Costly Necessities Means More People Are Struggling

By Bristol Herald Courier Editorial Board

Published: June 1, 2008

By official measures, the U.S. economy appears to have turned a corner – potentially averting a recession.
The gross domestic product grew by a woefully anemic .9 percent from January to March, but it was growth nonetheless. This, no doubt, gladdens the hearts of politicians (who don’t want the recession millstone around their necks as they campaign) and those who make their living on Wall Street.
But official recession or not, things remain tough on Main Street, where almost $4-per-gallon gasoline, record food inflation and ever-rising bills for everything from utilities to health care are taking their toll.
Real people, our neighbors, are hurting.
A symptom of this economic distress is the plight of food banks in this region and across the nation. Donations to food banks are declining at the same time that more people are turning to them for help. Those in need of help aren’t just the elderly, the disabled or the very poor. The new face of hunger in America includes many working families on the lower rungs of the middle-class-ladder. They are turning to food pantries and charities for the first time – pressured by the rising costs of life’s necessities.
“It’s just an incredible amount of individuals needing food assistance,” said Rhonda Chafin, executive director of Second Harvest of Northeast Tennessee. 
Chafin’s organization, which supplies food to other charities that distribute it directly to those in need, provided food for 25,000 people a month in 2007. This year, the number jumped to 27,000.
The same increased demand has been seen in Southwest Virginia, according to Gary Mitchell of the Southwestern Second Harvest Food Bank in Abingdon.
Congress coughed up some help for struggling food banks – in the form of a well-intentioned amendment to an otherwise flawed Farm Bill. The measure provides another $140 million to $250 million in emergency food assistance nationwide, but the money won’t be available until October.
Likewise, those who rely on food stamps to help tide them over – more than 865,000 in Tennessee and 515,000 in Virginia in 2007 – are feeling the pinch. Food stamp benefits haven’t increased in tandem with rising prices at the grocery store, so the aid doesn’t go as far as it did just a few months ago. More money will flow into the aid pipeline in October, but this doesn’t help with grocery purchases now.
At the same time, poor and near-poor children are out of school for the summer. This means they will be doing without free or reduced-price breakfasts and lunches served at school cafeterias.
Unless charities fill the gap, these children might face rumbling tummies and poor nutrition, as parents rely on cheaper energy-dense but nutrition-poor alternatives like soda and snack cakes to satiate their hunger. It is no coincidence that childhood obesity rates are highest among the poor.
We empathize with the plight of the hungry in our community, but empathy alone won’t fill cupboards, plates or stomachs. It takes action to do so. Volunteer at a food bank or soup kitchen. Offer donations of food or money to local food banks. We can help our neighbors weather the storm of rising food and energy.
Whether this is a recession or not, people are suffering. It will take a community effort to help them.