As in any other playoff, candidate rhetoric let loose during the U.S. presidential race can be tough. We’ve held a front row seat to the 2012 showdown for over a year, with tensions still rising as the general election looms nearer. Some of the barbs launched along the campaign trail have been laughable: Newt Gingrich’s television ad incriminating Mitt Romney for his ability to speak French comes to mind. Others are not. The dialogue surrounding U.S. poverty and inequality, two issues that are hotter than ever during a deep recession that the nation has shown incapable of simply shaking off [...]
Food Aid
Poverty extends reach across St. Louis region
“This is the new poor…the ones who have had the privilege of contributing to agencies like ours and are now coming in because of need,” said St. Louis, Mo., food bank manager Joan Robinson. Increasingly, aid organizations in the area have seen a sharp rise in demand for services even as their government subsidies... »
Numbers soar of Tennesseans receiving food aid
A record 20 percent of Tennesseans receive food aid, and the number is rising: over the past six months, 2,000 people signed up for state supplemental nutrition assistance in Knox County alone. County officials hope the $6 million in food stamps being pumped into the local economy will help not just individuals, but also... »
Supermarkets in poor areas fail to improve diets, study says
Advocates say better access to supermarkets in low-income neighborhoods is key to improving diets, but a University of North Carolina study finds this is not the case. Income limits people’s food choices even within supermarkets, where cheap options fill the shelves. The study found no relation between supermarket proximity and eating more fruits and... »
Summer break means hunger to students who rely on subsidized school lunches
Students relying on free and reduced-price school lunches face food insecurity during school breaks. One in four children in Oakland, Calif.’s Bay Area School District are at risk of hunger, so the district is taking part in a federal program that runs June to August. Officials plan to serve over 100,000 subsidized meals at community... »
Calif. food stamp participation remains low
The number of food stamp recipients is 5 percentage points less than that of the national average at 9.3 percent versus 14.3 percent. Though nearly three million people are eligible for the benefits, many do not sign up. This means a loss of $3.7 billion in federal dollars and almost $7 billion in local... »
New Jersey pantries struggle as summer donations dwindle
The notion that demand for food pantry services goes down in the summer is a common misconception, says the head of Human Services for Parsippany-Troy Hills Township in northern New Jersey. Children on summer vacation need at least one, and often two, additional meals at home, as parents cut back work hours to care... »
Under new rules, many undocumented workers lose food aid
New rules governing the distribution of food stamps in Utah have stopped aid to more than 2,000 families that include undocumented immigrants. The state announced that it would begin to count the income earned by all members of a household, including workers without documentation, when determining eligibility. Because families learned of that decision in... »
Missouri has fifth-highest rate of child hunger in U.S.
A report issued last week by Feeding America found that nearly a quarter of Missouri’s children are hungry or at risk of becoming hungry, placing Missouri fifth among states with the largest percentage of youth suffering from food insecurity. While Arkansas, Texas, Arizona, and Washington, D.C., ranked higher, Missouri has seen the most dramatic... »
Connecticut Food Bank strains to meet growing need
As summer settles in and low-income families must provide extra meals for children typically fed at school through federally subsidized lunch programs, the Connecticut Food Bank is in desperate need of assistance to keep its warehouses stocked. Donations are going down as demand for food rises, and although the federal government allocated $593,000 to... »
Ohio food pantry expands outreach
Even as the economy slowly picks back up, Charles Bell is seeing an increasing number of families walk into Compassion First Food Pantry. The outreach program, started three years ago by Bell in collaboration with the Chesapeake Church of the Nazarene in Chesapeake, Ohio, has had to significantly expand its facility size to accommodate... »