Hunger Rising In PA, Nationwide: 54 Mill Faced Hunger In US By 2020 End: Foodbanks, USDA
'The numbers floored me': hunger in Pennsylvania hits highest level since pandemic's start. Nov. 1, 2020.
Charles Bennicoff hasn’t worked since last winter. He’s an experienced landscape gardener but the mom-and-pop business he worked for in Allentown, Pennsylvania, cut its staff after losing most of their contracts during the pandemic. Bennicoff, 50, now relies on a food pantry for a few bags of groceries every couple of weeks to supplement the food stamps and social security his mentally ill wife receives. He still picks up the occasional odd job but doesn’t qualify for unemployment benefits because the landscaping job was cash in hand.
It’s the first time the couple have needed food aid since recovering from drug addiction and homelessness about 20 years ago, and Bennicoff is struggling to stay positive. “Covid has taken a toll, emotionally and financially. There’s a thousand people dying every day because of the president’s lies, and I can’t just shrug that off. I have tears in my eyes every night,” said Bennicoff.
Hunger is rising in Pennsylvania, with the demand for food aid at its highest level since the start of the pandemic, according to new figures obtained by the Guardian. Food banks distributed almost 1.17m aid boxes in the first three weeks of October, providing fresh produce and staples like rice, pasta and peanut butter to 2.75 million people. October will almost certainly beat the previous record monthly distribution from July, when 1.38m households received food boxes across the state.
“These numbers have floored me,” said Sheila Christopher, executive director of Pennsylvania Food Banks. “Demand is going up across the state and the country. We’ve never seen anything like this before, it gives me goosebumps.”
And it’s not just here: nationwide the demand for aid at food banks and pantries has soared during the pandemic amid unprecedented job losses and the worst unemployment rate in modern times. A recent census bureau survey found 12% of American households with children did not have enough food sometimes or often during the previous week – compared with 10% before the pandemic.
A staggering 54 million people in the US – ostensibly the richest country in the world – may have faced hunger by the end of 2020, according to Feeding America, the national food bank network. This would represent a 54% increase since last year, according to food insecurity figures recently released by the Department of Agriculture (USDA)...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/01/coronavirus-food-banks-pennsylvania
= new reply since forum marked as read
...............
Beatty has relied on food aid since the federal unemployment benefit was cut amid a political stalemate in Washington. “I don’t know what I’d do without this help. I haven’t needed a food bank since the 1980s,” she said.
Beatty qualifies for Medicaid to cover the cost of treating chronic conditions – a benefit which could be cut if the supreme court overturns the Affordable Care Act, as desired by the Republicans.
Still, Beatty wants four more years of Trump. “He did a great job putting the wall up, to keep out people who shouldn’t be here illegally from taking our money. He’s done a good job on the pandemic, too.”
even hunger does not temper her racism
