Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes
From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Extent of hunger in America
Message-ID: <203@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Sep-85 20:58:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.203
Posted: Fri Sep 27 20:58:59 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 29-Sep-85 07:08:54 EDT
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 44

How can there be hunger in America?  Isn't there an abundance of
food, as well as private charities and an extensive welfare state?

Welfare benefits for the poor are minimal.  In most states, welfare
(including food stamps) does not bring families up to the poverty
line, and in some cases leaves them considerably below it.  (See T.
Joe, C. Rogers, and R. Weissbourd, *The Poor:  Profiles of Families
in Poverty*, Center for the Study of Welfare Policy, University of
Chicago.)  Around 30 million Americans are below the poverty line;
there are numerous families of four or more who are trying to make it
on $400-$500 a month or less.  

There is plenty of evidence of malnutrition among the poor.  A Center
for Disease Control study about ten years ago showed that around 15%
of the poor children examined showed symptoms of anemia and 12% were
stunted in height.  The infant mortality rate is often used as an
index of the nutritional well-being of a people, since the rate
reflects the nutrition of the mother.  In the US the rate is around
14 per thousand, almost twice that of Sweden.  For nonwhites in the
US, the rate is 22 per thousand.  In certain areas such as the
Fruitvale area of Oakland, the rate reaches 36 per thousand.  There
is "Third World" malnutrition such as kwashiorkor (a protein 
deficiency disease) in places such as as Mississippi where the
welfare benefits are miserably inadequate.

If you need any more convincing please read *Starving in the Shadow
of Plenty* (1981) by Loretta Schwartz-Nobel.  Sample quote [an
elderly woman is speaking]:  "On Friday, I held over two peas from
lunch.  I ate one pea on Saturday morning.  Then I got into bed with
the taste of food in my mouth and I waited as long as I could.  Later
on in the day I ate the other pea.  Today I saved the container that
the mashed potatoes were in and tonight, before bed, I'll lick the
sides of the container.... these days I boil the bones till they're
soft and then I eat them."  

Yet Ed Meese and other Reagan henchmen inform us there is no serious
hunger in America, while brandishing their budgetary meat-axe.  In my
opinion Reagan and his rich cronies are not evil, just grossly
stupid.  The fact that our noble leaders can deny America's serious
hunger problem helps to explain why hunger and malnutrition continue
to exist in a nation that produces the largest food surpluses in
history.
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes