Food insecurity in America skyrockets
Naked Capitalism
21 Novembre 2009
The US Department of Agriculture highlights how the United States in
the last decade, despite increased aggregate wealth, slid back
significantly in terms of food insecurity as measure of poverty. With
everyone now focused on the unemployment situation, it bears noting
that even before the downturn in the economy there had been a large
surge in food insecurity nationwide.
The Guardian says:
Food insecurity – defined by the USDA as when "food
intake … was reduced and their eating patterns were disrupted at times
during the year because the household lacked money and other resources
for food" – afflicted 14.6% of Americans in 2008. ie, some 50
million people were too poor to guarantee being able to put food on the
table.
The table below, also from the Guardian, shows where food insecurity
is highest. While much of the distress is concentrated in the South,
there are plenty of states in the Southwest and West as well. Maine has
the highest food insecurity in the Northeast.
My interpretation of the data goes to income inequality.
I see this as evidence that the last decade of growth in the U.S. has
not been beneficial for poorer Americans. However, I would go further
in saying that the downturn in the U.S. and rising unemployment,
bankruptcy and foreclosure in the middle class has made plain that the
middle class has also been left behind. While distress amongst poorer
Americans is plain from these numbers, the diminished position in the
middle class was masked by a surge in debt. This was made plain only as
a result of a drop in asset prices.
At present, U.S. policy makers are trying to make this problem go
away by reflating an asset bubble, but continued high unemployment is
the elephant in the room which higher asset prices can not make
disappear.
As for the poor, a related Guardian article gets to the heart of things:
The report said 6.7 million people were defined as having "very low
food security" because they regularly lacked sufficient to eat. Among
them, 96% reported that the food they bought did not last until they
had money to buy more. Nearly all said they could not afford to eat
balanced meals. Although few reported that this was a permanent
situation throughout the year, 88% said it had occurred in three or
more months.
Nearly half reported losing weight because they did not have enough money to buy food.
The number of children living in households where there were
shortages of food at times rose by nearly one-third to 17 million. The
report says that most parents who did not get enough to eat ensured
their offspring received sufficient food but that more than 1 million
children still suffered outright hunger.
The worst affected states are in the south with Mississippi having
the largest proportion of its population enduring shortages of food
followed by Texas and Arkansas. More than half of those affected are
minorities, principally black people and Hispanics.
Millions more Americans do not go hungry only because they are so
poor they receive government food stamps or rely on handouts from food
banks such as Feeding America. In some states, such as West Virginia,
one in six of the population is on food stamps.
This is certainly the stuff of depressions more than V-shaped
recoveries. The first Guardian article has links to the data for
downloading.
By Edward Harrison of Credit Writedowns
Source >
Naked Capitalism | nov 17