Friday evening, I happened to flip on the PBS News Hour; they were just starting a segment about hunger among children in America. PBS reported that one in four American children is "hungry". This is not a comment on the metabolism of teenage boys; PBS is reporting that one fourth of all children in this country is deprived of the food needed for proper nutrition. The problem, however, is that I just do not believe this to be accurate. Let examine the facts:
1) We know that there are now just under 50 million Americans who receive food stamps from the federal government. That is about 15% of the entire population. On top of this, just under 5% of the population is on welfare, with most of this coming under AFCD as the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program is known. While the amounts vary across the country, I can tell you that here in Connecticut, welfare payments are the equivalent of a 40 hour job at which one earns $14.24 per hour (according to government statistics). So something like 20% of the total population gets substantial help with obtaining food.
2) On top of the government help, there is an enormous amount of private help given to folks, particularly with regard to food. There are food banks across the country. There are soup kitchens. There are programs for meals on wheels. There are countless programs like City Harvest in New York which collect and distribute left over food from restaurants and markets. Literally millions of people are helped by these programs.
3) There have been a whole series of public service ads run for years telling us how one in eight Americans have a problem with hunger. That comes to about 40 million people. According to the Census Bureau there are 76 million children under the age of 18 in the USA as of 2012. Half of that number comes to 38 million.
So where does this leave us? We know that between the government and private charities, at least one quarter of Americans get help obtaining food to eat. That ought to cover the bulk of the poor children in this country. Indeed, if this does not cover those poor children, one has to ask why we even have a food stamp program. On top of this, there is no way that half of all children are hungry. If the PBS statistic is correct, it would mean that something like only 20% of all children live in families who are able to feed them properly and that 80% would just starve if left without assistance. In other words, the PBS statistic is totally wrong.
The real truth is that inflated statistics about hungry children are frequently used to justify all manner of government programs which must not be working if there remain so many hungry mouths to feed. Yet somehow, the stories about hungry children never examine how or why the programs like AFCD or foodstamps have failed. Inevitably, the stories focus on the need to expand the very programs that have failed to work. No matter how much gets poured into these programs, the problem always seems to get worse. My prediction is that by the end of Obama's second term, PBS or MSNBC will run a story explaining how 125% of all children in America are hungry.
1) We know that there are now just under 50 million Americans who receive food stamps from the federal government. That is about 15% of the entire population. On top of this, just under 5% of the population is on welfare, with most of this coming under AFCD as the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program is known. While the amounts vary across the country, I can tell you that here in Connecticut, welfare payments are the equivalent of a 40 hour job at which one earns $14.24 per hour (according to government statistics). So something like 20% of the total population gets substantial help with obtaining food.
2) On top of the government help, there is an enormous amount of private help given to folks, particularly with regard to food. There are food banks across the country. There are soup kitchens. There are programs for meals on wheels. There are countless programs like City Harvest in New York which collect and distribute left over food from restaurants and markets. Literally millions of people are helped by these programs.
3) There have been a whole series of public service ads run for years telling us how one in eight Americans have a problem with hunger. That comes to about 40 million people. According to the Census Bureau there are 76 million children under the age of 18 in the USA as of 2012. Half of that number comes to 38 million.
So where does this leave us? We know that between the government and private charities, at least one quarter of Americans get help obtaining food to eat. That ought to cover the bulk of the poor children in this country. Indeed, if this does not cover those poor children, one has to ask why we even have a food stamp program. On top of this, there is no way that half of all children are hungry. If the PBS statistic is correct, it would mean that something like only 20% of all children live in families who are able to feed them properly and that 80% would just starve if left without assistance. In other words, the PBS statistic is totally wrong.
The real truth is that inflated statistics about hungry children are frequently used to justify all manner of government programs which must not be working if there remain so many hungry mouths to feed. Yet somehow, the stories about hungry children never examine how or why the programs like AFCD or foodstamps have failed. Inevitably, the stories focus on the need to expand the very programs that have failed to work. No matter how much gets poured into these programs, the problem always seems to get worse. My prediction is that by the end of Obama's second term, PBS or MSNBC will run a story explaining how 125% of all children in America are hungry.
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