The cost of the program is not a very good way of evaluating it. the number of people it feeds and how well it does so would be a much better criterion.
Are people going hungry in the US? Obesity rates are at an all time high and the highest in the population below the poverty line. What metric should we look at in terms of quantifying people going hungry?
The US absolutely has a hunger problem. I can personally attest to this as I slept hungry numerous nights from age 11 to 16 (until i was on college meals.) School lunch covered breakfast and lunch, but dinner is on you.
If your wages are growing slower than rent/heating/electricity/etc you suddenly have to chip into your hierarchy of needs (as I later found out my parents did)
The problem with programs in the US is often means testing in the US. It is a corrupt system that makes things very difficult for honest people while perpetuating fraud for insiders and friends.
Bureaucrats in NYC (in my case) made it near impossible to get Food Stamps for some time -- then you go to the grocery store and see someone in Nike Air Jordans ($200+ in the 1990s!!!) whip out food stamps. You see people check out with food stamps and go into a BMW in the parking lot. I grew up in South Brooklyn and was constantly infuriated not only at poverty but those who took advantage of systems to combat it -- and corrupt bureaucrats who enabled corrupt users. A lot came down to hidden social clubs of fraudsters.
Obesity is a separate problem. Often the poor don't have access to quality calories, so they fill themselves with the most affordable calories (low priced carbs.) Eating healthy is a luxury.
Just as a note on this - low income have higher obesity rates, because many of them live in food deserts, without access to quality produce, or other regular staples. Further, high-calorie, low nutrition foods are cheaper in the US, and therefore more accessible.
Fat people =/= healthy distribution system of food.
The 'food desert' concept is a fantasy, there is no such thing.
In fact, trying to understand how such an upside-down false narrative could even exist, is the more interesting aspect of the 'food desert' phenom.
The density of fresh food is indeed lower in some areas, but always within reach. More important, this an issue of supply and demand: food is the most ancient of all commerce. Where people want to buy a food, it will be present. The very premise of 'food desert' is fundamentally flawed from the start. Food is a very competitive, very open, very dynamic, very well understood phenom. There are essentially zero places in America wherein there is truly unfulfilled demand at a basic level. Food stores cover every nook and cranny and balance quite well with demand.
Also - fresh food is the healthiest food, and it's also the cheapest. It requires work to prepare it. Processed and prepared food is the most expensive, and generally less nutritious. Though there are some anomalies (ie milk), food is still cheap.
The price of food has been deflating consistently over time. Just 2 generations ago food might have made up 24% of a HH budget, now it's 1/2 that.
Poverty exists, food insecurity exists, and surely there are some people who can't access what they need, but in general, the 'food desert' things is an invented narrative.
Have you ever been to an actual low-income, rural area? Or low-income urban area? Seriously?
Midwest US, not even truly rural, like in the hills of Kentucky, rural, and the closest grocery store to me is 1 hour away. There are convenience stores, full of sugary snacks. No actual 'food' in you would think of it. When I worked in Tenessee, I was 3 hours from the closest grocery store. The only 'food' stores by your definition were gas stations. Full of. . . sugary, high calorie, low nutrition foods.
North corridor in St. Louis, there is an entire swath of hte city without access to grocery stores, bodegas, or whatever else fills the niche. There are dollar stores filled with ---- sugary snacks and other high calorie, low nutrition foods. There are non-profits who have the only goal of bringing in grocery stores. During the Ferguson riots/uprising (depending on your views) one of the main asks was access to grocery stores. Why do you think that was?
You are pushing a false narrative. Food deserts exist. Your hand waving type of claim is just ridiculous.
Curious on this food desert thing. Is access to food less than it was 50 years ago? Access to fruits and vegetables during winter/fall months is a new thing since now we have better supply chains and international trade(winter crop is from Mexico).
Its weird to me since i grew up in Saudi Arabia on a compound, a true food desert and lived off powdered milk, ramen, and other non perishable foods we could buy from the commissary store. There is something like 5000 Walmarts in the US that covers 90% of the population. They have fresh vegetables and fruits all year round.
Everything is available, but not necessarily economically available to the poor. It has definitely changed in the past 50years — notably the buying power has gone down massively because wages have not kept up with rent/healthcare/education.
You need to save somewhere. If you don’t pay rent you become homeless so you focus on less acute cuts — like substituting bread and cereals for salad, etc.
Eating is easy in the US, eating nutritiously is harder if you are on a limited budget.
The article mentions nothing to your counter. The article talks simply about food. My point was, as you quoted, wages have not kept up with rent/healthcare/education. Food is one only member of what one spends on. (Also note, if you compare wages to cost-of-living, avoid studies which conveniently leave out rent/housing/healthcare/college. If you narrowly define anything you can make it look good.)
You are more likely to skimp on food than rent. If you skimp on rent, you end up homeless. Sure, initially, you can squeeze into smaller and smaller apartments, but eventually you're homeless. You can skimp on healthcare and education, or you can skimp on food -- where you dont see the effect immediately.
Food being a bargain doesnt help if you have barely anything left over to spend on food.
Secondly w/r/t food quality, as the article mentions, quoted below, some foods have gotten cheaper (sugar, soybeans) while others (meat, eggs) have gotten more expensive. This is another problem being discussed on this thread -- what you get for the money is not really what you need nutritiously. Sure, perhaps you dont starve, but you end up obese from eating the worst sorts of foods.
from artlicle: "That may be true in general terms, and as NPR's Marilyn Geewax reported in February, soybeans, sugar and wheat are all cheaper than they were a few years ago.
But as we've reported, there has been volatility in the price of plenty of other food items. And key staples like beef and eggs are actually more expensive these days than they have been."
