The Growing Threat of Food insecurity in America

[Momof3angels]

By Bruce Watson

When discussing the Great Recession, there are two standards for measuring its impact on the average household. The first is unemployment, which is currently hovering at 9.6%, down from a high of 10.1% in October 2009. The second is foreclosures, which hit a 50-year high in 2007 and have risen every year since then.

For much of the past three years, the recession narrative has been told in terms of these two dire numbers, showing how a failing economy has made it harder and harder to cling to the middle-class ideal of homeownership and a steady job. Recently, however, a third, even more disturbing figure has gained relevance: the number of Americans on food stamps.

Read more here:


The Growing Threat of Food Insecurity in America - DailyFinance

[Momof3angels]

According to the article, 14% of Americans are currently unable to feed themselves and are relying on food stamps to see them through. But food stamps aren't enough. People who participate in the food stamp program receive $124 per month on average, or $287 per household, not enough to feed most families.

The author of this article also writes:

In a recent article, The Wall Street Journal described the scene at a Houston Walmart on the first of the month: "Parking lots come to life after 11 p.m. as customers start to stream into the stores, cramming their shopping carts full of milk, infant formula and other necessities. Then at midnight, when the government replenishes their electronic-benefit accounts with their monthly allotments of food stamps, nutritional grants for mothers with babies or other aid for needy families, they head for the registers."

As Walmart's Bill Simon notes in the article: "If you really think about it, the only reason someone gets out there in the middle of the night and buys baby formula is that they need it, and they have been waiting for it."

[Sean Osborne]

Hmm. All we see coming from the secular world these days is fear about this, fear about that, and fear about some other thing. All the folks who are lost are in fear of something.

Give them the bread of Life to eat and place their fears in the dust bin of His-Story. Give them John 6:22-40 to chow down on.

[Meg]

Give them motivation to refuse to be defeated, to have the maturity and humility to choose to spend their money wisely. Give them the determination to insist on jobs not handouts. then give them the motivation to serve the God they pray to for answers to this mess...

[Carl]

Why does everyone use the reported unemployment figures when none of them are accurate. The real unemployment number is closer to 16%. In Michigan and economically strapped states it is closer to 30%. In Michigan this doesn't include the 18 million that have left the state to try and find a job.

Like my college math instructor used to say,"numbers don't lie, but they can sure tell a good story".

[mikhen7]

... then give them the motivation to serve the God they pray to for answers to this mess...

You got something there Meg! It reminds me of Isaiah 58, and ancient Israel. I will revisit this topic later because it weighs so heavy on my heart. They do need to seek the Lord as Sean says, and seek Him correctly as Isaiah says not in motion only. Where I see the responsibility of the Church ---> I see the government instead. That is what truly breaks my heart. The issue goes deeper than a full parking lot at Wal-Mart.

What is God trying to tell us, and our Church leaders, in such a blatant manner?

God Bless

[Timna]

Food insecurity in America also translates to food insecurity elsewhere, perhaps everywhere, in the world.

[Momof3angels]

So many parents in the United States choose to put their children in the government schools because:

1. Their moms and grandmothers did the same thing;
2. That way they can get a break from their kids;
3. Moms can get a full time job and another income;
4. Many moms don't feel equipped to teach their children.

Unfortunately in the government schools these children spend eight hours or more per day becoming indoctrinated in humanistic theology, being exposed to alternative lifestyles and learning to rely on the government first for everything.

Is it any wonder that they start to panic when "Mother Government" starts to fail?

[Robert]

Give them motivation to refuse to be defeated, to have the maturity and humility to choose to spend their money wisely. Give them the determination to insist on jobs not handouts. then give them the motivation to serve the God they pray to for answers to this mess...

When my folks both became ill and then I became disabled, I had to rely on food stamps. Then I got cut off of them and my medical benefits due to a snafu with DSS. And all I wanted was to get back on my feet so I COULD WORK!!!! One problem is not so much needing food stamps as it is those who simply STAY on them as their permanent subsistence. Then the ones who really need them cannot get them because the system is already overloaded.

In short: entitlement.

I am seeking to go back to community college via the internet and CLEP programs to try to get my Associate's Degree so I can get something that is more than minimum wage, preferably in graphic arts. I don't want a hand OUT, but a hand UP; but the way Obama is doing everything, all I'm going to get at this rate is the "one fingered salute"!
.

Not everyone on food stamps and needing state help is lazy or feeling "entitled". Believe me, I sure don't.

[micah719]

Ezekiel 14:13-23
13 Son of man, when a land sins against Me by committing a trespass, and I stretch out My hand against it and break its staff of bread and send famine upon it and cut off from it man and beast,

14 Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, they would save but their own lives by their righteousness (their uprightness and right standing with Me), says the Lord God.

15 If I cause ferocious and evil wild animals to pass through the land and they ravage and bereave it, and it becomes desolate so that no man may pass through because of the beasts;

16 Though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters; they themselves alone would be delivered but the land would be desolate (laid waste and deserted).

17 Or if I bring a sword upon that land and say, Sword, go through the land, so that I cut off man and beast from it,

18 Though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they themselves alone would be delivered.

19 Or if I send a pestilence into that land and pour out My wrath upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast,

20 Though Noah, Daniel, and Job were in it, as I live, says the Lord God, they would deliver neither son nor daughter; they would but deliver their own lives by their righteousness (their moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation).

21 For thus says the Lord God: How much more when I send My four sore acts of judgment upon Jerusalem--the sword, the famine, the evil wild beasts, and the pestilence--to cut off from it man and beast!

22 And yet, behold, in it shall be left a remnant (an escaped portion), both sons and daughters. They shall be carried forth to you [in Babylon], and when you see their [ungodly] walk and their [wicked] doings, you will be consoled for the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it.

23 And they shall console you when you see their evil ways and their rebellious actions. Then you shall know (understand and realize) that I have not done without cause all that I have done in Jerusalem, says the Lord God.

Judgement begins with the house of God...ready for persecution? It is coming, but the worst of it will be visited on those that will be like the folks that repented because of Noah's preaching only after the door was shut and the rain started.

Robert, have you tried producing and selling artwork? Entrepreneurship is not dependent on schooling, indeed schooling is intended to mould entrepreneurship out of you so as to make you a pliable and useable employee so that the profit of your labour goes to your owner, ahem, government, oops, employer...and a symbiant dependant on Nanny State's dubious support even as she sucks the lifeblood out of you.

the motivation to serve the God they pray to

That's the foundational thinking of the beast mark system, though I know you meant the opposite. Remember the guy that fell on his knees before the Obamamobile in prayer recently? A preview of coming attractions...