March 8, 2009The revised and upgraded unemployment figures released on Friday were nothing short of staggering: almost two million jobs lost in the past three months as the official unemployment rate rose to a quarter-century high of 8.1%. Nearly three million Americans are now officially unemployed for six months or more, while another 8.6 million are "working part time because they cannot find full-time employment." Just the previous day, the government released figures showing, not surprisingly, that food stamp recipients had also soared by another 700,000 in February -- 651,000 jobs had been lost that same month -- to a record total of 31.8 million. Food stamps may be the major government bailout program against hunger, but most bailout efforts by the Obama administration and its predecessor have been focused on pouring multi-billions repeatedly into ever more failing financial institutions, which, as economist Joseph Stiglitz writes, "years of reckless behavior, including bad lending and gambling with derivatives, have left [them], in effect, bankrupt." This includes, of course, $45 billion siphoned into Citigroup, whose stock hit the one-dollar mark just days ago, and into that black-hole-of-a-disaster, the global insurance company A.I.G., which got another $30 billion last week, bringing its grand bailout total (to date) to $163 billion. Money-mad bankers, who helped put millions out of work and start a cascading global financial crisis that seems without end, evidently feel no shame as they receive millions in bonuses while milking their banks and the government for everything they're worth. On the other hand, increasing numbers of Americans feel deep shame, when they shouldn't, because they have to resort to the nation's private system of food banks and other free food outlets once they find they can't stock their refrigerators and cupboards adequately enough to feed themselves and their children. This is a nightmare that Nick Turse -- in the fourth installment of his Tough Times series for TomDispatch on American economic hardship -- captures as he reports on what's happening to food banks nationwide. It's worth keeping in mind that, under the pressure of massive need and desperation, banks like Citigroup and Wells Fargo aren't the only ones that could fail and that it's ordinary Americans who really need, and deserve, the bailing out. Tom
Breaking the BanksThe Struggle to Feed America's Nouveau NeedyBy Nick Turse The message is simple. Ever more Americans need food they can't afford. As tough economic times take their toll, increasing numbers of Americans are on tightened budgets and, in some cases, facing outright hunger. As a result, they may be learning a lot more about food banks and soup kitchens than most of them ever wanted to know.'
Breaking the BanksThe Struggle to Feed America's Nouveau NeedyBy Nick Turse The message is simple. Ever more Americans need food they can't afford. As tough economic times take their toll, increasing numbers of Americans are on tightened budgets and, in some cases, facing outright hunger. As a result, they may be learning a lot more about food banks and soup kitchens than most of them ever wanted to know.'
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