Hunger in America: It’s an old piece of liberal mythology, but with the Biden White House finally ending the COVID pandemic emergency, it’s become a hot topic again, with journalists sounding the alarm over reducing pandemic-driven increases in federal food assistance, calling up the spectre of starvation in the richest country on earth.
New York Times writer German Lopez presented his “The Morning” newsletter under the headline deck “Going Hungry in America -- The country’s neediest are dealing with food stamp cuts and rising prices at the same time.”
Earlier this year, millions of Americans got a notice: Your food budget is about to be cut, potentially by hundreds of dollars a month. Here are some tips on how you can manage. You can’t appeal.
As if Americans are utterly helpless to bolster their own “food budgets” but are wholly dependent on the largesse of taxpayers, via the federal government programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The big question is what happens now. Some experts have warned that the country is approaching a “hunger cliff,” with the number of Americans going hungry likely to spike this spring….
Lopez quoted FRAC, an unlabeled left-wing activist group that’s been seeing “hunger in America” for decades.
“It is a very large and abrupt change,” said Ellen Vollinger of Food Research and Action Center, an advocacy group. “The hardship will fall on these families.”
Typically, conservatives garnered a single paragraph and it came with an ideological warning label. Supporters weren’t labeled left-wing or liberal.
Some conservatives say the warnings are overblown. Angela Rachidi of the American Enterprise Institute argued that the effects of the emergency benefits were exaggerated and that they were always supposed to be temporary.
Lopez used to write for Vox.com, where he wrote articles on the social benefits of rioting.
At National Public Radio, reporter Lauren Hodges lunged for the heartstrings in her online report, a version of which aired Friday morning: 'Back to one meal a day': SNAP benefits drop as food prices climb
Teresa Calderez has never seen her nails look better.
"They were real split, cracked and dried," she said, fanning out her fingers. "And I noticed having eaten fresh vegetables and meats, you know, they look a lot better. They're not pretty, but they're healthier. And I think your nails say a lot about what your health is like."
Hodges actually included a photograph of Calderez’s “healthier” hand to prove the wonders of federal assistance. Science!
Calderez is 63 and lives in Colorado Springs. Disabled and unable to work for years, she used to get a little over $20 a month in food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. That would run out very quickly. But as one of the millions of Americans who got extra federal assistance during the pandemic, her balance jumped to $280 a month. She said she was finally able to eat whenever she felt hungry.
"You know, I feel better. I have a little more energy," she said.
But that extra money is gone now as the government winds down its pandemic assistance programs. The boosted benefits expired this month and payments are dropping by about $90 a month on average for individuals, and $250 or more for some families, according to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research institute.
Newsflash: CBPP is a “left-leaning” research institute, as the New York Times reported. Hodges stated as fact that hunger will blight the land if food stamp spending resets to 2019:
The reduction comes as food prices in the U.S. continue to rise. Without the extra help, many people will go hungry.
NPR never consulted any conservatives for their story.
