American Notes POVERTY

Even before the stock-market crash last month evoked fears of a recession, some 20 million people in the U.S. were going hungry on a regular basis. So says Hunger Reaches Blue Collar America, a report released last week by the Physician Task Force on Hunger in America, a public health advocacy group. Using government figures and its own survey of some 25 depressed areas in eight states, the task force concluded that despite steady economic growth, 32.4 million people live at or below the federal poverty level ($9,069 for a family of three), and many of them rely regularly on food banks and soup kitchens to supplement their diets. Among the reasons cited for the high level of hunger: restrictions on food-stamp eligibility and the failure to raise the minimum wage.

The group's director, Larry Brown, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, says that while hunger in the U.S. is nowhere near Third World levels, poor families regularly "miss meals, cut down and go without for a couple of days." The Agriculture Department attacked the report's accuracy, saying that food-stamp spending has risen 12% since 1979.