EDITORIAL
Job loss and rise of hunger
Published Nov 25, 2009 8:49 AM
If the test of any society is its ability to care for those most in need, U.S.
capitalism is failing dismally. Not only are over 15 million adults suffering
from record unemployment, but a Department of Agriculture report released on
Nov. 16 found 17 million U.S. children unable to consistently get enough to
eat.
A separate study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent
Medicine in November found that about half of the children in the U.S. will be
on food stamps at some point during their childhood. The study states,
“One in three children and 90 percent of all black children—ages 1
through 20—will use the program.”
In all, the USDA study found 49 million people are hungry and getting hungrier.
This is nearly 15 percent of all households, the largest number recorded since
the agency began collecting data in 1995. Among these numbers, 12 million
adults and 5.2 million children experience severe hunger, going days without
eating.
The study found that the number of households in which children face
“very low food security”—government-speak for being forced to
skip meals by lack of money—is up to 506,000. This is a 56 percent
increase over the previous year.
Women are among those hardest hit. The USDA statistics show that households
with children headed by single mothers have the highest rate of hunger-related
problems.
Drexel University hunger expert Marianna Chilton said: “This is a
catastrophe. This is not a blip. This recession will be in the bodies of our
children.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 17)
The impact of record unemployment is also being felt in the housing market
where one in seven loans is now in foreclosure. This is up from one in 10 at
the start of 2009, and the highest on record since 1972 when the Mortgage
Bankers Association began keeping track. Rising unemployment, not subprime
loans, appears to be driving the increase.
These statistics show the impact of a succession of jobless economic recoveries
in 2000, 2002 and under way today. While corporate profits and productivity are
at all-time highs, record numbers of U.S. workers and their families are
sinking deeper into poverty, primarily due to the lack of jobs at a living
wage.
While the crisis of abject hunger is global—a UNICEF convention this week
found nearly 200 million children are chronically malnourished—the
statistics for the U.S. may be the most astounding simply because of the vast
wealth generated here compared to underdeveloped and even some other developed
nations.
In many underdeveloped nations, widespread hunger may be attributied to the
lack of food resources, but more often it results from World Bank and
International Monetary Fund policies that turn food-producing countries into
food importers to benefit agribusiness in the U.S. Under globalization,
agricultural land has also been diverted for other uses.
In the U.S., however, it appears to be a case of hunger in the midst of plenty.
There is no shortage of food on supermarket shelves—only an ever
increasing shortage of jobs that would allow workers to afford to buy it.
If ever there was a time for a massive jobs program like the Works Progress
Administration during the Great Depression of the 1930s, which put millions
back to work and paid them enough to put nutritious food on the table, that
time is NOW.
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