Hunger in America: The Myth

One should imbibe alarms about pervasive hunger skeptically.

•  Free school lunch kids waste 46% more food than regular price kids. How can poor kids be hungrier?
•  School lunch waste is about 30%. Where’s the hunger?
•  School lunch provides all the calories a kid needs; then poor kids go home and eat the food stamp pop, candy bars, take-and-bake pizza and donuts.
•  A family of 6 can get $23,900 per year in food stamps, free school food and food bank food. A non-recipient family of 6 usually spends $11,500 per year on food.
•  A family of 6 can earn up to $55,000 and qualify for food stamps and Women, Infants and Children, WIC.
•  The poor are adding weight faster than the non-poor.
•  Arguments as to why the poor make bad choices with food stamps do not stand scrutiny.
•  The food stamp program this year costs $77 billion. Mr. Obama wants to add $9 billion to that. A healthy food list reform, along the lines of the WIC program, could cut spending in half; no recipient would go hungry and the nation’s deficit would be substantially reduced.
•  At least 57% of food stamp spending is for foods high in high fructose corn syrup, cholesterol, fat and sodium. Food stamps buy unhealthy food.
•  The USDA and the Obama Administration are aggressively expanding food stamps, free school lunch and after school supper.
•   The USDA rebuffed New York City’s request to drop soda pop from permissible food stamp purchases.