HUNGER IN AMERICA: THE MYTH
Hunger in America: The Myth
Thomas L. Burnett
2
Copyright 2011 by Thomas L. Burnett
All rights reserved
Cover design by Thomas L. Burnett
Published by Thomas L. Burnett
4143 Rain Roper Drive
Bozeman, MT 59715
Printed in the United States of America
3
Contents
Introduction
Food Stamps
Childhood Hunger
Hunger Co-existing with Obesity
Food Banks
Other Government Programs
An Individual Perspective
Conclusion
Appendix
8
10
16
20
27
30
31
33
34
4
Introduction
Is hunger a pressing problem in America? This article will show that assertions of
dire hunger lack credibility. Efforts to resolve this non-crisis can abate.

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Food stamps is a colossal waste of money, going for soda pop, candy,
snacks, and chips, items high in high fructose corn syrup, sodium, fat and
cholesterol.
The free food children are given at school more than satisfies calorie
requirements. The food stamp food and food pantry food they consume at
home contributes to obesity.
Government food programs are making recipients unhealthy.
How can Americans be getting fatter and hungrier at the same time? About 34% of
U.S. adults — almost 73 million people — were obese (roughly 30 or more pounds
over a healthy weight) in 2008, up from 31% in 1999.
Yet 17 million people were on food stamps in 2000, 29
million in 2009 and 45 million in 2010. Food pantry visits
from 1999-2007 increased 92%1; that span was a time of
prosperity and full employment2. The unemployment rate
declined from 3.8% to 3.6% in the years 2005-2007, while
pounds of food distributed by the Montana Food Bank Network increased by
double. Did dependency increase, rather than need?
Food stamp usage3 and obesity4 are rising simultaneously. This confounds
expectations. Populations that are more dependent on food stamps are also more
obese.5 Food stamp program participation is positively related to obesity in low
income women.
5
The purpose of this book is to call into question claims of pervasive hunger and
concomitant appeals for more government spending on food programs. It also
justifies reduced spending in government food programs. Altering the food stamp
program to be more like the Women, Infants and Children program is a reasonable
proposal. No one would go hungry and health would improve. Budgetary excesses
could be bridled.
6
Food Stamps
The food stamp program is a wreck. Its managers say they are providing nutritious
meals. What people buy using food stamps is neither nutritious, nor meals. Items
purchased contribute to obesity. Obesity adds to the cost of healing the recipients.
Some health researchers estimate that 70% of Americans’ health costs arise from
bad food choices and limited exercise. Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, and
asthma, are more common in persons who gain excess weight. Food stamps packs
it on. Then Medicaid and Medicare are called on to repair the damage. Taxpayers
pay to create problems that they have to rectify.
Food stamps do not ameliorate hunger with nutrition. They glut appetite. They
harm as often as they help. The food stamp program is improperly named. The
USDA claims food stamps, “puts healthy food on the table for over 40 million
people each month.” (As of September
2011, the number is 47 million.6) “Healthy
food” is false advertising. Even the
program’s slick new name, Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program, contains the
falsity; nutrition is rarely achieved by the
use of food stamps. Maybe the program
should be called the Government Junk Food
Program.
In the student newspaper dailylobo.com, Kwaku Sraha writes:
America can address its national debt and reform health care while
protecting safety net programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF), Food Stamps/SNAP, Medicaid and Medicare, all of
which are so essential to the most vulnerable in our society.
7
It is hard to concede that food stamps “are essential to the most vulnerable”, when
the woman at the convenience store purchases two bottles of Dr. Pepper and a pack
of gum with food stamps.
The following definition of food insecurity does not define acceptable food:
Food insecurity. “Limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate
and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods.”7
What is acceptable food? Food a recipient would accept? Store items- one hesitates
to call many of them “foods”- are frequently of limited nutritional value. Even store
clerks, when asked what food stamps purchase, frequently say, “Junk food!”8
Food stamp participants consume less produce and healthy options and purchase at
least 40% more sugar-sweetened beverages than any other consumer group. 9
The food stamp program is rife with fraud. Classic fraud, selling food stamp
benefits for cash, is estimated at 3.5%. In a year where $77 billion is spent, this
species of fraud costs $2.7 billion. When recipients trade and lend cards, the
activity cannot be tracked as no identification is required of a customer presenting a
card.
 Recipients routinely sell their benefits cards on Facebook.
 Some food-stamp recipients were selling their cards on Craigslist or
brazenly cashing them out on street corners.
 Thirty percent of the inmates in the Polk County, Iowa, jail were collecting
food stamps that were being sent to their non-jail mailing addresses in 2009.
 Two veteran employees for New York City's Human Resources
Administration were busted for concocting 1,500 fake food-stamp cases that
netted them $8 million.
8
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A Louisiana state bureaucrat pleaded guilty last year for her role in a scam
that snared more than $50,000 in fraudulent food-stamp benefits.
The food-stamp poster boy of 2011 is 59-year-old Leroy Fick. After Mr.
Fick won a $2 million lottery jackpot, the Michigan Department of Human
Services ruled he could continue receiving food stamps.10
But as James Bovard writes in the Wall Street Journal, “Perhaps the biggest fraud
of all is the notion, which the USDA has been touting lately, that the food-stamp
program is a nutrition program. What is really does is boost caloric intake, which
is why numerous studies (including a 2009 Ohio State University report) link
food stamps to the worsening obesity epidemic among low-income Americans.”11
Maximilian Schmeiser finds that each additional year of food stamp participation
increases the Body Mass Index (BMI) of women and men by 1.6 points.12
Purchases of steaks and lobsters gall taxpayers, but the more mundane purchases
are even more frustrating. A compilation of recent food stamp store receipts reveals
the following items: Jell-O No Bake Oreo Cookie Dessert Mix, Nabisco Cheese
Nips, Gatorade All Star, Betty Crocker Fruit Gushers, Kellogg’s Nutri-grain Cereal
Bars, Mountain Dew, Capri Sun Mountain Cooler, Mini Marshmallows, Crème
Soda, Mr. Goodbar Giant, Bacon Ends, Sobe Adrenaline, Ocean Spray Orange
Juice, Diet Coke 12 Pak, Fridge Pak Diet Soda, Kitkat Minis, Ginger Snaps,
Mountain Dew, Frappuccino, more Frappuccino, Dr. Pepper, Western Family Fruit
Rings, Western Family Kookies Choc, Post Golden Crisp Cereal, and the apparent
favorite candy bar of food stamp recipients, Pearson’s Salted Nut Rolls. Items high
in cholesterol, fat, sodium and sugar are not a boon to recipients. The author’s
website may be referenced to see the details of food stamp purchases.13
9
Author J. Davidow excuses unhealthy food stamp purchases this way:
Another contributing factor to overweight and obesity issues in SNAP
participants may be the lack of access participants have to healthy options
because low-income areas are more often served with mini-marts that sell
chips and soda as opposed to grocery stores14 that sell chips and soda.
This explanation becomes specious when food stamps are observed to buy
unhealthy foods at convenience stores within eyesight of full service grocery
stores.
Receipts demolish the Davidow contention. Recipients run into the convenience
store and pick up a Frappuccino and some pork rinds. They go to Papa Murphy’s
and buy $40 worth of heart-clogging take-and-bake pizza and two liters of
Mountain Dew. They buy junky foods because of taste, not because oatmeal is hard
to locate. They buy Pepsi and Oreos at stores where the bountiful fruit and
vegetable aisle is only a few feet away. They buy what tastes good. Food stamps
enable appetite. Geographic roadblocks rarely conspire against recipients. Foresight
can solve geographic limitations.
One state food stamp administrator claimed that because food stamp benefits run
out at the end of the month, this indicates a cycle of hunger. Even the non-poor run
out of food money at the end of their pay cycle. They plan it that way. The cycle of
hunger is not a necessary conclusion of cyclical spending patterns.
10
One advocate for more government food spending claimed that the monthly spenddown on food stamps causes obesity because a person’s metabolism causes them to
overeat after a hungry period. She must be referring to the same graph as the
administrator. Hers is not a necessary conclusion. Cyclical purchasing is typical for
even prudent, forward-looking families.
If the food stamp program revised the foods allowed, emphasizing staples and fruits
and vegetables, it could save taxpayers $40 billion per year. A wise revision would
be based on the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) food list. Staples would be
added. It might be called WIC-Plus. No one would go hungry. Recipients would be
healthier. Store managers say changing their systems would not be difficult or
expensive. USDA managers cavil, saying they could not keep up with the
thousands of new products offered every year. Solution: Only adapt the allowed list
every three years based on simple nutritional standards. Recipients are not entitled
11
to the newest soda or other culinary creations that food engineers concoct. Tuna
fish sandwich ingredients, oatmeal, flour, rice, bread, apples, bananas and other
proven foods do not need updating. The new, novel foods introduced every year are
not necessities.
Convenience store purchases are about 15% of national food stamp spending, $11.6
billion annually. Schwan’s, the home deliverer of pizza, ice cream and expensive
prepared foods, sells about $6 million worth of product annually on food stamps.
Federal officials rejected Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to bar New
York City’s food stamp users from buying soda and other sugary drinks with
them.15
Food stamps are mostly a waste of money.
12
Childhood Hunger
Childhood hunger is in the headlines. State legislatures study
it.16 President Obama set a goal in his campaign to end
childhood hunger by 2015.17 The Kansas City Star headline
reads: Study Confirms Child Hunger is a Growing Problem
in Rural Areas.18 Other headlines: Child Hunger is High in
Louisiana; Missouri Ranks Fifth in Child Hunger;
Landmark Study Indicates Childhood Hunger Surging in
Alameda County.
Yet, two stark facts dilute the fear of childhood hunger,
possibly laying it to rest. The first pertains to plate waste in
school lunch programs. Poor kids, those qualified for free
lunch, throw away more food than those that pay full price, 46% more.19 If poor
kids were hungrier, they would eat more.
13
Total food waste is far higher than the 14.6%, 14% and 10%% shown, as the left
axis only measures energy wasted. Kids waste less of the energy-rich foods while
discarding the fruits and vegetables that have less energy but are high in essential
nutrients. Total food waste, measured by nutritional value and weight, is over 30%.
Free summer food program waste is about 30%. Summer food program kids waste
48% of vegetables served.20
A study excerpted below, by the Montana Food Bank Network, shows that 7% of
their kids had to skip a meal in the last 12 months.
14
If 20% of the population uses food banks, 7% of 20% of kids had to skip a meal in
the last 12 months, or 1.4% of kids. 43% had to skip a meal at least once a week, or
0.6%. This is low quality data, due to self-reporting and time constraints for
interviews. Even so, it hardly squares with the USDA depiction of “One in four
American children live in households without enough food to go around.”
15
The second reason we can discount fears about all but the most isolated, and
intractable to collective action, childhood hunger, is that obesity is increasing in
children.
16
As for adults, obesity in children is increasing faster in lower-income populations.
Hank Hudson, administrator of the Economic Security Branch of the Department of
Public Health and Human Services in Montana allowed, “It is rare to find
malnourishment.”
The Obama administration recently expanded the school lunch program to include
more children, even children of homes where income limits presently preclude
them. If more than 40% of the kids in any school live in a home where even one
person qualifies for food stamps, not only is the entire population of the school
eligible for free school lunch, but the entire population of the district of which that
school is a part. Corporate jet owners’ children could get a “free lunch.” The name
of this expansion is Community Eligibility21. By 2014, all states will implement it.
Additionally, the Administration is aggressively expanding the Sumer Food Service
Program. Children are served food with no questions asked of their parent about
their household’s income. Self-reliance erodes.
Plate waste22 and increases in youth obesity contradict alarm cries to urgently
address childhood hunger. For every child who regularly experiences unhealthy
hunger pangs-and they are never identified and interviewed-we can find a thousand
who need to have their hunger less satisfied. If poor children were hungry, they
would eat the food.
17
Hunger Co-existing with Obesity
Can hunger cause obesity? That these two phenomena occur simultaneously defies
logic. Hunger cannot result in obesity. Obesity rampages across the land. Evidence,
scholarly and visual, is everywhere. Yet hunger, and its variant, food insecurity, is
reportedly worse than ever.
Advocates for more food aid wonder if statistics showing large numbers of people
who are manifestly not hungry mask individual cases. Perhaps food aid recipients
seek calorie-rich foods as a survival mechanism, a strategy dubbed calorie mining.
Later on, we’ll examine this.
The first purpose of this chapter is to verify the obvious; Americans are rapidly
gaining weight. The second purpose is to examine claims of increasing food
insecurity in recent years. Hunger alarms are very similar over the years. Despite
enormous-and expanding- spending by government, hunger alarms continue.
ThinkProgress, a left-leaning blog, says, “Food insecurity increased by more than
60 percent for middle-aged Americans during the recession.” A government report
bears the headline: Report shows more than 17 million American households lack
food security.
Hunger is called invisible. Perhaps invisibility is due to a paucity of affected
individuals. Purported invisibility is often used as a reason to redouble efforts, to
enlist greater taxpayer involvement.
Obesity increased rapidly between 1994 and 2008.23 24
18
Since the early 1960s, the percentage of adults who are obese increased from 13.4
to 35.1.25 A slide show prepared by the Centers for Disease Control shows obesity
enveloping the nation over time.26
The county level map below shows where the obesity situation is worst;27 it shows
the percentage of adults† who are obese.
19
20
The map below shows food stamp participation by county.
Many counties where obesity reigns are counties where food stamp usage is
highest.
Researchers have found that food stamp program participation is positively related
to obesity in low income women.28
Where are the Hungry?
Current hunger relief appeals sound familiar. We have heard
them for decades. The tenor of writings about hunger has
changed little over the decades.
A 1994 study by Second Harvest, the national food bank
network, says;
21
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
poverty and hunger are on the rise nationally, particularly in suburban areas
people may look affluent, but “Then you discover they come to your food
pantry. Then you find out they've been laid off, and they're sweating their
mortgage payments.”
hunger is also creeping into the middle class29
In 2005, a time of ebullient prosperity, New York U.S. Representative Anthony
Weiner said that, “children are likely to represent an increasingly large proportion
of the population of hungry New Yorkers." He had a plan, “to take action to
alleviate hunger's most pressing causes.” His plan included raising the minimum
wage30. It was raised by 39%31 but the calls to end hunger did not abate.
Blogger Michael Snyder recently wrote:
 Sadly, as the price of food continues to rise there are tens of millions more
Americans that are on fixed incomes or on limited incomes that are going to
be facing food insecurity.
 More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep
from going hungry.
 According to the BBC, 15% of all U.S. households experienced a shortage
of food at some point during 2009.
 According to Feeding America, 50.2 million Americans lived in "food
insecure households" during 2009.32
The Deseret News, in August of 2011, reported “One in four American children
live in households without enough food to go around, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. At 17 million, there are more children battling hunger
today since officials started keeping track in 1995.33
This article included the photo of the mother of two hungry boys preparing dinner.
One of the boys notices his mother skips meals. “I tell her to eat all the time,” he
22
said. “She doesn’t listen.” She was overweight. Obese and overweight people get
hungry, just as people of normal weight do. The photo in the article captures the
essence of the hunger-obesity dichotomy: the mother is overweight but hungry.
This should not cause surprise; even plump people get hungry when meal time is
delayed or postponed. But taxpayers and program managers should not feel
chastised when a person whose need is systematic reduction of calorie intake
foregoes several meals per month, in the unlikely event that such was actually
found to be the case. Taxpayers should feel no obligation to fund satiety. A person
with excessive weight has need of restriction, not surfeit.
Teresa Marrs, pictured in The Tennessean34, is both obese and a user of food
stamps and food pantries. Her weight, smoking habit and flat screen TV leave
readers unconvinced.
The Deseret News article quotes Mariana Chilton, an associate professor at Drexel
University and a leading hunger expert as saying, “In some ways our nation’s
future is very insecure in the same way a family can be food insecure. The worry of
shut-off notices, the worry of not being able to afford enough food, the worry of
mounting debt, all with the knowledge that this situation is going to harm our
health, our potential. It makes for a very scary and depressing time.”
Chilton’s quote points out a weakness in the definition of food insecurity35. It is
partly a concern about future lack. This is a constant for most individuals. We fear
lack of money. We fear relationships will wither. We fear loss of job. We can be
said to be money insecure, job insecure, retirement insecure, love insecure and food
insecure. Food insecurity is normal. It is simply one species of wondering how you
or your family is going to get through every month financially. It is typical of limits
life imposes on all but the Gates’, Rockfellers and Kennedys, and should not justify
elaborate redistribution efforts.
23
“Families are classified as food insecure if they express uncertainty about their
ability to afford enough food for their household at any point in the previous 12
months.”36
Further examination of the ThinkProgress quote above, that, “Food insecurity
increased by more than 60 percent for middle-aged Americans during recession,”
shows that, since food programs spending is up nearly double, and food pantry
visitation is up, that food insecurity appears to refer primarily to an economic
decline. It is more a statement of income decline, than of food scarcity.
The 60 percent figure scarcely conforms with the previously noted increase from 17
million to 45 million on food stamps from 2000 to 2009. That’s a gain of more than
two and a half times, far more than 60%. The 60% figure does not synchronize.
Quantifying food insecurity is notably indeterminate, casting doubt on the
usefulness of the term.
Reflect on the quote from the USDA that, “One in four American children live in
households without enough food to go around.” One can imagine these children
going without supper several times a week, when the definition can be strictly true
for even a few incidents per year. A reader gets a more dire impression than is the
case. And the lack of malnourished kids presenting themselves listless, emaciated,
and desperate, even in low-income schools, gives little support to the pervasive and
urgent tone of the USDA statement.
Some explain obesity in the poor like Sandra Lee does here:
Moreover, there is an unexpected--but frequent--link between hunger and
obesity. The inexpensive foods that these families and children often must
rely on have a greater number of calories and less nutritional value than more
expensive fruits and vegetables. In addition, these unfortunate individuals
24
often experience irregular eating patterns--having food one day but not the
next--which can lead to weight gain.37
Some say, “Recipients choose cheap, unhealthy foods because they are calorie
dense and they do it as a defense mechanism.” Recipients would not buy a $2.00
liter bottle of Pepsi at Papa Murphy’s when two blocks away, at Albertson’s, two
liter Pepsi is $1.59. They would not choose Pepsi for $4.99 for 144 fl. oz. while in
Albertson’s. They would walk 4 steps and choose Superchill, the store brand, for
$2.99, for 144 fl. oz. But they often choose national brands.
Some say the poor are “calorie mining,” getting fat because the least expensive way
to survive is to buy the most energy-rich food at the lowest cost. The poor are
Darwinians and economists! This presupposes a high degree of planning and
strategy. But if a person is buying Mountain Dew and Twinkies at a convenience
store, while a grocery store stocking the same items at lower prices is less than two
blocks away, a highly purposeful shopper would maximize calories per dollar
credit on the EBT card by shopping at the grocery store. They do not. That is a
major reason for poverty: lack of purposeful budgeting and management. An
examination of store items chosen by food stamp recipients rebuts this claim.
Frappucino is a more expensive way to get calories than store brand soda. Name
brand soda is a more expensive way to stave off hunger, but food stamp recipients
routinely choose it over the discount store brand. Choices of food stamp shoppers,
like Frappucino and self-serve milkshakes, rebut the claim of the need to mine for
calories. Calorie miners turn out, rather, to be taste maximizers, convenience
maximizers.
Perhaps definitions of hunger and food insecurity lack clarity. Perhaps self-reported
data about hunger is unreliable. Perhaps food aid advocates exaggerate and
incorrectly characterize findings on hunger.
25
Food Banks
Food banks and food pantries provide better food than food stamp recipients
choose. They inspire volunteerism. We celebrate food banks.
Upward sloping food bank graphs can justify either unremitting need, or success in
satisfying need, not both, though food bank executives emphasize the first
explanation. The following graph is from the Montana Food Bank Network.
26
A point of clarification may help the reader: Food banks are not food pantries. The
former are the warehouses that supply the latter. The former are, to use business
terminology, wholesale, while the latter are the retail stores that customers enter.
This article uses the terms interchangeably because many in the general public do
so.
More people are visiting food banks.
More pounds of food are being
served. More pounds of food per
visitor are being served.38 These facts
could indicate that more people are
hungry as hunger advocates say. But
other conclusions may be drawn
because increases began before the
current recession. More food may be coming into food banks, recipients may be
less shy about receiving, more food banks may have opened attracting a larger
clientele, outreach efforts to lure participation may have increased in effectiveness.
Increased utilization may or may not prove increasing neediness.
27
Food bank representatives are certainly right to assert that with increasing levels of
unemployment, clients’ ability to buy all items, including food, would be less. But
their use of data about increases in demand for their goods to prove increasing
hunger is not exacting.
Food banks receive, to a degree not generally known, government commodity
distributions and direct government taxpayer funds. Like a government agency in
the administrative state, overhead costs at food banks have a tendency to expand.
Staff multiplies.39 Growth is an organizational imperative. Justifications are stated
in terms of the need for food not for organization-building because donors and
taxpayers do not support high overhead costs. The food pantry in Billings, Montana
recently built a $5 million facility40, partly with congressional earmarks.
Executives from ConAgra Foods, Mars, Kraft, and General Mills sit on the board
of Feeding America, the national food bank organization.41 One may wonder about
motives. Surely good will plays a part. But interest could, as well. By being “in the
discussion, at the table,” the executive is insuring that the corporation has input in
28
food bank decisions, and status to give input at congressional hearings about the
urgency of keeping the food stamp recipients eligible to use their food stamp cards
to choose the business’s products. Businesses benefit copiously from billions of
dollars of government spending in food stamps, even if their products are not
nutritious.
Significant numbers of visitors to food banks do not enroll for food stamps, though
their income would qualify them, something food bank workers diligently try to
fix.42
Nationally, only 67% of the people that are eligible to receive food stamps take
them. To some, this is lamentable, to some, a sign of vestigal self-reliance.
29
Other Government Programs
Government food spending is stupendous. Programs have proliferated and continue
to do so. Some of the programs listed below have been mentioned, some not.
Women, Infants and Children, WIC. Commodity food distribution. Senior centers
have government supported kitchens. The Emergency Food Assistance Program.
Montana has 170 senior feeding sites, some in towns so small the average
Montanan has never heard of them. Meals on Wheels. Headstart programs have
been building kitchens for themselves. Both Headstart locations in St. Ignatius,
MT., population 788, have kitchens. School food programs consist of breakfast,
often served in the classroom, mid-morning snack, lunch and after school snack
programs. Recent Obama Administration changes make upper income kids
participants in free school lunch.43 The After School Supper Program was
expanded by $641 million over ten years in 2010 federal legislation. Schools and
YWCAs run summer food programs with government taxpayer funding. Day care
food programs. Indian reservation food programs. Efforts are underway to make
fast food restaurants like Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC eligible to take food
stamps.44 45
Government efforts are more than ample. No augmentation is justified.
30
An Individual Perspective
Typically, government programs are analyzed from the top down. What is the
objective? How much is spent? What is the history of the program? What are the
eligibility requirements?
A different approach is to look from the bottom up. What is a recipient of the
program like? How many benefits do they receive? How does he or she live? What
is the milieu of their inputs and experiences, the ecosystem in which they live?
Take a family of six individuals. If the father loses his job, and it was the only
income, the next day, he or the mother can go to the aid office, or apply online, and
sign up for food stamps. Montana has no asset test. So he need not surrender the
Harleys, the motorhome, the guns, the 4-wheelers, the Blackberrys. Each member
can get $200 worth of foods stamps.
The four children each get about $6.00 worth of government food daily at school.
For all four, that is $480 per month.
The kids get a food backpack for the weekend. Some of the value of that backpack
is tax subsidized.
Free school food of about $4,320, and food stamps, $11,424, for this family totals
over $15,744 annually. This is an adequate sum, some would say princely. It should
preclude our sympathy, and certainly our authorization of expanded claims on
taxpayers.
A family or household has other possible sources of food:
WIC
Church and charity food pantries
31
Family member assistance
Stored food
Gardening
Hunting
Gleaning
Barter
Odd jobs
32
Conclusion
We reach two conclusions: 1) claims of food insecurity, hunger and childhood
hunger ought to be taken skeptically, and, 2) government programs ought to be
substantially revised in the interest of taxpayers and for the health of recipients.
The food stamp allowed food list should be like WIC’s, plus staples. Expanded free
school lunch is unwarranted. Outreach to enroll more food stamp recipients should
halt.
33
Appendix
The uses of hunger:
Fasting has benefits. Satiety and surfeit has risks. Jews fast several days a year.
Latter-day Saints miss 24 meals a year, Muslims 60. Buddhists fast, sometimes 18
consecutive days. Catholics fast at least 3 days per year. Movie stars restrict food
intake and miss meals to maintain their attractive figures. America wastes away in
indulgence, not want.
Hunger is a normal part of a healthy person’s day. One should expect to be hungry
six hours per day, the two hours preceding each meal. Satiety kills.
The Children and Families interim committee met in Helena, Montana, September
19, 2011. Asked “What causes childhood hunger?”, a DPHHS administrator
replied, “It’s a complex life to be poor. They have management problems. They
juggle jobs, making it difficult to prepare food. It creates issues with food
preparation. Transportation: we don’t have transportation systems that serve many
people. There’s little public housing. Transportation and housing costs are out of
proportion to minimum wage. People have been forced to share housing. SNAP,
pantries and schools are the food system, leaving weekends, summers and after
school hours. Cash is going to what we don’t provide. SNAP runs out by month
end, indicating a cycle of hunger. Schools are the place we expect things to get
done.”
Asked what the long term solutions are, he replied, “We need to work on
approaches to 1) get more education, 2) provide more affordable housing, and 3)
insure living wages.”
34
Then he allowed that, “It is rare to find malnourishment.”
Response to the administrator:
1) It’s a complex life to be poor. It’s a complex life for everyone. Appointments,
health concerns and workouts, depression, school and job demands, maintaining a
marriage, how to reach an incorrigible child, decisions about where to go, what to
buy, how to get by, where to go to school, how to get the kids everywhere they
have to go while watching 53.5 hours of electronic games, the internet and TV per
week. Life is complex. The poor have no lock on this phenomenon.
2) They, the poor, have management problems. They surely do. They don’t budget
or plan. Lack of foresight is common in this population. They don’t restrain their
impulses, one of the definitions of management problems. They don’t discipline
themselves to stay in school, to turn in their homework, to get out of bed on time,
to study when they’d rather watch movies. This is another way to say, “They have
management problems.”
3) They, the poor, juggle jobs. So does everyone else. But the non-poor juggle a lot
more work than the poor. A study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that the
poor work one-third as many hours as the self-reliant. Edgar K. Browning, in
Stealing from Each Other, reports that people in the highest income quintile work
700 percent more, that is nearly eight times as much, as those in the lowest income
quintile.46 The perception that the poor are constantly at work, juggling multiple
jobs, is not supported. Too much work does not make a person poor.
4) They, the poor, find it difficult to prepare food. Who prepares food anymore?
Few. The poor are even less likely than the non-poor to have the habit of cooking
and sitting down as a family around the dinner table, praying, and having loving,
enlightening conversations. Food preparation is a thing of the past, especially
among the poor.
35
5) “’We’ don’t have transportation systems that serve many people.” On the
contrary, the past few years has witnessed an explosion in mass transit. Montana
now has 46 mass transit systems, though we have no masses of people. Dinky
towns have them. Stimulus lives. Tax buses crawl the streets and highways. Butte
Para-transit, Butte Transit, and Bozeman’s Galavan and Streamline systems ply
thousands of miles per day. West Yellowstone, Ekalaka, Poplar, Chester, St. Regis,
Pablo and Ronan, they all have mass transit, public transit.
6) There’s little public housing. Public housing abounds. And life there is
dangerous and uninspiring. Poverty advocates have complained of lack of public
housing for decades while stupendous efforts have been made to provide it. Life in
public housing is chaotic. Independent housing should be the goal. People have
been forced to share housing. This is, in itself unproblematic. Vietnamese families
on the rise muddle through this stage and go on to high incomes, and high
educational attainment. Pakistanis, the Irish and other immigrants have done this
for as long as there has been an American Dream.
7) Transportation and housing costs are out of proportion to minimum wage. This
is a thinly veiled call for a living wage, whatever that is. Some say $14.00 per hour,
but it could be argued that only $45 per hour would really get one out of poverty.
That would be $90,000 per year. But a family that makes $90,000 per year, the wife
as a food manager and the husband as an oil field worker, still qualify for $7,000
taxpayer check for child care, ostensibly because they need it. (Interview with a tax
preparer by the author.) Maybe $45 per hour is not even a living wage.
8) SNAP, pantries and schools are the food system, leaving weekends, summers and
after school hours. Doesn’t SNAP feed people on weekends? Doesn’t the taxpayer
feed kids in summer programs? Don’t food banks, with tax help, send food
backpacks home on the weekend? The government food system, totaling $19,584
per family of 6 for a year when food stamps and school programs are added, but not
36
including the summer food program costs and food pantry inputs of, perhaps
$4,000, is ample. Plenty.
9) Cash is going to what we don’t provide. Yes, things like flat screens, $3,000
tattoos,-and one for the little lady at the same cost- smart phone data plans, dog
grooming, cigarettes, four-wheelers, rifles, enhanced cable TV. What would cash
be going to?
10) SNAP runs out by month end, indicating a cycle of hunger. It indicates no such
thing. Even a CEO’s food money runs out at the end of the month, but that’s by
plan.
11) Schools are the place we expect things to get done. Schools are a social service
hub, a tax spending depot, as much or more than they are citadels for training in
virtue. Schools provide transportation, food, medicine, mental health counseling,
inculcation in declining social mores, athletics and entertainment, as well as
incidentally teaching a little about reading and mathematics. Schools are the
delivery system for the social state. Parents are, at best, an accessory. Some
educationists consider them a pesky impediment.47 48
The administrator’s solution to “get more education” has been tried. Spending is
way up but the fruit is not apparent.
Maybe the problems are deeper. Lack of vision. 40% out-of-wedlock child bearing.
For children born to married couples, fathers often leave. Only about 50% of the
children born during the 1970-84 "baby bust" period will still live with their natural
parents by age 17.49 This often introduces disorder and misdirection to a child’s
world. Lack of discipline. Lack of guiding principles. A topsy-turvy family
structure. Lack of persistence. 53.5 hours per week of internet, texting, TV and
electronic game time. Indolence. Shirking responsibility. Indulgence. Enabled
laziness.
37
Programs need to countenance real causes and address them.
Surely, in spite of ballooning waistlines in general, isolated instances of routine
hunger must exist. But these instances are hard to find. No advocates parade a line
of emaciated children at any school or playground. They just can’t be found.
Principals might spot an occasional child. But hunger cannot be for lack of
government efforts. A deprived child would come from a situation where the adults
are in such a state of dysfunction and amorality that even the food stamps money is
so poorly employed that the kid’s only food comes from school. So far, such
children are exceedingly hard to identify. And the school and weekend food would
get them through.
A homeless man, waving off a bag of groceries offered by another shopper
indicates that, at least for him, and at least at that moment, food is plentiful.
Carrying the weight of the bag is a cost that exceeds his hunger.
A biker may keep his Harley and take cross-country vacations to
the Sturgis Rally and be a food stamp user. Question to a
convenience store clerk in Spearfish, SD: “Is it true to say that a
significant number of those biker guys during the Sturgis
motorcycle rally use food stamps to buy food items?” Answer:
“Yes.”
Photo credit: Jan Tik: Wikimedia
School breakfast and lunch: “The breakfast meal requirement is
554 calories. The lunch meal requirement is 633 calories for
grades K-3 and 785 calories for grades 4-12.” The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable
Program items provide extra calories. A “sedentary” eight year-old girl is supposed
to get 1,200 calories daily50. The two school meals provide 1,192. The Fresh Fruit
38
and Vegetable Program and the food stamp food she eats at home in the evening
put her over the recommended limit. Kids can take seconds of breakfast and lunch.
Expansions of the After School Supper Program send kids home full, to the food
stamp food. Four food services each day at school stymie efforts to control
childhood obesity.
Food spending: What do average people spend on food? Is it less or more than food
stamps provides?
“By the time you’re talking about six people or more under one roof, the
expenditure drops to $937.51” (2004)
Adjusted for inflation to 2011: $1,171/month. $14,055 per year. Far below the
$19,584 provided by government school and food stamp spending. Add perhaps
$4,000 for food pantry inputs for a total of $23,584. Recipients appear to get
$9,500 more in food than average people spend on food.
Combat Food Insecurity
The author’s parents’ method
Nine kids. One income, a teacher’s income. Federal Poverty Level.
Work 17-hour days. Expect little entertainment.
Work a full-time job, seasonal jobs, and home businesses.
No whining.
Get out of bed early. Stay out of bed and off the couch.
Glean potatoes, apples. Gather wild berries. Hunt.
When conditions allow, raise a garden. Raise rabbits, a calf, geese, chickens.
Slaughter. Butcher.
Can, dry, freeze and store food.
Cook from scratch. Use basic ingredients; flour, rice, beans, vegetables.
39
Cook in large batches. Goulash, Spanish rice, soups, stews, pan muffins, fried or
baked potatoes, pancakes, waffles, bread, casseroles. Hot cereal is cheap. Boil
wheat.
Plan ahead. Budget. Stretch a budget. Never buy junk food, prepared food.
Avoid fast food and restaurants.
Never waste a morsel. Keep and serve later. Meld into future dishes.
Refuse government aid, free school lunch, church charity.
Lunch: One peanut butter and honey sandwich, four carrot sticks, an apple.
Expect occasional hunger.
Fast two meals per month. Give money saved to “the poor” through the church.
Glean tomatoes and beans on the church welfare farm, “for the poor.”
Forego other spending. Wear undershirts until holes gape. Shop for clothes at the
thrift store.
Never waste money on drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or electronic entertainment.
The dignity of self-reliance is not cheap. It is priceless.
40
1
http://mfbn.org/files/2010%20Hungry%20in%20Montana%20Report.pdf
2
http://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=z1ebjpgk2654c1_&met_y=unemployment_rate&tdi
m=true&fdim_y=seasonality:S&dl=en&hl=en&q=unemployment+rate#ctype=l&strail=false&nsel
m=h&met_y=unemployment_rate&fdim_y=seasonality:S&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=state&i
dim=state:ST300000&ifdim=state&tdim=true&hl=en&dl=en
3
http://frac.org/reports-and-resources/snapfood-stamp-monthly-participation-data/
4
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
5
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/7/2225.full
6
http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2011/may/24/herman-cain/cain-said-food-stampprogram-use-under-obama/
7
http://www.childrenshealthwatch.org/upload/resource/cook_frank_annals_08.pdf
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https://sites.google.com/site/foodstampreformnow/hot-news-1
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Shenkin, J.D., & Jacobson, M.F. (2010).
10
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304657804576401412033504294.html#printMode
11
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304657804576401412033504294.html
12
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program#Fraud_and_abuse
13
https://sites.google.com/site/foodstampreformnow/
Photo credit for Dr. Pepper: Wikimedia Creative Commons, Author: Nirzardp
14
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program#cite_note-29
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/nyregion/ban-on-using-food-stamps-to-buy-soda-rejectedby-usda.html
15
16
http://metnet.mt.gov/NewsLinks/I030B72C2
17
http://www.usmayors.org/pressreleases/uploads/2010USCMChildhoodHungerReportComplete.pdf
41
18
19
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/08/24/3096916/hunger-haunts-rural-children.html
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http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2011/07/18/21321-fruits-veggies-often-end-up-in-school-trash
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http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db50.pdf
21
24
Photo credits, left to right: Public domain, Creative Commons: Robert Lawton, Public domain
25
http://www.livestrong.com/article/345137-why-the-increase-in-obesity-in-america-over-the-years/
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http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
27
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/DDT_STRS2/NationalDiabetesPrevalenceEstimates.aspx?mode=OBS
28
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/7/2225.full
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http://ucanr.org/repository/cao/landingpage.cfm?article=ca.v048n07p14&fulltext=yes
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http://articles.nydailynews.com/2005-01-06/local/18293018_1_childhood-hunger-new-yorkerswage
31
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/11/nyregion/11wages.html
32
33
http://english.pravda.ru/society/family/13-05-2011/117894-child_hunger-0/
Deseret News, August 21, 2011
34
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20110911/NEWS01/309070150/Tennessee-boomers-facegrowing-threat-hunger
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http://www7.nationalacademies.org/cnstat/Concept_and_Definition_of_Hunger_Paper.pdf
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http://www.thevindicator.com/opinion/article_5029401c-df18-11e0-b249-001cc4c03286.html
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http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_2754_136/ai_n25122166/
42
38
http://mfbn.org/files/2010%20Hungry%20in%20Montana%20Report.pdf
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http://mfbn.org/contact
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http://billingsgazette.com/news/local/article_525bc41c-c1d9-11de-8f67-001cc4c002e0.html
41
http://feedingamerica.org/about-us/board-of-directors.aspx
42
http://nhfoodbank.org/index.php/programs/food-stamp-outreach-program
43
http://www.isbe.state.il.us/news/2011/june22.htm
44
http://blog.seattlepi.com/timigustafsonrd/2011/06/19/fast-food-chains-lobby-for-the-use-of-foodstamps-in-restaurants/
45
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20110828/NEWS/108280322/Fast-food-restaurants-lobbyslice-food-stamp-sales
46
Stealing from Each Other, Edgar K. Browning, Praeger Publishers, 2008. Page 11.
47
http://townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/2002/08/26/the_neas_sensitivity_tutors
48
http://www.schoolfunding.info/resource_center/costingoutprimer.php3
49
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201106/the-decline-fatherhood-and-themale-identity-crisis
50
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/estimated-calorie-requirement
51
http://www.personalfinanceanalyst.com/the-average-cost-of-groceries-per-person-best-guesses/
43