Why Americans are going hungry despite a strong economy
With unemployment low and wages rising, the struggle for basic necessities like food should be easing. But those on the front lines of feeding the hungry say they are seeing the opposite.
Because this isn't a strong economy....
The rich are making money, but they're just hoarding it
So amount of money in circulation keeps decreasing, and prices keep increasing because in capitalism if a company isnt increasing profit margins, the stock price isn't going up. And they finally figured out calling corporate greed "inflation" means around 2/3s of the country will accept it
Either we drastically raise taxes soon, or shits about to get really really bad.
Very few people will just sit back and calmly starve to death
The 2/3 of the country can generally be fooled to believe anything.
However, just raising taxes in this case may have some similarity to extinguishing fire with a burnable substance.
You have to raise some taxes (say, on realty ownership, and some other possessions, and in general discourage possession of wealth without circulation) and lower some other taxes (say, anything taxing a transaction, I'm really not familiar with the way taxes work in USA, but in Russia plenty of taxes in hard numbers simply discourage economic activity). The goal should be increasing the actual inflation (not a good or bad thing per se). That's if you are right about the cause, which I'm in doubt about TBF.
The amount of money in circulation isn’t decreasing though. Wages have increased more than inflation, almost every month in the last year. Especially for median wage/salaries.
When they say strong economy they are talking about spending, jobs etc.
The answer is in the first few sentences:
Housing crisis
A strong stock market is not a strong economy. The economy is the flow of money exchanging hands, which is down because people are paid less than ever compared to the cost of living. This leads to starvation.
Hahaha, if you think the stock market is strong at the moment you haven't been paying attention. I would recommend spending a little time looking into what happened with gamestop in Jan 21 and why.
Hey NBC, an economy that's not providing the basic necessities for working families is not a strong economy. No matter what the pretty graph says.
iT's NoT a ReCeSsIoN (because we don't like you having a word to call it, so we're the ones who get to redefine it however we wish)
The definition wasn't redefined. You just always heard the rule of thumb and thought that was actually the definition. Like, let's be honest here, have you ever even taken an economics class outside of HS? When you learned how it's actually determined, instead of thinking "I've learned some nuance and I will incorporate this into my future conclusions" you rejected it and concocted some conspiracy to explain it.
It's strong for the people who matter.
Not if it keeps going like this. The rich will find out really quickly that they have nothing more than funny bits of colored paper and a gentleman's agreement with a Bank's internet server. Strong economies start from the bottom up and die from the bottom up. Catering to the top has always been a recipe for disaster.
Strong economy == corporate price gouging while everyone else's wages stagnate.
It's a great economy if you're already rich.
Since all elected officials are either rich or grabbing everything they can to become so, they can't understand what it's like for people on minimum wage or a fixed income.
We need more attention on stats like "what percentage of people have zero savings", "what percentage of the median worker's income is consumed by basic expenses", "how many people didn't eat yesterday"...
Some practical advice for donating to food banks: Give money instead of food.
That article has changed how I give to food banks since I read it.
I remember reading another factor is that food which people donate is often expired, nearly expired, or undesirable and unlikely to be used before it expires, so often ends up getting thrown away anyway.
In a household of four with two full time incomes (both teachers, so take that with a grain of salt), we are at the point that the food budget is the only thing left to cut. We have canceled any subscriptions, cut all other spending, and often skip lunch/breakfast or eat Ramen noodles to save the bulk of our money for the kids and feed them better. I'm sick of beans and rice, BTW. Due to the nature of our jobs and the outside of school hours (which we are compensated for), side hustle is not an option. We would like to actually be present and part of our kids lives. I keep getting told "it gets better," but the stress of making the bills and feeding the family is relentless, and that says a lot since we are way more fortunate than most. We need change.
"It gets better" is just a bullshit comment to keep you complacent. It doesn't get better unless we make it better.
two full time incomes (both teachers, so take that with a grain of salt)
Sorry but they counts as one income tops. It's shameful how little teachers are paid. I hope you and your family find a better situation somehow.
There is often change. But it never gets better. It has never gotten better and it never will.
factually inaccurate. look man, I'm a cynic, but saying the New Deal didn't improve people's lives is bullshit.
You mean how can some people barely survive while others have millions or even, wtf, billions? NBCnews? That's your question?
Boy that's a question right there NBCnews. Yessir a real head-scratcher. Hmm! Boy howdy, the mind reels at what could be the cause of such a huge imbalance in our society. I suppose we'll just never FUCKING KNOW.
Back to work.
Hey, at least some of us get an office pizza party.
Utilities have also been on the rise, and this year Ortigoza isn’t planning on turning on the home’s heater, even with temperatures dipping into the 30s at night. Instead, she plans to wear extra clothes around the house and bundle her daughter in blankets.
I just want to say… Don't do that.
If you want burst water pipes, then that is how you do it.
Instead, let your house drop to uncomfortably cold temperatures, but with still a buffer above freezing. The thermostat is only accurate for wherever it's placed in the house. It's not able to tell you what temperature your pipes are at the distant ends of the house.
If you're going to turn the heat off at below freezing, then you need to empty your pipes first, and no one is going to do that.
But yeah… I felt I needed to get that out of the way first.
Anyway, wages and unemployment are getting 'better', but that means very little if it's still not a living wage.
It’s a strong hoarding economy, the rich and ultra-rich are hoarding wealth and companies are raising prices for everyone else to feed their insatiable demands for profit. There’s nothing strong about this economy for the majority of people.
Same reason I hate it when the housing market is described at "strong" in Australia? In what way? Is the market providing housing for all who need it? No?
Then it's weak and I'll have none of this "strong" housing market bullshit.
That’s capitalism working exactly as expected.
The economy isn't strong, for one. Rich people getting richer isn't indicative of a healthy economy. The entire working class can barely afford their god damned groceries, 40 hours a week isn't even enough to live on for most people.
The economy is dogshit right now. Fuck these corpo ghouls.
The economy is dogshit right now.
It's not so much the economy that's dog shit as it is the policies regulating the economy that are dog shit. Better redistribution of wealth would go a long way to alleviate the economic inequality of the US economy.
Of course, that would require implementing policies that many, especially conservatives, are not willing to implement.
Good economy: Rich people get much richer. Poor people stay poor despite the good economy.
Bad economy: Poor people pay to keep rich people rich, despite the bad economy.
Anyone saying the 'economy is strong' doesn't know jack shit about economics let alone macroeconomics.
It's relatively strong given all the crap that's happened in recent years. Inflation is finally down, unemployment remains low, median wages have grown faster than inflation, etc. Things aren't great for a lot of people obviously, but shit could easily be so much worse.
Supply side is doing great!
Strong for who? The rich?
We were over at my mother's yesterday and we were talking about grocery prices and my mother asked my wife how much we paid for milk and my wife says she doesn't look, because it doesn't matter when we need milk regardless. I don't look either. It's the same with gas prices. I hear they've gone way down, but I've honestly stopped looking. What difference does it make what a gallon of gas costs when I need that gallon no matter what it costs?
I like to pay attention though so you can see firsthand how bad things are getting. I remember selling shoes to old people and all the employees would joke that they all had no sane grip on the fact that prices go up. They'd say at 80 years old, well when I was 30 that used to be $X thats way too high of a price! Its funny though because we will never experience that. We are used to it being this way year to year much less 30 or 40 years from now. So much so that some people dont even check the price anymore, we just know its higher than it used to be automatically. It's sad.
You don't need milk. You do need gas though.
That's because the economy is strong... for the rich.
The problem is shareholders expect infinite growth from a finite space, and that growth has to come from somewhere.
If you're already producing as many of your product, as cheaply as you can get away with, then the only thing you can do is charge more - but that strategy only works if the worker's wages don't go up with the profits.
As a result prices are going up, but worker's salaries aren't anywhere near as quickly, because the rich are scooping the extra cash and leaving all the working class to starve.
I've been working since the mid 90s and in the corporate sphere since the early 2000s.
From this experience I think we go through cycles. If you remember the 80s we had movies like wall street. "Greed, for want of a better word is good"
I think we're around about that point again. I received a directive from way up top and it was about priorities. Profit, shareholders, reducing cost and then customers. Customers were last and employees not even in the list. Unironically straight up customers last no mention of employees.
Through the 90s it was quite different, investors in people was a big thing, there was a lot of focus on team dynamic, wage rises were good, fully comped end of year parties. This kind of thing.
Then I watched this very slow drift away from this. Entire departments and then offices being closed. Below inflation payrises becoming the norm and the bare minimum from the company. Legal minimum pension match, no end of year anything comped. If lucky you'll get lunch at a corporate meeting.
The only thing that keeps me sane is the hope that we're near the end of the cycle and things turn around. It's depressing at this point.
Because trickle down economy unsurprisingly doesn't work. Good question tho.
The US doesn't tax properly
Most first-world states don't.
Capitalism.
Corporate Slavery.
It’s incredible to me that people need over $2k a month for food. I go to Sam’s once a week to replenish supplies and feed a house of six, two adults and four boys between 10-14, on $800-$1000 a month. That includes a ribeye or new york strip dinner every Saturday so theirs still plenty that could be cut. What the hell are people eating?
I sound like you, but I bet your answer is that we're buying groceries and preparing a lot of those meals.
Single parents or busy ones that can't do that have to buy ready food.
A classic tale of "it's expensive to be poor".
And the costs are beyond just dollars. My wife and I recently started cooking at home (and even growing some food) and I lost 20 pounds. My wife lost 50 pounds. We aren't cooking the healthiest things ever, but we make it at home.
So I started looking at prices since my comment and I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s astounding to me what the difference in cost is for premade or hell even just not bulk. I had no idea how much I was saving with a vacuum sealer and apparent luxury of having a large pantry and large standup freezer to go with the kitchen fridge/freezer. I don’t think I could make it through more than a couple days using a top of fridge freezer if that’s all I had. So bulk buying wouldn’t even really be possible as a typical renter. Just the wasted time having to shop multiple times a week (not just grabbing something but legit grocery shopping) sounds miserable and the expense from extra trips doesn’t help any.
Here's a thought. Maybe. Just. Maybe. There are people that live in the United States that don't own a car to fill to the brim with that amount of supplies. It's difficult to carry that amount of groceries on a crowded and late bus back to your apartment. Delivery you say? Well. That's extra isn't it? Remember to tip or else. See. Not everyone lives like you. In fact. Less and less people live like you everyday. When the tipping point eventually comes. What will you say then?
There are some economies of scale with a bigger family, though. I pay more per person now with household of 4, than when we had more kids. Getting stuff in bulk works best with a large household.
And yes cooking saves money too. Ingredients don't cost as much as prepared foods. You pay in time or you pay in money.
Probably people buying a ton of pre-made meals and whole foods. A lot of people just put stuff in their carts without considering prices.
That's definitely not what happens to most people, a lot of them don't have time to cook or have never been taught how to buy proper food because of the failed education system.
You're a tone deaf wanker
I must say, I was quite impressed during my visit to Budapest. I don't blame my fellow countrymen for fleeing there.
one word answers only
Feature (not a bug)
Weed
Hoarding
You mean 'capitalism' right?
Naturally.
Scum
Greed
Biden is definitely helping the economy by bringing in all that cheap import child labor so he should know
Yeah gonna need a citation on that one.
We have no official Labor Secretary at the moment and haven't for months. In the same timeline of Biden stating he would have his departments crack down on child labor we have gone an additional 10 months of silence.
An attempt at passing a bill to push against child labor and to use the already existing framework of banning sales of items made with child labor both failed with no support from the white house.
So, sure, both sides. And yes, the system is already broken and split. But at best Biden is complacent, and at worst happy to look the other way while his investors make money.
What I’m getting out of this is don’t have a family of fucking 7. That’s too many kids. She did this to herself. Too many people already! Having kids is the absolute worst thing you can do for the environment as well.
Well yeah I guess that's the answer. Go back in time and stop herself from having kids. I mean we all know that nothing ever changes or gets worse everything stays stagnant so if you make a decision 20 years ago it stays valid now. That's clearly your point right? Or do you think she should just be able to kill one of the kids? What's your solution here? I notice you just picked that one example out of like the six given. There was a there was one in there with three kids is that enough is that too many? What about the guy who was just caring for his disabled wife? Was the problem that he should never have married? What about the one who's taking care of the the children of her deceased son? I guess she should have stopped him from dying right? That's the answer for that one clearly isn't it?
Are the kids not people, too? Why should they pay for their mother's mistakes?
I feel so bad for those without college degrees or trade certifications. They are absolutely fucked going forward.
I feel so bad for those without
college degreesvast inheritances ortrade certificationshuge trust funds. They are absolutely fucked going forward.
Fixed it.
