This article is manipulation of the rankest kind. It's built out of facts that are individually true, but together constitute an outright lie.
First, reread the article and not what it actually says. It summarizes, paraphrases, and offers characterizations like:
* "struggled to feed themselves adequately"
* "struggled with hunger"
* "predicted the 2008 numbers will show even more hunger because of the sharp economic downturn"
* "increases in the number of hungry people"
...and so on. But notice that whenever actual statistics are cited, they all refer to something called "food insecurity," which is a technical term defined by the FDA.
Now, consider the title of this article, published in 2003 in the Journal of Nutrition, which is an established, peer-reviewed journal run by scientists instead of politicos:
Food Insecurity Is Associated with Increased Risk of Obesity in California Women
I'm not claiming that the US doesn't have poverty-related social problems. In fact, one of those problems is obesity, as numerous independent studies have confirmed. There's plenty of room to discuss what should be done about obesity among the poor. But they aren't getting fat because they don't have enough to eat.
In closing, dear reader, I present a few unrelated facts for your amusement:
* One of the federal government's largest discretionary expenditures is farm subsidies.
* The most heavily subsidized crops are corn and soybeans.
* The largest single donor to federal election campaigns is Archer Daniels Midland, which sells products derived from corn and soybeans.
* Midwestern states (which grow corn and soybeans) are disproportionately influential in the Senate, whence farm bills often originate.
* The FDA, which doles out the farm subsidies, is also responsible for measuring hunger and assessing nutritional requirements. Nutritional recommendations made by the FDA affect what you can buy with food stamps.
* Food consumed disproportionately by the poor contains disproportionate amounts of corn and soybeans. This is thought to be one of the main reasons why obesity is more common among this group.
I am not saying that it does NOT exist, I am saying it is very uncommon nowadays, and that saying "much hunger" is clearly an exaggeration at the same level as what tabloid are capable of. There is no way you can compare the situation in the US with the situation in many other countries in the world and say there is "much hunger" in the US. It's just being blatantly ignorant of the situation outside of your country.
The people that run these organizations have an incentive to make this problem appear larger than it really is. I have never in my life seen in this country a starving person or a malnourished person for that matter and the government health statistics back me up. It is not a problem the U.S. has.
While it's not literal death from starvation, it's as close as you'll get in a country with agriculture subsidised in the way that it is.
That's not to say it's as melodramatic a situation as maybe the word 'starvation' presents itself, but do not delude yourself; people really are actually poor in real life. It happens. A lot.
So, 14.3% of US Households don't have enough food. Food insecurity is another way of saying "Hey, we may not eat today but we eat enough calories on average to survive.".
You think these people are paying their power bills over food? Seriously?
"69 percent of households that rely on food charities to survive have been forced to choose between paying for utilities and paying for food."
"66 percent of households said they’ve had to choose between paying for food and paying for medicine or medical care. Thirty-one percent said they had to make that choice every month."
I'm guessing some people are letting the power bill go unpaid based on that, eh?
So when you say its "Envy" are you saying you are ignorant or that 14.3% of the people in this country are envious, ungrateful bastards for thinking they deserve 3 square meals a day?
I accept your argument that few are starving like a national geographic picture. Instead we have merely undernourished schoolchildren in the richest country in world history.
As for the adults, maybe we can write sleep outside until you freeze, get shot/stabbed, or jailed where you're threatened with sexual assault and are in general treated like a disease until you acquire enough money to escape the poverty trap and possibly mental help, the least funded area of America's inhumane medical system that is one of the top reasons people go broke.
I realize I'm supposed to be horrified, but that actually sounds better than the current situation in America.
Can you give more details? What are rates of childhood malnutrition like? How hard is it for the sub-middle-class (or, God forbid, the unemployed) to get medical care?
> We are so far away from starving or running out of water that it's hilarious.
Let me guess, you live a sheltered life in a 1st world country (like most on HN). Others are not so lucky.
"The Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that we entered 2022 with 828 million hungry people. This number represents an increase of approximately 150 million hungry people since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic." [1]
People can, unfortunately, easily ignore problems that aren't right at their door, and most of the people who are affected the most aren't in North America or Europe.
I'll call you inhumane then. Despite record employment levels and rising average net worth in the USA, millions of people are still starving and struggling with drug addictions and so on.
Averages and generalizations only tell a portion of the story. Anecdotes can shed light on "noise".
Even if they were saying that, which they aren't, it doesn't really matter given that no one (outside of three special cases) in America starves.
Those three cases are abused children, the mentally ill, and forgotten elderly. In all cases food scarcity was not the problem. They're problems of community oversight.
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/07/americans-he....
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