Provoking Policy

HUNGER IN A LAND OF PLENTY By Ruth C. White, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.S.W ( written for ParentMap.com December 2007) . In a country considered to be the fattest in the world, it seems oxymoronic that the US is also the only industrialized nation to still have widespread poverty. In the US , calories are cheap but nutrition is expensive. In a country with a safety-net full of holes, poor people (mostly children) suffer from hunger when there is food aplenty growing in the fields, packing the shelves of gargantuan grocery stores (unless you are one of the millions of unlucky poor who have limited access to a grocery store) and restaurant servings on the verge of nauseating. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in 2005, approximately 35.1 million people -- including 12.4 million children -- lived in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger each year. This represents 11 percent of households in the United States . Interestingly, the USDA does not ha...

Why the 1% and Who are They? Why are we fixated on the 1%? Why not the 5%? And are these people all the same? Should we be angry at a man who has worked hard for years and now his business finally makes him some serious money? Or are we only upset at CEOs of major corporations? What about the person whose grandmother left them a fortune? Or do we think that bankers are the root of all evil? (Even though we couldn't live without them if we tried). And is it all bankers??? Or just certain types? Placing Blame for our Economic Woes What about the 'sit-on-my-hands-and-do-nothing' group of politicians in Washington, DC. Running for office so often so justifiably spend much of their time making sure they have enough money and leverage to get reelected? What about the non-decision-making that messed up our credit rating and frequently pushes us to the brink and cuts the social safety net and protects the military budget? What about them? Are they not to blame for any of th...