More proof of stark poverty

It is now fashionable for oh-so-sincere analysts to tell us that, yes, the workers who have lost their jobs and/or homes may be suffering, but so are the poor bankers and others who invested in high-risk mortgages. Why, they have seen millions melt away before their very eyes!

Excuse us for our mean-spiritedness toward the very, very rich, but, to quote Dick Cheney, “So?”

Some statistics have come to light that show how a worker who is really up against it has nothing in common with a busted banker. They show how very stark, painful and wrenching poverty has become in this country. These statistics have to do with food stamps.

You have to be desperately poor to qualify for food stamps. You have to prove that without them, you’d be more than just hungry—you’d be starving.

Take the income qualifications, for example. If you live alone and have a gross income of more than $250 a week ($1,062 a month), you’re not eligible. Can you imagine trying to survive on, say, $260 a week and being told you’re getting too much to qualify for food stamps?

There are lots of people who make even less than that and still are not eligible: the undocumented. They can get up at 5 in the morning to line up for a day job, or maybe to clean motel rooms or work in the fields, all for miserable wages. And if those wages are less than $250 a week, as they often are, they’ll get no assistance at all to help them survive. They may be picking the beans others eat, or the strawberries, and not be able to afford enough food for their families.

Another reason to be rejected for food stamps is if you have assets of more than $2,000. Have you saved a little bit in an IRA? Do you have a savings bond put away for those really, really rainy days? And, together with your cash on hand to pay bills with, do they add up to $2,001? Whoa, there! You don’t qualify for food stamps.

Which is why it’s all the more amazing that the number of people who DO qualify for food stamps is skyrocketing.

The Congressional Budget Office has just released its projections for the number of people expected to receive food stamps this fiscal year and next—the 2009 fiscal year starting this coming Oct. 1. While 26.5 million got food stamps in fiscal 2007, that figure rose by over a million this year to 27.8 million, and will grow even more, to 28 million, in the next fiscal year. The future figure is based on expected rises in unemployment and underemployment.

Already, 14 states had seen their food stamp enrollment rise to record numbers by last December. Top among them is Michigan, once a state with a strong economy and many well-paying union jobs. One in every eight people there now receives food stamps—more than twice the number back in 2000.

The rise in poverty, as measured by food stamp eligibility, is not confined to any one region of the country. States where the increase was more than 10 percent last year were Arizona, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, North Dakota and Rhode Island. Altogether, 40 states experienced an increase over the previous year.

In New York, the “Empire” state and home to both rich Westchester County and Wall Street, one of every 10 people is on food stamps.

What do people on food stamps receive? The average is about $100 a month worth of groceries. That figure would be much higher if the federal government hadn’t frozen its allowance for household expenses at 1996 levels.

With prices rising, wages dropping and layoffs leaving so many high and dry, getting government assistance is becoming critical for survival for many millions. But this government of and for the capitalist class is too busy bailing out the billionaires and waging wars for oil companies’ profits to care about the workers.

In this rich country, poverty is rising rapidly even as there’s an excess of everything. Just as during the Great Depression mountains of grain and other crops were burned to keep prices up while millions were starving, so today there’s a glut of food and houses even as millions are hungry and homeless. Welcome to capitalism—a destructive, evil system that’s gotta go.