50 INDIA EMPIRE March 2009 USADiaspora HUNGRY A M E R I C A The recession is taking a heavy toll on the US, with over 35 million people finding it difficult to put food on the table. Even as the countryspends billions on the Pentagon’s silver bullets, the number ofAmericans going hungry, sometimes for days, is rising by Rakesh K. Simha
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Can’t work becauseshe has to care for small children. Relieson social security andfood stamps. After allbills are paid, she has$20 left each month tospend on food andother essentials for her children.
herry Byrum, 48, works full time at a day care centre
in Spokane Valley, Washington, earning about $9 an
hour. She and her husband live in a 30-year old mobile
home and get groceries at a local food bank. Sometimes
the couple goes several days without eating. “We’ve got
to pay our bills,” Byrum says. “I can’t buy us the things
we should eat because of our diabetes. There are some
times I go to bed in tears thinking I just can’t do it all.”
Wyoming resident Mary sets out from her home
everyday to collect discarded wooden pallets. Despite
debilitating pain from spinal arthritis, she then uses an axe to chop them into firewood. Like many senior citi-
zens across the country, Mary’s social security payments
do not cover her medical expenses, or her household and
fuel expenses. She visits
the Salvation Army Food
Pantry in Casper for a
food box.
Gloria Muniz, 45,
from New York, is a sin-
gle mother struggling to
provide for her eight chil-
dren and two nephews, all under the age of 16. Unable to work, Muniz relies on
social security, public assistance and food stamps to get
by. After all the bills are paid, she has about $20 left
in her purse each month to spend on food and other
essentials such as school supplies for her children. “But
they don’t last me very long, says Muniz.” The upshot:
the family often goes hungry.
Like the unfortunate families mentioned
above, there are over 35 million Americans —
nearly as many as live in California — who
don’t know where their next meal will comefrom. Job losses, home foreclosures, and other
recent crises have been truly life altering for
Americans, with one in eight people struggling
with hunger.
These are official figures and experts say
the numbers could be higher. “The numbers
have been provided by the US Department of
Agriculture,” says Ross Fraser of Feeding
America, the nation's leading domestic hunger-
relief charity that provides food assistance to
more than 25 million low-income people fac-
ing hunger in the US.Over the years, the number of people
showing up hungry at food pantries and soup
kitchens in the US has surged, with more than
a thousand operating
in New York alone.
Requests are so high
that some food centres
nationwide are turning
away the hungry.
What makes the
demand so striking is
not only the sudden-ness but also the demographic that is seeking
help. For instance, most of the newcomers that
show up at Feeding America’s centres have
been employed and have managed to survive
dips in the job market. Many of them are cou-
ples and single parents who had managed with-
out handouts.
Hunger is a significant problem, according
to annual reports issued by the United States
Department of Agriculture. Around 11 per cent
of people live in households where they may
not have enough money to put adequate foodon the table – that’s 35.5 million Americans.