A good read in the Village Voice on the interconnected issues at the root of hunger — which need to be tackled year-round.
Highlights:
“[When it comes to hunger, there is a belief] that charity is more efficient than government. That it makes you feel better than government, and if everyone pitches in we can just solve the problem and feel good about ourselves.”
“In reality, said Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, “there’s a fundamental, systematic, structural problem that needs to be fixed. We need more jobs, higher wages, and a more adequate safety net,” and year-round momentum on these issues. Especially this year, because “what Washington is proposing is the exact opposite of what we need.”
“The state could spend more,” Berg said. “It could further raise the minimum wage. It could not exempt tipped workers from the minimum wage increases. The governor could scrap his revenue cap and spend more money on poor people.” Still, he noted, none of that would make a dent in the looming Trump SNAP cutbacks, as well as proposed federal tax hikes on the working class: “The federal government dwarfs everything else.”
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