"food banks wouldn't need more cash if companies paid American workers enough to feed their families

[Shallah Kali]

The Hunger News
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/21-3

It's more than newsprint that leaves newspaper junkies feeling filthy these days. It's the news being reported. It's dirty.

Take today's Wall Street Journal. In the National Section there's a story on states cutting Services for the Elderly and disabled. With the economy shrinking, the state of Alabama, for example, has stopped funding homemaker services for 12,000 people. All those cuts are making it harder for some vulnerable people to stay in their own homes. In one New York county, the waiting list for homecare has tripled because of lack of funding from the state. Many states expect to make many more cuts ahead.

So that's one story.... Turn the page to the Business section and there's a long story about the cash contributions that American corporations are giving to food banks instead of canned goods. The idea is that fresh food can be purchased, reflecting America's better eating habits. This Wednesday, Wal-Mart begain offering food from their stores but also cash; the Ford Motor Company's giving money too. It's a pretty warm and fuzzy piece, buried at the end of which are these statistics: Feeding America says demand at food banks is up about 25% across the country over a year ago, including a surge in first-time clients. More than one-third of those Feeding America serves live in a household where at least one person is employed; about a third of its clients are children, 10% elderly and only about 12% are homeless.

The grubby, not so fuzzy reality is those food banks wouldn't need more cash if companies paid American workers enough to feed their families.

[LiberalEsto]

1. How many Walmart employees need food aid?

I imagine lots of them get food stamps.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. So do military families, if things haven't changed since my dad was in. (I think I recall

hearing my parents talk about how some families struggled and that receiving food stamps was unofficially frowned upon. Made the military look bad and all that.)

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Breeze54]

4. * food banks wouldn't need more cash if companies HIRED American workers!!*

:evilfrown:

[melonkali]

5. a similar argument applies to "child care programs" for working parents . . .

In many working class families, the parent(s) have to work such long hours to provide basic subsistence living that many parenting responsibilities and opportunities are farmed out to others -- including government funded after school programs, recreation programs, early reading programs, etc. Of course, many kids still fall through the cracks, are left undersupervised, and the government ends up paying for some of them later as juvenile offenders and unemployed school drop-outs.

If wages were raised to a fair living wage level, allowing at least one parent to work no more than part-time, and labor laws adjusted to accomodate families with children, for example with flex time (if working part-time is not an option), then many of these "outsourced" parenting responsibilities could be taken back by those who do it best: PARENTS. The need for government funded parenting programs and juvenile programs would greatly decrease. There would no longer be economic reasons for such large numbers of children to be left undersupervised.

But instead of ensuring that parents have the time and resources needed for parenting, the government keeps adding more rescue and juvenile offender programs while working parents' real wages decrease and working hours increase.

[ColbertWatcher]

6. This is disgraceful. n/t

[juno jones]

7. K&R! n/t

[noiretextatique]

8. a woman came up to me outside the grocery store and asked for money

i told her i didn't have any cash. she walked back to the bench outside the store, and i looked over and saw the little girl who was waiting for her. i couldn't walk away from that child, so i told her mother i would buy them some groceries. the mother works full-time as a manager for mcdonald's and she doesn't bring home enough money to support herself and her child. as tight as money is for me right now, i know i more fortunate than many.