Tonight on NBC’s The Biggest Loser (it was on while I was doing some other things) one of the teams went to help at a food bank… the guy there said “1 in 8 Americans” is at risk of going hungry… A few weeks ago I was watching HBO’s Entourage and Matt Damon was stalking the lead character Vincent Chase (a fictional young movie star in the show) to give a donation to a food charity and Damon quotes a similar stat (I think he said 1 in 16) regarding food stability…. That would be nearly 40 million people. I realize unemployment is high, but that strikes me as a great exaggeration on a level of 10% gay or homeless, etc. Anyone have any info on that?
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Floyd,as you well know,there is not one single human being in this country that is in danger of going hungry or starving…here in Memphis we had a woman who locked her 2 and 3 year in her house while she and her aunt went shopping for clothes.House caught fire somehow..the 3 year old died and the 2 year probably will.The aunt was hysterical…she was afraid all of her food stamps had been lost in the fire!
That “1 in 8″ stat is one of those impossible-to-prove statements that sound really good but is utterly absurd when actually considered. Like Scott M said, nobody goes truly hungry in this country except through the negligence of their parents. Even in the Great Depression there weren’t people starving to death in the streets, let alone now. This is just wishful thinking of leftists, who by and large are friends to misery and wish to see it spread.
http://www.bread.org/learn/hunger-reports/hunger-report-pdfs/hunger-report-2007/Table-7.pdf
what qualifies as hunger in the US though? not being able to eat a In-n-Out animal style burger and fries every day?
I don’t pretend to have any numbers to contest this, but I *can* say that in the last year, the number of people my church is supporting on food drives has trippled. Bad economy and all. Most of these people had jobs and bank accounts 18 months or 2 years ago.
Not this again.
I do find it interesting that it was on The Biggest Loser.
I don’t think it’s that high, but I do know there are people who are hungry in this country, who won’t go on government assistance for religious or moral reasons. I belong to an e-mail group for large families on which grocery budgets are a hot topic. One lady wrote in something that was very sobering. “I feed my family of 10 on $50 a week because I have to, there isn’t more money and we don’t take handouts. Sometimes my husband and I don’t eat dinner, but the babies are fed, so we’re ok. God is good ALL the time”. And I thought our budget was tight. The thing is though, we can’t really help these families. They aren’t lazy, they work a LOT, but they do have a standard that doesn’t include receiving food stamps or other government assistance and they don’t make much money. I actually agree with them, but am not sure I’d have the guts to do it if my babies were hungry. I also have had friends go on government assistance temporarily (a smaller family, 3 kids) and it was really hard for them emotionally. Not everyone who has to do it is rejoicing at the “free ride”. There are organizations out there that can help, because they provide bulk food for little money, and most of these families are ok with that. http://www.angelfoodministries.com, although I’ve recently read some not so great things about them, is one of them.
So to sum up, the statistic is probably a lie, but there are people in our country who are hungry, or would be without help. Some intelligent and compassionate investigation should be able to give you a feeling for the real story in your community.
I believe it could be 1 in 8 democrats that could go hungry if someone didn’t feed them.
Well from JJ’s link its on average 11.4% “food insecure” and 3.8% “food insecure with hunger”. From the USDA website (http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/April05/DataFeature/):
“Households are classified as food insecure with hunger if their reported food-insecure conditions suggest that one or more household members was hungry at some time during the year because the household could not afford enough food.”
And:
“Most food-insecure households obtained enough food to avoid hunger, using a variety of coping strategies, such as eating less varied diets, participating in Federal food assistance programs, or getting emergency food from community food pantries or emergency kitchens.”
The statement, “1 in 8 Americans is at risk of going hungry” meshes, more or less with what the USDA classifies food-insecure. You could make the argument that the statement is true, perhaps off by a bit since its more like 1 in 10.
The number of people in the US who truly go hungry as most would think of it, i.e. not eating, is the 3.8% statistic. Which makes a good argument as to why you should do your charitable duty and donate food when you can.
Might I suggest that the way to really find out is to explore how difficult it is to get food stamps. When I was in need of such things, a trip to the local welfare office and some proof of need were the only things required to get a sufficient diet to keep you from being hungry.
I’m glad you found the necessary assistance in your time of need.
Hell, I would suggest that 1 in 1 Americans are “at risk” of going hungry. They way Barry is spending money, there’s not going to be any left to buy anything but Raman noodles.
not much evidence of it here in Oregon where the wide bodies seem to be the majority. A few years ago I saw a similar survey and saw how they framed the question: They asked, Have you been hungry in the last 30 days? OK…I’m in, I have in fact been hungry in the last 8 hours! I need state support, airlift in the food, dammit, now!
So if you’re hungry tune your TV to MSNBC for some government cheese!