Hunger

Have you ever been really hungry with no immediate prospects for relief?   People live like that every day in the United States.  People go to work hungry and are expected to perform.  Children go to school hungry and are expected to learn.  We all lose under those circumstances.  And now it looks like the situation is getting worse as food stamps buy less and less:

Food stamp benefit levels are supposed to be sufficient to enable households to afford the “Thrifty Food Plan,” a low-cost but nutritionally adequate diet established by USDA.[1]  Since 1996, however, when Congress cut food stamp benefits, the level of benefits has fallen short in almost every month.[2]  (See figure 1.)

Periods of rapid food price inflation — such as the last several years — exacerbate this problem because food stamp benefit levels are based on food price data that become increasingly outdated over the course of the year.  For example, the actual cost of the foods in the Thrifty Food Plan for a household of four was about $430 more over the course of fiscal year 2008 than the Food Stamp Program assumed would be necessary to purchase these foods. Low-income households had to make up the entire difference on their own.  With food prices expected to continue rising in fiscal year 2009, food stamp benefits will likely once again be insufficient unless Congress enacts a temporary benefit increase.

If you read this blog, then you know what's coming next because there is a way out of this mess that will not only relieve hunger but also help everyone who wants a stronger US economy:

... Many economists are calling for another economic stimulus package in the face of what could be the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression.  As part of such a package, Congress should include a large — perhaps 10 to 15 percent — temporary increase in food stamp maximum benefits. Economists have ranked a temporary food stamp increase as one of the fastest, most effective forms of economic stimulus.[9]

A benefit increase in this range would cost $5 to $12 billion, depending on how long it remained in effect, but would generate even greater economic stimulus.  USDA’s Economic Research Service estimates that a $5 billion temporary increase in food stamp benefits would result in $8.2 to $9.2 billion in economic stimulus.  ERS has also written that using the food stamp program for economic stimulus would “result in increased demand and production in the agriculture and food sectors, stabilizing economic activities in these key rural sectors during downturns in the economy.”[10]

That's 74% rate of return on every tax dollar invested (assuming a $8.7B increase in demand).  The trillions of dollars we're pouring into the financial sector aren't getting that rate of return, even according to the most sanguine of establishment wishful thinking.   But we can get it by investing in temporarily increasing food stamps. 

So why don't we?