Food Stamp Nation: What a Modern Day Bread Line Looks Like (Infographic)

'With digital technology being used for all manner of government distributions, it’s difficult to overtly distinguish between the severity of the Great Depression of the 1930′s and today’s economic crisis.

But just because we don’t see thousands of hungry people lined up for hours at a time at their local soup kitchen today doesn’t mean the lines don’t exist.

Today bread lines have been removed with the help of technology; EBT cards are filled with Government money for Food Stamp participants to purchase food at local retailers.
…
If all EBT recipients shopped at only Walmart Super Centers for ALL their SNAP benefits, then this is how the Bread Line would look each month– 14,588 people.
There are 3051 Walmart Super Centers in USA and 44,510,598 participants in SNAP (2011), making the average SNAP line at each Walmart at 14,588 people.
The Modern Era’s Bread Lines are not visible because the business is handled discreetly through EBT Cards
Source: Demonocracy

The line at a single Walmart, if we include both adults and children receiving SNAP benefits, would be over 7 miles long!

The following info-graphic provides some additional facts and visuals.'

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Welcome to the United Food Stamps of America and the Greatest Depression

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Panera Bread CEO Says Pay What You Can

'One in six Americans live in “food insecure” homes. This means one in six Americans is seriously hungry, likely under-nourished or malnourished and doesn’t know when he/she will have their next meal. When Panera Bread Founder and CEO Ronald Shaich learned this, he thought about how Panera Bread opens two restaurants every week, employs 60,000 people, and he knew Panera’s resources could have impact on America’s hunger problem. He personally set out to help, pitched his board (with a lot of respect and credibility under his belt), created a foundation and the result is a new kind of chain restaurant: pay-what-you-can Paneras.'

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Why Are Food Prices Rising So Fast?

 

'If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year.  So why are food prices rising so fast?  According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, inflation is still very low and the economy is improving.  

So what is going on here?  When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale.  In fact, I have noticed that many of the new “sale prices” are the old regular prices.  Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases.  But with millions of American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?'


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J.P. Morgan's Food Stamp Monopoly: The More Americans That Fall Into Poverty The More Money Jamie Dimon Makes

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Food/Financial Crisis of 2011

by Dr. Mark Sircus


'Things can get so bad that people will not be able to buy foods at any price because they simply will not be available because they have been bought up by someone else. I am not talking about your neighbor here who just happened to beat you to the supermarket this morning. Imagine if China pulls out a $100 billion out of its almost bottomless pockets and purchases grain to feed its billions? Why wouldn’t they, after all, spend increasingly worthless paper on a mountain of food?'


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Emergency Food: Millions of Americans Are Heading to Foodbanks for the First Time in Their Lives

 

'The good news is there's no reason anyone should ever starve to death in America. The bad news is more and more working 

Americans, many earning what were once middle class incomes, are spending their time and scarce money to find their next meal. 

Emergency Food: More and More It's What's for Dinner

Val Traore, the radiant and gregarious CEO of the Food Bank of South Jersey (FBSJ), wanted to make one thing perfectly clear in our discussion of hunger in America today. "We do not have starvation here in the United States. In Mali," she says, referring to the West African country where about half the population lives below the international poverty lineof $1.25 a day, "if you live in poverty you risk starvation and death. That doesn't happen here in America." It's an important point worth dwelling on.

So what is happening here?'

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One in 7 US households hit by hunger issues in 2009

 

'Almost 15% of US households experienced a food shortage at some point in 2009, a government report has found.

US authorities say that figure is the highest they have seen since they began collecting data in the 1990s, and a slight increase over 2008 levels.

Single mothers are among the hardest hit: About 3.5 million said they were at times unable to put sufficient food on the table.'


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Across U.S., Food Stamp Use Soars and Stigma Fades

'With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

It has grown so rapidly in places so diverse that it is becoming nearly as ordinary as the groceries it buys. More than 36 million people use inconspicuous plastic cards for staples like milk, bread and cheese, swiping them at counters in blighted cities and in suburbs pocked with foreclosure signs.

Virtually all have incomes near or below the federal poverty line, but their eclectic ranks testify to the range of people struggling with basic needs. They include single mothers and married couples, the newly jobless and the chronically poor, longtime recipients of welfare checks and workers whose reduced hours or slender wages leave pantries bare.'

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