1 in 5 Texas Households Can’t Afford Enough Food

[Nbadan]

A new report released this week by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) has revealed new insight into levels of food insecurity in the United States–and the results aren’t pretty.

The report looked at hundreds of thousands of American households’ responses to a single question posed by Gallup: “Have there been times in the past 12 months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?” FRAC calls this struggle “food hardship,” and found that “Seventeen percent of surveyed households in 2014 answered ‘Yes’” to experiencing food hardship”–that translates to 1 in 6 households struggling to afford enough food nationwide. This rate isn’t just nationally, but is also in 23 states and 72 of 100 large Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs).

Unsurprisingly, Texas’ rate is even worse than the national average. Texas ranks in the top 20 states with the worst rates of food hardship, with a rate of 18.4%. That means nearly 1 in 5 Texas households could not consistently afford enough food to eat in 2014. These rates were even higher in almost all of Texas major metropolitan areas, with San Antonio facing the highest rates of food hardship:

San Antonio metro – 21.3%
Dallas-Fort Worth – 18.8%
Houston metro – 18.7%
Austin metro – 15.7%

Last November, a study from Feeding Texas found that millions of Texans are forced to choose between paying for food and other necessities, such as healthcare, utilities, and transportation. With this latest report from FRAC, it’s evident that even when Texans are choosing to use their incomes for food, they are still struggling to buy enough to feed their families.

Read more: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/29973/texas-households-cant-afford-food

[boutons_deux]

Read more: http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/29973/texas-households-cant-afford-food

blacks and Hispanics don't register on the TX Repug interest meter.

Of course, there are 100Ks of poor white TX on public assistance, esp in all those red rural counties, but they vote Repug as the party of Christian, racist hate.

[boutons_deux]

it's just not TX. Repugs everywhere are moving to fuckover the poor, women, non-whites, non-Christians, patients, the old, sick, employees, to criminalize them to justify screwing them

Why America hates its poor

That “unmasking” is behind two recent bills that caught the Internet’s attention this week. Kansas (http://www.dailydot.com/tags/kansas) and Missouri (http://www.dailydot.com/tags/missouri)’s legislatures are working to target (http://www.kshb.com/news/political/bills-in-kansas-missouri-aim-to-limit-items-people-on-welfare-can-buy-with-government-assistance) the social services provided to the state’s welfare recipients, limiting how people on welfare can use their assistance.

In Missouri, a bill awaits Gov. Sam Brownback’s approval that would ban soda, energy drinks, cookies, and chips. Curtailing spending on snacks and soft drinks might be defensible from a public health angle (former New York (http://www.dailydot.com/tags/new-york) mayor Michael Bloomberg (http://www.dailydot.com/tags/michael-bloomberg) would be a fan), but the state is also targeting steak and seafood—which speaks, ironically, less to concerns about welfare and more about policing what poor people do.

In a 2012 essay for the Guardian, Suzanne Moore points out that the poor are often treated like addicts, the “author of their own misfortune.” “Poverty is self-inflicted,” Moore bitingly writes (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/16/suzanne-moore-disgusted-by-poor). “All these hopeless people: Where do they all come from?” Statistics show there’s an answer for that—it’s a product of the growing divide when it comes to wealth and privilege in modern America.In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s self-titled economics program began to drastically rollback social programs established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. Between 1979 and 2012, workers’ wages have stagnated (http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-american-wages/)…rising just 5 percent (http://www.epi.org/publication/updating-overtime-rules-important-step-giving/),” reports (http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/republicans-reveal-they-dont-just-hate-poor-and-jobless-they-hate-hard-working) AlterNet’s Leo Gerard. “Workers are more productive. Their labor is creating record profits. But they’re not benefitting.” Who does benefit? In 2013, EPI.org reported (http://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-continues-to-rise/) that the average CEO made 295 times the average worker, although it’s unlikely that they did 295 times the work. In 1978, that figure was just 29.9.

low-wage workers who are essentially paying for everyone else’s prosperity with their cheap labor:

When someone works for less pay than she can live on—when, for example, she goes hungry so that you can eat more cheaply and conveniently—then she has made a great sacrifice for you, she has made you a gift of some part of her abilities, her health, and her life. The “working poor,” as they are approvingly termed, are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor, to everyone else.


But despite those noble sacrifices, our view of the poor, particularly those who receive public assistance, fails to be nearly as generous. According to Joshua Holland (http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/06/dog-whistle-politics-why-americans-hate-welfare/), the author of The Fifteen Biggest Lies About the Economy (http://www.amazon.com/Fifteen-Biggest-Lies-about-Economy/dp/0470643927), much of that has to do with two staples of stereotypes about American poverty: “the infamous, Cadillac-driving welfare queen and the ‘strapping young buck’ who lived large on T-bone steaks purchased with food stamps.” These images were popularized by Reagan in his famous arguments against “nanny state,” which worked to blame those less unfortunate for their place in the American caste system of wealth.

Instead of Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” Reagan waged a war on the poor. As Affluence and Influence (http://www.amazon.com/Affluence-Influence-Economic-Inequality-Political/dp/0691162425) author Martin Gillens explains, demonizing people of color was key in shifting the rhetoric around poverty. “The media started to portray those programs much more negatively as being abused by people who didn’t really need them, as being inefficient and so on,” Gillens argues (http://billmoyers.com/2014/03/06/dog-whistle-politics-why-americans-hate-welfare/). “And it’s really right at that time—and it’s a very dramatic shift in the media portrayal—that the imagery shifts from poor white people, positively portrayed, to poor black people, negatively portrayed.”

It’s easy to “expose” the poor for their own failures and much harder to look behind that mask to see the person gasping for breath inside it. Why would someone living in poverty want to go to the movies or a theme park? For the same reasons that everyone else does: to enjoy a momentary escape from real life. However, Kansas and Arkansas seem to serve the same purpose of Sarah Jane’s assailant, reminding her that no matter how far she runs, she can’t run far enough. Sarah Jane spends her entire childhood trying to be someone else, the kind of person who would have, in fact, starred in a movie with Ronald Reagan.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/11/why_we_hate_poor_people_partner/

[m>s]

lol salon

more like shalom am i right

[DarrinS]

blacks and Hispanics don't register on the TX Repug interest meter.

Of course, there are 100Ks of poor white TX on public assistance, esp in all those red rural counties, but they vote Repug as the party of Christian, racist hate.

Autobot

[boutons_deux]

Autobot

how eloquent, as usual

[spursncowboys]

If only there were liberal mayors in these cities. Or the most liberal president to fix this. But then again, they tout food stamps as a success. How do you fix that?

[boutons_deux]

If only there were liberal mayors in these cities. Or the most liberal president to fix this. But then again, they tout food stamps as a success. How do you fix that?

the red states are run almost totally from the state level, not municipal level, esp for big dollar items like public assistance, schools, health care.

[The Reckoning]

stop having kids.

i'm not ever having kids for this reason.

[Th'Pusher]

stop having kids.

i'm not ever having kids for this reason.

Because you're poor?

[TeyshaBlue]

Too stringy.

[CosmicCowboy]

They haven't heard of the food bank? Our maid scores so much food every week she gives food away to US...:lol

[Winehole23]

hunger in the US is 100% voluntary. social parasites too dumb to find the food bank deserve to starve. lol.

[Winehole23]

http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-in-your-community/states/texas/
http://tfbn.org/how-we-help/food-banking/food-bank-by-county/

[CosmicCowboy]

WH, your quote is closer to the truth than you care to admit. The social safety net is plenty broad and deep. Maybe difficult to navigate initially if you are dumb and lazy but that is a choice too. Hell, even the bums on the street corners score plenty to eat by showing just a shred of initiative. understand I am not referring to folks that have physical and mental disabilities...I am referring to the ones that can but choose not to. Everywhere I go I see help wanted signs. If you are relatively healthy and your lifestyle issues make you unemployable that is a choice too.

[spursncowboys]

http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/hunger-in-your-community/states/texas/
http://tfbn.org/how-we-help/food-banking/food-bank-by-county/

Catholic Charities
Most church's have a day where they give to first come first serve.

But this is a liberal mantra because there is never enough govt "help"

[Nbadan]

Republicans float changes to food stamp funding
Proposed budget will likely include fixed funding for SNAP, allowing more state flexibility but limiting resources
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/13/republicans-float-changes-to-food-stamp-funding.html

[Nbadan]

From 2013...

House Republicans Vote to Slash Food Stamps, Letting 3.8 Million Americans Go Hungry
By Katie Singh on September 20, 2013



House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi tweeted this picture today to remind Republicans not to let Americans go hungry–they didn't listen

This afternoon, the House of Representatives passed the Nutrition Reform and Work Opportunity Act in a vote of 217-210. The bill slashes the budget for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, more commonly known as food stamps) by $40 billion over the next decade. The budget cuts would deny SNAP benefits to 3.8 million people in 2014, and remove an additional 3 million people each year over the course of the next decade. Among those who could lose their benefits are 170,000 veterans and 210,000 children who will no longer receive free lunch.

http://www.burntorangereport.com/diary/29973/texas-households-cant-afford-food

[spursncowboys]

there it is. in black and white. repubs hate poor people and want them to starve to death!

[boutons_deux]

there it is. in black and white. repubs hate poor people and want them to starve to death!

most people on public assistance are white and have shitty jobs.

[Winehole23]

how about old folks?

let em starve or go without meds, then pick up their hospital bill when they get sick or fall down? is that sound public policy?

http://www.mowaa.org/document.doc?id=193

[boutons_deux]

The Numbers Are Staggering: U.S. Is 'World Leader' in Child Poverty

America's wealth grew by 60 percent (http://usagainstgreed.org/20150316_Analysis.txt) in the past six years, by over $30 trillion. In approximately the same time, the number of homeless children has also grown by 60 percent (http://www.homelesschildrenamerica.org/mediadocs/280.pdf).

Financier and CEO Peter Schiff said (http://www.businessinsider.com/peter-schiff-barr-ritholtz-daily-show-2014-1), "People don’t go hungry in a capitalist economy." The 16 million kids (http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-16.html) on food stamps know what it's like to go hungry. Perhaps, some in Congress would say, those children should be working. "There is no such thing as a free lunch," insisted (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/jack-kingston-school-lunch_n_4467711.html) Georgia Representative Jack Kingston, even for schoolkids, who should be required to "sweep the floor of the cafeteria" (as theyactually do at a charter school (http://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/family/forget-janitors-in-this-school-the-students-clean-up/ar-AAaxUz3?ocid=mailsignout) in Texas).

The callousness of U.S. political and business leaders is disturbing, shocking. Hunger is just one of the problems of our children. Teacher Sonya Romero-Smith told (http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html) about the two little homeless girls she adopted: "Getting rid of bedbugs, that took us a while. Night terrors, that took a little while. Hoarding food.."

America is a 'Leader' in Child Poverty

The U.S. has one of the highest relative child poverty rates (http://www.aecf.org/blog/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-measuring-poverty-in-america/) in the developed world. As UNICEF (http://www.unicef.org/media/files/RC11-ENG-embargo.pdf) reports, "[Children's] material well-being is highest in the Netherlands and in the four Nordic countries and lowest in Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and the United States."

Over half (http://www.southerneducation.org/Our-Strategies/Research-and-Publications/New-Majority-Diverse-Majority-Report-Series/A-New-Majority-2015-Update-Low-Income-Students-Now) of public school students are poor enough to qualify for lunch subsidies, and almost half (http://stateofworkingamerica.org/fact-sheets/poverty/) of black children under the age of six are living in poverty.

$5 a Day for Food, But Congress Thought it was Too Much.

Nearly half (http://blogs.usda.gov/2011/06/24/fact-vs-fiction-usda%E2%80%99s-supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program/) of all food stamp recipients are children, and they averaged about$5 a day (http://www.obpa.usda.gov/budsum/FY15budsum.pdf) for their meals before the 2014 farm bill cut (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/12/the-bachelor-billionaires-and-the-problem-with-farm-subsidies-for-the-rich/) $8.6 billion (over the next ten years) from the food stamp program.

In 2007 about 12 of every 100 (http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-16.html) kids were on food stamps (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/28/kids-on-food-stamps_n_6564740.html). Today it's 20 of every 100.

For Every 2 Homeless Children in 2006, There Are Now 3 (http://www.homelesschildrenamerica.org/mediadocs/280.pdf)

On a typical frigid night in January, 138,000 children, according to the U.S. Department of Housing (https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/ahar-2013-part1.pdf), were without a place to call home.

That's about the same number of households (http://usagainstgreed.org/20150316_Analysis.txt) that have each increased their wealth by $10 million per yearsince the recession.

The US: Near the Bottom in Education, and Sinking

The U.S. ranks (http://www.oecd.org/unitedstates/CN%20-%20United%20States.pdf)near the bottom of the developed worldin the percentage of 4-year-olds in early childhood education. Early education should be a primary goal for the future, as numerous studies (http://www.nieer.org/news-events/news-releases/nieer-statement-president-obama%E2%80%99s-pre-k-proposal) have shown that pre-school helps allchildren to achieve more and earn more through adulthood, with the most disadvantaged benefiting the most. But we're going in the opposite direction.Head Start was recently hit with the worst cutbacks (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/08/19/stateline-head-start/2671309/) in its history.

Children's Rights? Not in the U.S.

It's hard to comprehend the thinking of people who cut funding for homeless and hungry children. It may be delusion about trickle-down, it may be indifference to poverty, it may be resentment toward people unable to "make it on their own."

The indifference and resentment and disdain for society reach around the globe. Only two nations (http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/01/23/us-may-soon-stand-alone-opposing-childrens-treaty) still refuse to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: South Sudan and the United States. When President Obama said (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/09/24/obama-tells-other-world-leaders-i-believe-america-is-exceptional/), "I believe America is exceptional," he was close to the truth, in a way he and his wealthy friends would never admit.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/numbers-are-staggering-us-world-leader-child-poverty

CC, tell us again how wide and deep is the USA social welfare safety net? :lol

[Winehole23]

the disabled, the sick, the old, rural people too far away from charities. fuck em all, even if we do end up paying more for them that way.

[Winehole23]

damn moochers