Should the federal government maintain the social safety net for all of its citizens? One in seven Americans receive food stamps, a number that's up sharply since the financial crisis. Most experts agree unemployment and underemployment have contributed to the number of people in need of food assistance. The government should stop expanding food stamps because of many reasons which are people are so dependent on the government, there is a lot of fraud that goes on while receiving food stamps, and that the government is spending way too much money on the poor while other things can help them get back on their feet. Some people may argue that access to food stamps is essential for needy families.
Children who live in a low income home are at a higher risk of obesity. The shortage of money that these families experience pushes them to engage activities like buying convenience foods, which usually contain high amount of sugar (AOC). Children with low income families do not have the money to play sports at schools, which is a problem because school sports have an enrollment fee. Another way the family’s economic status can affect childhood obesity is that parents with low incomes usually do not have much education; this makes them less likely to know about childhood obesity and so they ignore
Studies show that, low income home energy assistance program benefits seem to reach families at the highest social and medical risk with more food insecurities have higher rates of low birth weight children (Frank, 2006). The reason behind this is that the money for food is spent on the electric bill when no assistance is provided. In result many children are born with a low birth weight and some even experience a life line of hospital visits. Some children even have a hard time focusing in school because of the lack of energy. Children are blocked from living a somewhat normal life all because the household could not get the financial assistance needed in order to help with their electricity
Ann Cooper says, “40 – 45% of people will be insulin dependent within a decade. She also states, “Sick kids get sicker and sicker”. Most of the food that is provided to our children comes processed; there is nothing healthy about that. A lot of the food also comes in plastic bags or cardboard boxes. A processed food is food that has been cooked, milled or manipulated to change the quality.
Many of those children are not provided with necessity nutrition for healthy development. (National Center for Children in Poverty, 2010) Many of these children also lack health insurance and residential stability. Infants and toddlers are the most effected victims of poverty. They are most likely to suffer from starvation and death due to health issues resulting from lack of nutrition and medical help. Infants because of their dependence and need of care suffer from being left alone or with insufficient caregivers.
Hold food drives, since so many of these people are starving and can't afford food. With food drives, a few dollars from each person, can make the world of a difference in providing food for these people to have at least two meals a day. Thirdly we need to encourage those that are better off to reuse their products by donating them to charity. In millions of people's homes there are thousands of items that aren't being put to use that someone else would be able to make great use
Wisconsin Food and Nutrition Assistance Ever since the United States went into recession, everyone has struggled through many different hardships in order to make ends meet. Whether it be their home has gone into foreclosure because they can no longer afford to live in their dream home, or they can no longer afford the healthy and nutritional foods their families are used to, or they may not even be able to afford health bills and utility bills anymore. No matter what the hardship each individual goes through, the government has been going through their own struggle to support programs to assist those with these needs (Horn). State caseloads for food stamps have been growing by the tens of thousands (Horn). A record high in May of 2011
A broken food system arises from the inability to purchase food due to poverty, "There is food on the shelves, but people are priced out of the market" (Lean 2008, p. 1). Poverty limits the affordability of food, thus reducing the access to nutritious meals paramount to survival. In Haiti, with phenomenal price increases of 50-100%, resulted to the poor resorting to the consumption of biscuits composed of mud and vegetable oil (Holt-Giménez & Peabody 2008). The essence of this issue is difficult to solve, global poverty cannot be eradicated through one political nation’s policy making. As according to Kolko (2012), poverty in one nation is similar but exclusively different from poverty in another.
It is a constant struggle, Tara as a hospital food service worker, making a gross income of just over $20k per year. At 7% over the poverty level, Tara and her children are not eligible for government assistance. The old catchphrase “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” has never been so obvious in today’s society. Poverty continues to grow in the working class; we need to work together to provide assistance to those in need. What is the working poor?
Each day, 963 million people go hungry. Although there are people in poverty in the United States and in other developed countries, those living in developing countries are at greater risk for what has been called absolute poverty, (a condition where a person does not have the minimum amount of income needed to meet the minimum requirements for one or more basic living needs over an extended period of time). Women and Children constitute the majority of impoverished people across the globe. As Americans and Europeans it is in our best interest to help poor people escape poverty and to help hungry people escape hunger, Poverty is a silent killer, (Dr. Pinstrup-Andersen). The United Nation Children's Fund (UNICEF) figures show that 25,000 children die each day from poverty alone.