Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!sabre!zeta!epsilon!gamma!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics.theory,net.politics Subject: Re: Extent of hunger in America Message-ID: <215@gargoyle.UUCP> Date: Sun, 13-Oct-85 19:53:22 EDT Article-I.D.: gargoyle.215 Posted: Sun Oct 13 19:53:22 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 15-Oct-85 08:05:47 EDT References: <203@gargoyle.UUCP> <3913@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 209 Xref: linus net.politics.theory:1291 net.politics:10831 First some definitions. By HUNGER I mean the chronic underconsumption of food and nutrients. By MALNUTRITION I mean an impairment to physical and/or mental health resulting from failure to meet nutrient requirements. JoSH writes: >In article <203@gargoyle.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >>Welfare benefits for the poor are minimal. > >Not only are they minimal, they are enshrouded in a mass of red tape >that forms a protective coating between the poor and the money. >The reason for this is that the *real* beneficiaries of the welfare >system, the bureaucrats, have a vested interest in keeping it that >way. I agree that the red tape is a large part of the problem. But I believe that the reasons for it are a good deal more complex than JoSH seems to think. >Look, I grew up in Mississippi and my mother was a case worker >for the welfare dept in Natchez. People do *not* starve in the >streets there-- all the horror stories that are current among >Northern liberals are simply hogwash. References like this to >Mississippi tend to make me mistrust your other references >considerably more than I would otherwise. The report of the Physician Task Force on Hunger in America, sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health, has recently been published as a book, *Hunger in America*. It contains eight pages on hunger in Mississippi. A sample, chosen almost at random: So stark is hunger in the Delta today that it shocked even the local doctors who accompanied our field investigation teams.... In nearby Marks, Mississippi, a recent screening of over 90 children for the Headstart program found that over half were anemic. Home health aide Odell Williams reported that some families simply have nothing to eat.... Emergency food providers in Jackson established a food bank in response to increased need for emergency food. Warren Yodes, director of that city's Operation Shoestring, reported that demand has increased 300% since 1981.... A Tutwiler, Mississippi, social worker reported that of every 100 hospital in-patients she sees each month, about one-third are malnourished elderly people. Most, she said, have nutrition-related diseases: hypertension, stroke, diabetes. She told us that they experience recurrent hospitalizations because they lack resources for proper food.... Given the kind of hunger we had previously observed in the New England states, it is difficult to say that hunger is all we observed in Mississippi. We really saw people as close to the brink of survival as one is likely to find in this nation. This study was undertaken by members of the medical establishment, not raving leftists. If JoSH is still skeptical, he should contact the Jackson pediatrician Dr. Aaron Shirley, president of the board of the Mississippi Medical and Surgical Association, who probably knows as much about the hunger situation in his state as anyone. *Hunger in America* should be read by anyone who gives a damn that there is a serious hunger problem in this nation that produces huge food surpluses. This book contains the results of a thorough study of the problem, presents enough hard data to satisfy anyone, and is the definitive publication on the subject. The report states that "available evidence indicates that up to 20,000,000 citizens may be hungry at least some period of time each month." Furthermore, according to the study the problem is getting worse, not better. Jan Wasilewsky writes: >Economic >hunger proceeds from either shortage of food (hardly the case in >US), or from its dearth compared to existing sources of income >such that the food cannot be acquired. Is this the case? Let us >see. > > An *egg* only costs a dime; at *minimum wage*, it embodies >100 seconds of work; it provides enough protein for some hours >(and you don't even have to cook it). >Carbohydrates and fats are even more accessible. > > From the point of view of basic nutrition, >people can be divided into 4 economic classes: >(1) "Very poor": cannot afford enough carbohydrates (or calories). >(2) "Poor": enough calories, not enough protein. >(3) "Middle-class": enough protein. >(4) "Rich": can afford to *choose* the form in which basic nutrients > come (e.g. can replace eggs with fish or meat at will). > >In this classification, all Americans fall into the "rich" >category. Not even close to being true. See below. >Whatever nutritional problems exist in this country, they cannot, >in fairness, be called "hunger". If you can earn, receive, steal >or borrow a dime an hour, you can't (except voluntarily) go >hungry. But millions of Americans *cannot* earn, beg, borrow, or steal even that much. They include children, the elderly, the mentally and physically ill, the disabled, and the unemployed. If they had any adequate sources of income, very few of these would still be hungry. How does Jan square this with his belief that food automatically distributes itself in nations where there is high food productivity? > Personally, I don't care if foodstamp allocations are doubled; >compared to other welfare programs, they seem to do less harm and >more good. And, even if poor people eat well, why shouldn't they >eat even better? I only mind this pseudoproblem of hunger (in >developed countries, that is) for two reasons. First, because >it is a red herring, diverting attention from what is >really important. I am mystified as to what Jan thinks is more important than food. Missles and bombs, maybe? >Second, it distorts judgement in estimating >the comparative efficiency of economic systems. If capitalism in >a developed country created hunger, this would, indeed, be an ar- >gument against capitalism. >But it doesn't. I would argue that while capitalism doesn't exactly "create" hunger, it is an important contributing factor because it tends to generate poverty, inequality, racism, and sexism. But that's a long argument. I would also argue, as indeed I have already, that such countries as China, Cuba, and Nicaragua have made giant strides in reducing hunger in their countries, mainly because of policies that redistribute power over food-producing resources in the direction of more equality. Even the US in the past has been able to significantly alleviate its hunger problem through intelligent government policy. Once again from the Physician Task Force report: ______________ Hunger and malnutrition were serious problems in this country in 1968. Then as today, national organizations, church groups, and universities investigated and found hunger. Government agencies, as today, found hunger. And as today, doctors went into regions of the country and reported that it was a widespread and serious problem. The nation responded to that problem. In the decade between 1970 and 1980 we extended the food stamp program from the 2 million poor Americans which it covered at the time to some 20 million people. While this did not cover all Americans living in poverty, other nutrition programs provided assistance. We expanded the free school lunch and breakfast programs. We established elderly feeding programs (congregate meal sites and Meals-on-Wheels for shut-ins) to insure that our senior citizens did not go hungry. And we established the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program to insure adequate nourishment for low-income pregnant women and their infants. These programs were established in response to hunger among American people, and they worked. Teams of doctors in 1977 retraced the routes they had covered the previous decade when they found serious hunger and malnutrition. Summarizing their findings, the medical teams stated: ...the facts of life for Americans living in poverty remain as dark or darker than they were ten years ago. But in the area of food there is a difference. The food stamp program, the nutritional component of Head Start, school lunch and breakfast programs, and to a lesser extent the WIC program have made the difference. [Nick Kotz, *Hunger in America: The Federal Response*] In a few years this nation basically eliminated hunger as a problem. ___________ The Physician Task Force report documents in great detail the evidence that since 1977, hunger has again become a serious problem: "There have been 15 national studies on hunger in the past three years; at least that many more state and local studies on hunger have been carried out during the same period of time. What is clear is the *uniformity* of their conclusions: Hunger has returned to this nation, and all evidence indicates that it is continuing to grow as a problem." *Hunger in America* makes a number of recommendations which are summarized as follows: --We call upon Republicans and Democrats in the US Congress to take immediate action to feed the hungry. The House and Senate leadership should prepare an emergency legislative package to respond to the hunger crisis. The components of the plan should include: ---Strengthening the food stamp program. ---Strengthening school and other meals programs for children. ---Utilizing the WIC and Medicaid programs more fully to protect high-risk children. ---Expanding elderly meals programs to be certain that all low-income elderly have access to congregate meals or the Meals-on-Wheels program. ---Protecting families by strengthening income support programs. --Congress should pass legislation to create a permanent and independent body to monitor the nutritional status of the population. --We ask that appropriate Congressional committees direct responsible administrative agencies to report on a quarterly basis progress made in eliminating hunger, until such time as it has been ended in America. --We ask the US Congress to establish a Bipartisan Study Commission to recommend legislative changes to protect all our citizens from the ravages of poverty and its attendant ills in the future. -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes