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poverty and hunger in America 1982
poverty and hunger in America 1982 -- Posted by tigerlilly@privacy.net.org.com on 05-27-05 21:24
While most Americans have enjoyed a share in the bounty of our rich and abundant
land, the number of people living in poverty has increased considerably over the
past few years. These are the findings of several important new studies on
poverty and hunger in America conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, the
Congressional Budget Office and the non-profit Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities in Washington, D.C. Taken together, the new reports help form the
backdrop to a tragic and needless picture -- a picture of poverty and hunger in
America. It is a challenge that all of us are called upon to meet.
Counting the Poor
The figures tell the Story. According to the Census Bureau, over 34 million
Americans, some 15 percent of our total population, lived below the poverty line
in 1982)an increase of 2.6 million in just one year. That means that one out of
every seven Americans lives in poverty. A closer look at this figure reveals an
even more frightening reality. The poverty level among blacks, officially pegged
at 35.6 percent, is nearly three times as high as the 12 percent figure for
whites, while nearly one in every three Hispanic Americans is officially
classified as poor. The very young and the very old also figured prominently in
the recent studies, with 13.5 million children under the age of 18) about one in
every five -- living in poverty, as do nearly four million elderly people,
almost 15 percent of all Americans age 65 and over. Once again the burdens of
poverty are borne unequally by the nation's minorities, with the poverty level
among black youth, at 45 percent, three times the 15 percent figure for young
whites.
The same racial imbalance in family incomes can also be found. According to
Census Bureau statistics, the median income figure for white families declined 1
.4 percent in 1982 to $24,600. But even that reduced figure remains well above
the $16,230 figure for Hispanic families and nearly double the $13,600 figure
for black families. Two decades after the civil rights campaign removed racism
from the nation's law books, black families earn on average only 56 percent of
the income of their white counterparts, just one percentage point above the 1960
level.
The disparity between men's and women's incomes is even greater, with women
earning a median income of only $5,890 compared to the men's $13,950)a gap of 58
percent. This figure takes on added significance when combined with the
percentage of black families headed by women, nearly half the total.
Cutbacks Hurt the Poor
At a time when the government's own statistics show a sharp rise in the number
of poor people, federal health, nutrition and social welfare outlays have been
sharply cut back. In 1983 the Congressional Budget Office reported that cuts in
federal poverty programs over the 1982-85 fiscal period, including a 28 percent
cut in child nutrition programs and a 13 percent reduction in food stamps and
welfare payments, disproportionately affect low-income households. Tightened
eligibility requirements for school lunch programs, for instance, forced one
million children from poor families out of the program. Overall, CBO reported,
the 23 percent of U.S. households with incomes under $10,000 (the official 1982
poverty level for a family of four stood at $9,862) absorbed 40 percent of the
federal spending cuts. Over the same period, defense spending as a percentage of
the federal budget will rise from the 1982 figure of 25.7 percent to nearly 30
percent in 1985.
Meanwhile, plant closings, business and farm foreclosures, widespread
joblessness and the lingering effects of the devastating 1982 recession have
created a vast group of so-called "new poor" people. Thousands of Americans have
watched as their jobs in heavy industry, such as auto and steel making, have
left America forever. And now they find that they are ineligible for a broad
range of federal and state assistance programs under the new, tighter,
eligibility rules. Significantly, job training and employment programs suffered
a 60 percent reduction in federal funding while the percentage of black men with
jobs dropped from 74 percent in 1960 to just 55 percent in 1982.
Responding to the Need
The President has asked private voluntary organizations to help fill the void in
assistance to the poor left by the current budget. But the sharp increase in the
numbers of the poor, combined with cuts in federal antipoverty spending, has
produced a staggering increase in the number of people using the services of
food pantries and soup kitchens. In Omaha, Nebraska, the city's interfaith
emergency food pantry network fed a record 64,728 people in 1982)an 81 percent
increase over 1981. In 1983, says Pastor Victor Schoonover, director of Omaha's
Lutheran Metro Ministries, the demand for food ran 20 per cent higher than the
1982 level. "And we only see the tip of the iceberg," Schoonover noted. "There
are plenty of hungry people out there we never see."
Similar figures were collected in a May 1983 national survey of emergency food
providers conducted by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That study
found that over half the food providers surveyed experienced an increase of 50
percent or more in the number of meals or food parcels provided over the past
year. One third of the responding agencies reported that the number of meals or
parcels provided doubled over the same period. Nearly all of the emergency
relief agencies (93.6 percent) reported an increase in the number of unemployed
people served and 75 percent reported an increase in the number of families with
children needing food. A quarter of the food providers surveyed said they had
turned hungry people away for lack of food.
The Church and Hunger
In 1980, the Presidential Commission on World Hunger concluded, that, "the
primary cause of world hunger is poverty." This seemingly self-evident link
between hunger and poverty has long been the foundation upon which LCA hunger
advocacy is based. In the view of the church, a root cause of hunger is poverty
and the only enduring solution is economic justice. Yet as the quotes on the
cover suggest, there remains no national acknowledgment that "genuine" hunger
exists in America, nor any consensus on the means and resources required to
eradicate it.
At a time of reductions in government spending on social services and programs
for the poor, a great deal of attention has been focused on volunteerism and
private charity as the mainstay of our national effort to feed the hungry. But
as Christians we are called upon not only to feed the hungry but to eliminate
the causes of their sufferings. And no level of charity -- public or private can
disguise the fact that the fiscal and legislative decisions made by our leaders
have contributed greatly to the spread of hunger and poverty.
Responsibility for the national tragedy must be borne at every level of society:
from the President, who together with the Congress establishes national budget
priorities, to the average American to whom both Congress and the President are
ultimately accountable. As Christians and as citizens we all share an obligation
to act to eliminate hunger and its causes. And, individually and collectively,
there is much we can do.
What Does the LCA Say About Christian Responsibility for the Poor and Hungry?
The LCA Social Statement on Poverty compels Lutherans to action:
"The Lutheran Church in America commits itself in the struggle against poverty
in full community with the biblical testimony about concern for the poor. While
it recognizes that the forms of this struggle are subject to human judgment and
are open to differences of opinion among fully committed Christian persons, it
does not believe that commitment to the struggle is an open question for
Christians."
What Is Your Church Doing?
During 1983, approximately $2 million of your contributions to the LCA World
Hunger Appeal was spent in North America. That money was used to meet human
needs in the following ways:
To support food pantries, soup kitchens and other emergency providers of food
To support economic and community development in poverty-stricken areas
To provide day care centers to poor families, thus allowing parents to actively
seek employment
To aid community and other organizations working to eliminate institutional,
social and economic obstacles to change
To support advocates of legislation intended to alleviate the sufferings of the
poor
The LCA also advocates directly at the local, state and national level through
testimony before government bodies, public statements and through the Office of
Governmental Affairs of the Lutheran Council of the U.S.A.
What Are You Doing?
There is a natural tendency among all of us to say, "Well, my church
(government, charity, etc.) is taking care of this problem, so I don't have to
get involved." But hunger concerns us all and as Christians we must accept
personal responsibility for ending it. One way to do that is through charity.
God has commanded us to feed the hungry, and thousands of churches in the United
States and Canada operate free kitchens and food pantries. If your congregation
is not involved in such a program, you can join with your pastor, church members
and others to start one. Never think that your community has escaped hunger --
it is there if only we look.
But charity alone is not enough. We are called to end the causes of hunger as
well. We can join with others seeking to ensure employment for everyone able to
work and a decent standard of living for all. We can speak out against injustice
and register our concerns and opinions at all levels of government. Working
towards a just society is a function of our faith and a prerogative of our
citizenship.
Check the ways you are already working for justice. Consider additional ways to
become involved:
Have organized on-site visits for members of my congregation to social service
agencies, summer feeding programs, food stamp outreach centers and other similar
projects
Have written a letter to the editor of a newspaper about hunger
Have written a thank-you letter to members of Congress for the way they voted on
a particular bill
Know my representative and senators by name and communicate with them from time
to time on relevant legislation
Have run for a public office in which I could make my influence felt
Am a member of a national letter writing network such as IMPACT
Belong to a state IMPACT chapter
Am monitoring the food stamp or other feeding programs in my community
Have helped someone obtain food stamps
Am working with a local food pantry program
Have helped establish a school lunch program
Have led a Sunday morning program on a particular food policy bill under current
consideration
Am serving on a local land-use planning committee
Have encouraged local newspapers to carry articles on eligibility for federal
food programs
Have written to a corporation in which I hold stock, asking for its policies on
corporate social responsibility in matters of land holdings, wages, and
advertising
At a stockholders' meeting have used my vote rather than a proxy card
Have participated in Food Day activities in my community
Have distributed church materials on particular food policy legislation
Have established nutrition centers for the elderly in my community
Have checked with local officials on the use of vacant land for community
gardening
Have shown films on hunger and malnutrition at my church or community center
Have written the advocacy office of the LCA for further information on any of
these items
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