the vacation). I took my three kids to check it out. There was one other family there. No one ate the vegetables. Why didn't 18% of the city show up for free food?

3. The statistics are couched in weasel terms, suggesting ********. One frequently encounters these statistics on Hunger in America: there are 50 million hungry, including 17 million children. These statistics are repeated wherever there is a point to be made, but when you look at the study that produced the figure, "hunger" is quietly replaced with "food insecurity". The term apparently means being forced by economics to make choices, or being worried about having to do so. If true, and if I'm understanding the terms correctly, what is really surprising is that 5 in 6 Americans do not make economic choices about their food. (The figures seem to originate from here: http://feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america.aspx)

And let me stress that I have no doubt at all that hunger exists on planet Earth (just not here). Furthermore, I acknowledge that poverty (or "relative" poverty) exists in my own country and neighborhood.

What am I missing?

Edited by jhunter1163: 

Edited for Rule 10.

 

[Brainster]

It is de rigeur in any discussion of Hunger in America for proponents of increased benefits to participate in the "Food Stamp Challenge" in which they try to feed themselves and their family on $4.50 per person, per day. Ironically, this challenge is most often taken by the activists, rather than the skeptics, who, it would seem, could be more educated by the experience. As a skeptic, I considered attempting the Challenge, but a quick query of Quicken revealed that my family has already been subsisting on $2.66 per person per day, rather consistently, for the last ten years, without even trying. And mind you; I eat whatever and whenever I want. Dinner lasts until everyone is full.

Have you priced arugula lately? That stuff is expensive!

Seriously, though, I set myself a goal of spending about $1 per meal years ago and have found it trivially easy. And at least where I live, the benefits were higher than that; a single man of my acquaintance got $200/month or better than $2 per meal.

 

[kellyb]

I don't think we have hardly any starvation in America. "Hunger" is kind of a vague term. These numbers do seem realistic, though:

http://nlihc.org/article/extreme-poverty-rise-united-states

A new study from the National Poverty Center finds that 1.65 million American households are living in “extreme poverty,” and these households include 3.55 million children. Using a World Bank definition, the research defines “extreme poverty” as surviving on less than $2 per day, per person, each month.

In 1996, households in extreme poverty made up just 1.7% of all households. This figure increased to 3% by 2010 and reached 4.3% by mid-2011.

 

[shemp]

There's hunger in the U.S., but 50 million? That's from the "Department of People Who Pull Numbers Out of Their Butts." Until Mexico passed us recently, the U.S. has been #1 in the world in the "Lardasses and Hambeasts" department for a long time. I wouldn't stop giving to food banks, but I'm sick and tired of people who make up statistics to get sympathy and donations.

Edited to add: Kellyb's numbers look a lot more realistic. There's hunger here, but nowhere near "50 million."

 

[theprestige]

What annoys me is the pathological inability to celebrate success, or even improvement. Heaven forbid we notice that hunger per se is largely eliminated. Once the numbers get too small, it's time to invent some new term. "Hunger? Oh, nobody worries about hunger anymore. You should be worrying about food insecurity now."

I remember when NPR started running stories about "food insecurity" a year or so ago. My first thought was that the neologism could only mean that some other problem had gotten much better.

 

[Checkmite]

What annoys me is the pathological inability to celebrate success, or even improvement. Heaven forbid we notice that hunger per se is largely eliminated.

Kind of hard to celebrate when you personally know folks who don't have enough food to eat.

Or by "we" did you mean some exclusive group that doesn't include those individuals?

 

[kellyb]

Kind of hard to celebrate when you personally know folks who don't have enough food to eat.

And when the numbers have more than doubled (as a % of the population, nevermind absolutely) in the past 15 years...

 

[theprestige]

Kind of hard to celebrate when you personally know folks who don't have enough food to eat.

I suppose that if you can find time to rack up over 15,000 posts here, while you personally know folks who don't have enough to eat, it's probably okay for somebody, somewhere, to celebrate how much the problem has reduced, over the long run.

Or by "we" did you mean some exclusive group that doesn't include those individuals?

Probably.

 

[Robrob]

The use of "hunger" is sensationalist, especially when they have to redefine it as "food insecurity." Here are my two cents. Starvation is nearly unknown but crappy nutrition and irregular meal planning is not.

Most homeless (obviously) have irregular access to kitchens, refrigeration, pantries, etc... And thus depend on (expensive) fast food. This (as well as the drug use and general instability) leads to irregular meals. Children of homeless in these already unstable situations are unable to provide for themselves, thus "instability."

 

[Checkmite]

I suppose that if you can find time to rack up over 15,000 posts here, while you personally know folks who don't have enough to eat, it's probably okay for somebody, somewhere, to celebrate how much the problem has reduced, over the long run.

This sentence doesn't seem to parse; it seems a run-together of three distinct and unrelated ideas. Perhaps you wish to rephrase?

 

[eeyore1954]

I don't think we have hardly any starvation in America. "Hunger" is kind of a vague term. These numbers do seem realistic, though:

http://nlihc.org/article/extreme-poverty-rise-united-states

They are realistic but also misleading. From later in the same article

When refundable tax credits and housing subsidies are counted as income, the rate of extreme poverty growth slows even further, with the number of households living in extreme poverty grows from 409,000 in 1996 to 613,000 in 2011. Overall, the existence of major means tested aid programs prevented an estimated 2.38 million children from experiencing extreme poverty.

 

[DavidJames]

For those trying hard to minimize the problem, please let me know your recent direct experience working in shelters and food banks including some details of your personal interviews with a significant amount of the partakers.

I've worked in all of them in the past year, spent a lot of time talking with people. There are drug addicts, there are substance abusers and there are those that are taking advantage of the system.

But there are many who are simply in circumstances which have proved difficult for them to fend for themselves. For some it's catastrophic illness. Other have mental health issues. Others physical disabilities. The reasons are many and often it's a combination. I've been fortunate to see some enter the system and exit it on their way back.

But to some of us, the image of the welfare Cadillac mother or other meme which, while having a grain of truth, is blown out of proportion by the right wing to justify their cancerous and selfish attitude.

Fix the system, deny those that don't deserve the help, but don't broad brush away a very real problem.

 

[Puppycow]

As a skeptic, I considered attempting the Challenge, but a quick query of Quicken revealed that my family has already been subsisting on $2.66 per person per day, rather consistently, for the last ten years, without even trying. And mind you; I eat whatever and whenever I want. Dinner lasts until everyone is full.

Are you quite sure that every food expenditure of your whole family is entered into Quicken?

I guess if you're the sort of person that uses Quicken, you are probably a lot more organized than most people. I don't have a comprehensive database of what my family spends on food, but I imagine it's a lot more than $2.66 per person per day. I typically spend $5 or $6 just for lunch on work days. Sometimes $10 when I go with my colleagues to a restaurant for lunch. Of course, this is Japan and not America.

 

[The Don]

I'm not familiar with the situation in the U.S. but here in the U.K. food can be very cheap if you go to a street market or one of the out of town hypermarkets. If you're unable (through age, infirmity or lack of time or available transport) to get to one of these then you're relying on corner shops which are far, far more expensive.

Making palatable food from cheap ingredients requires the time, cooking facilities and skills to do so. Mrs Don and I are fortunate, we have a large, well equipped kitchen so knocking up a delicious stew, soup or casserole is easy for us. We also have plenty of money to pay for electricity to run our electric range and large fridges and freezers to make the best of any cheap ingredients we find. If we were living in bed and breakfast accommodation without a fridge and with only a microwave to cook with, it'd be a different story. Heck, if we were very short of money, if our range broke down then we wouldn't be able to go out and buy a replacement.

We (mostly) work from home and our lives are unchaotic so we have plenty of time to shop for, prepare and cook delicious meals. If we were working two jobs and/or looking after an extended family and/or dealing with drug or alcohol dependency then we wouldn't have that luxury of time.

We both came from comfortable middle-class families and were taught to cook by parents and grandparents (who had both the skills and time to teach us). We then got to refine our cooking skills at university. If we hadn't had that head start, would we enjoy cooking so much.

In summary, it's easy for me to say that it's easy to live on £x for food a day/week but that's because I have all the advantages. If I was a single parent of several children living in bed and breakfast accommodation with little or no kitchen then I cannot honestly say that it would be as easy.

 

[gumboot]

These statistics are repeated wherever there is a point to be made, but when you look at the study that produced the figure, "hunger" is quietly replaced with "food insecurity". The term apparently means being forced by economics to make choices, or being worried about having to do so.

...

What am I missing?

Maybe you're not the only one missing something...

I would take "food insecurity" to mean the opposite of "food security" which relates to whether a country has sufficient arable land to feed its population. I know that the USA loses a significant amount of arable land for every new person, and that in the near future (I think the year is 2020 or 2050?) the USA will no longer have food security - that is it will have to be a net importer of food as there will be insufficient arable land in the USA to feed its population.

This is, of course, at current projected patterns of population growth and arable land loss. Factors such as increasing the yield of arable land, or the conversion of non-arable land to arable, can change this.

 

[Caper]

I went to Florida back in 2011. I am still in shock at how cheap food was down there. Consequently I saw some of fattest human beings I have ever seen. I still remember this one woman at Walmart... I was sure she was weeks away from being bed ridden.

 

[iknownothing]

"hunger" is quietly replaced with "food insecurity". The term apparently means being forced by economics to make choices, or being worried about having to do so. If true, and if I'm understanding the terms correctly, what is really surprising is that 5 in 6 Americans do not make economic choices about their food

From the USDA website (first result when I googled "definition of food insecurity"):

USDA's labels describe ranges of food security
Food Security
High food security (old label=Food security): no reported indications of food-access problems or limitations.
Marginal food security (old label=Food security): one or two reported indications--typically of anxiety over food sufficiency or shortage of food in the house. Little or no indication of changes in diets or food intake.
Food Insecurity
Low food security (old label=Food insecurity without hunger): reports of reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Little or no indication of reduced food intake.
Very low food security (old label=Food insecurity with hunger): Reports of multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake.

More at http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food...efinitions-of-food-security.aspx#.UjrkRsu9KSM.

 

[Checkmite]

I'm not familiar with the situation in the U.S. but here in the U.K. food can be very cheap if you go to a street market or one of the out of town hypermarkets. If you're unable (through age, infirmity or lack of time or available transport) to get to one of these then you're relying on corner shops which are far, far more expensive.

Living in a quite rural area in the US at this time, I see something of an opposite curve; stores which understand they are often the only reasonably nearby solution for all but the big bi-monthly shopping trips will have higher prices to take advantage. For instance, judging by the price of a loaf of bread: the closest store to me right this moment is approximately one mile away, a gas station with a small food market; here a loaf of bread costs just about $3; there's only one brand available (a regional brand). The next furthest is in the closest town (village, really) 5 miles further, with a small grocery; it has a shelf full of variety in bread, the cheapest coming in at about $2.39. Next to this is a "dollar store" which offers a "dollar store brand" loaf of bread at $1.70; 2 miles further to the outskirts of the nearest mid-sized city finds a Wal-Mart and "Walmart-brand" bread for about $1.39; the Wal-Mart also has a small variety of regional brands of course but the prices go up.

 

[Tiktaalik]

Living in a quite rural area in the US at this time, I see something of an opposite curve; stores which understand they are often the only reasonably nearby solution for all but the big bi-monthly shopping trips will have higher prices to take advantage. For instance, judging by the price of a loaf of bread: the closest store to me right this moment is approximately one mile away, a gas station with a small food market; here a loaf of bread costs just about $3; there's only one brand available (a regional brand). The next furthest is in the closest town (village, really) 5 miles further, with a small grocery; it has a shelf full of variety in bread, the cheapest coming in at about $2.39. Next to this is a "dollar store" which offers a "dollar store brand" loaf of bread at $1.70; 2 miles further to the outskirts of the nearest mid-sized city finds a Wal-Mart and "Walmart-brand" bread for about $1.39; the Wal-Mart also has a small variety of regional brands of course but the prices go up.

I was going to post something similar. I live outside a town of 250 people; we're 40 miles from town and there aren't many jobs in this area. You have to factor in gas when you're talking about food, plus if you only shop once every two weeks (like me), you'll only have fresh vegetables for the first week. I've got a garden, but it costs $$ to get one going. There are a number of places in the western U.S. where unemployment is chronically high and food sources are chronically scarce - Navajo Nation & Blackfeet Rez come to mind.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

From the USDA website (first result when I googled "definition of food insecurity"):



More at http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food...efinitions-of-food-security.aspx#.UjrkRsu9KSM.

Hush! We can't let facts get in the way of complaining about... Liberals? PC?