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From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Extent of hunger in America
Message-ID: <200@gargoyle.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Sep-85 17:16:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.200
Posted: Tue Sep 24 17:16:57 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 26-Sep-85 06:34:27 EDT
Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept.
Lines: 114

Rick McGeer writes:

>Mike, if there is widespread hunger in America, I'll concede your
>case and give you better evidence: my cats eat well, and my parent's
>dogs (in Canada) are bloated....but I don't think that there is.
>Meese two years ago called the hunger problem "largely anecdotal",
>and there was an outcry, and a study -- but I haven't seen numbers.
>What percentage of Americans go hungry, and of those, how many go
>hungry because of lack of resources and how many because they simply
>don't eat well, even though they have the means to do so?

According to the Chicago Tribune, around 20% of Americans suffer
"periodically" from some degree of hunger or malnutrition or are
under the constant threat thereof.  (Not counting those on diets. :-)
I don't know the source for this figure, but the Trib ran a series
last fall on the subject in which they reported the results of their
own investigation.  It is hard to be precise because there are
different definitions of hunger, and it also depends on whether you
are counting before or after the receipt of private charity or
welfare benefits.  Obviously the problem is not as bad as it is in
Africa, but the significant fact is that there is a hunger problem at
all in a nation that produces huge food surpluses.

I think it was the President's Commission itself that termed the
problem "largely anecdotal."  In this context "anecdotal" means that
people such as newspaper reporters have gone out and seen with their
own eyes that the problem exists.  Rick can find some evidence for
himself across the bay in SF, if he will look for the soup kitchens
and talk to the people there.  Or drive down to the highly productive
agricultural area south of San Jose, around Castroville and Salinas.

I'm not sure what Rick means about people going hungry "because they
simply don't eat well, even though they have the means to do so."  I
don't think there are many people, besides ascetics, who knowingly
choose to be chronically hungry.  If people don't eat well because
they are ignorant or don't know how to budget, that is clearly a part
of the problem.  Some poor people buy name brands instead of generic
foods because they can't read the English labels and have seen the
name brands advertised on TV.  

Here are one or two anecdotes that appeared in the Tribune series
(article by Christopher Drew):
________________

In many ways, Katherine, a 28-year-old black woman living on
[Chicago's] South Side, is a typical welfare mother.  She grew up in
a public housing project and now depends solely on public aid to
support herself and her 8-year-old daughter.  

Never married, she tried to break out of this cycle of dependency by
working when she was in her early 20s.  But she gave up hope for
employment after her other child, a baby boy, crawled into a
refrigerator and suffocated while in the care of a sitter.

These days, Katherine isn't as worried about her daughter's safety as
she is about putting enough bread on the table to feed her.  

While the general cost of living has jumped 25 percent in the last
four years, Katherine's food stamp and welfare benefits have risen
only half as much, from $336 a month to $378.  As a result, she said,
even sticking to a limited diet such as hot cereal for breakfast and
turkey wings and potatoes for dinner isn't enough to keep her
cupboards from running bare. ...

Katherine's problems illustrate how sharp cuts in the nation's aid
programs have forced many of the poor to scrounge more than ever for
a square meal.  Few are starving, but many clearly are seeing less
balance in their diets, and medical researchers say this is
contributing to an alarming increase in malnutrition-related diseases
in some parts of the country. ...

The Tribune, in interviews with social workers and welfare
recipients, found clear evidence of greater suffering because of the
food-assistance cutbacks and of a need for more training and
counseling to help people get out of the welfare rut.  But it was
also clear that private sources are easing some of the worst problems
-- though many charities insist they can't get enough food to meet
the demand -- and that the poor don't always make the wisest budget
choices.  

In places such as Chicago and New Orleans, a typical Southern city
with a large poor population, most of the welfare recipients
interviewed reported running low on food much more often than they
used to.  And their descriptions of their diets -- long on starches
and fatty cuts of meat and short on fruits and vegetables -- would
have made any nutritionist cringe.

"Everything's gone up so much, and we have not got much of an
increase" in benefits, Donna London said as she stood in line at Hope
House, a Catholic Charity in New Orleans, late last month for a bag
of canned and dried goods for herself and her 11-year-old son.  "So
my food runs out before the end of the month, and I got to come here
to survive."

"I eat neckbones and pig tails and, once a week, a cheap cut of
chicken or turkey legs with macaroni or potatoes," said Thelma Boyd,
67, who is confined to a wheelchair and lives alone in New Orleans in
a tin-roofed shack...  "The doctor said I'm supposed to drink fruit
juice, but I can't afford it, so I drink Kool-Aid instead."

Doctors in both cities have linked such dietary deficiencies to
increased health problems, such as last year's 24% increase in
pediatric admissions at Cook County Hospital for stunted growth,
dehydration and weight loss. ...

Food bank officials confirm that they have been reaching many of the
people in need, especially since Congress authorized the Agriculture
Department three years ago to temporarily distribute surplus milk and
cheese to the pantries.  But they said they don't have the resources
to help many of the worst cases, including an increasing number of
homeless people who can't get food stamps because they don't have a
permanent address.  [Chicago Tribune, 11/25/84]
-- 
Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes