Some Have, Some Have Not

Your level of hunger depends on where you stand -
In the past 6 years the gap between having plenty to eat and not being able to get enough has widened considerably.

Those who have enough do not stand in line - The stock market hit a new high yesterday; investors have much confidence in the U.S. economy. Yesterday the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 12,251. "Dow finishes at new high on Fed minutes," reads the headline from yesterday's Yahoo! News (AP). To quote:

Minutes from the Fed's Oct. 24-25 meeting showed the central bank's governors remain more worried about inflation than the risk the economy would slow too quickly under higher interest rates. Investors seemed to be buying on the notion that the Fed had struck a balance between taming inflation and keeping the economy from falling into recession.

Dow Jones one year ago - The day before Thanksgiving last year , November 22, 2005, the Dow Jones average stood at 10, 324.

Some do not have enough and the line is long - Last year I wrote a post on hunger (11/23/05) at S/SW -"Some will be hungry this Thanksgiving" - that caught a number of peoples' attention. It began,

How does it feel to be hungry, really hungry? It is not the kind of hunger that comes with having missed a meal. It is also not the kind of hunger one feels when doing a very purposeful "cleansing fast," or fasting on Fridays, in the old days of an observed liturgical holy week.
This hunger is that which comes from not getting anything to eat, or very little to eat, on a regular basis for days, weeks, months or years at a time. It comes from not getting a nutritionally balanced diet. This kind of hunger makes it difficult, if not impossible for mothers to nurse their infants. Infants do not grow and thrive if they live. People - adults and children - starve to death, or they die of diseases brought on by malnutrition. There are entire nations starving or desperately endangered today; right now. And there far too many people in these United States that are also hungry. This week, this coming Thanksgiving Day, the weekend following , millions are hungry. For many of the rest of us, we will be trying to figure out what to do with all our leftovers.

The news is that in 2006 millions of Americans do not get enough to eat - Two articles in the Washington Post caught my eye; they are about Americans going hungry. The first was headlined, "Some Americans Lack Food, but USDA Won't Call Them Hungry." To quote,

"Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured in the food security survey." Nord, a USDA sociologist, said, "We don't have a measure of that condition."
The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times. Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.
. . . The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.
. . . Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group. "We . . . cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens."
. . . That 35 million people in this wealthy nation feel insecure about their next meal can be hard to believe, even in the highest circles. In 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then running for president, said he thought the annual USDA report -- which consistently finds his home state one of the hungriest in the nation -- was fabricated.
. . . Bush said he believed that the statistics were aimed at his candidacy. "Yeah, I'm surprised a report floats out of Washington when I'm running a presidential campaign," he said.
The agency usually releases the report in the fall, for reasons that "have nothing to do with politics," Nord said.
This year, when the report failed to appear in October as it usually does, Democrats accused the Bush administration of delaying its release until after the midterm elections.

Seniors might also stand in the poverty line - The other WaPo story was about a program attempting to help older people enroll to receive Food Stamps. quote,

Mary Jane Blaine chose a round table in the center of the room, spread out her brochures on food stamps and waited for inquiries from the elderly residents at Madison House Apartments in Leesburg.
. . . Using Census Bureau data on incomes, the Federation of Virginia Food Banks concluded that only 56 percent of Virginia residents who qualify for food stamps are enrolled. The rate is even lower in Loudoun, where about 8,300 people were eligible for food stamps last year but only 3,300 received them, according to the federation's figures.
Food bank officials said there are many reasons for the gap. Some people don't know about the program or are daunted by the 14-page application. Others are just too proud. . . "My goal is to reach anyone who's insecure about where their next meal is coming from," she (Blaine)said.

"Insecure" is correctly used in this case. But, in the case of the USDA's insulting "spin" of "hunger" into "very low food security," the wording is just absurd. Try telling your tummy that as you stand in line; it will still growl at you when it is empty.

References:

1. Interactive hunger map -U.N. World Food Programme


2. Hunger Notes - (WHES) worldhunger.org


3. Hunger Web - Tufts University


4. Bread for the World - "Seeking Justice. Ending Hunger."

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