MediaWatch: January 1998
Table of Contents:
Hunger in America
A recent study focused on a country where hunger has increased over 800 percent in the last 12 years. War-ravaged, famine- stricken Ethiopia? Stalinist North Korea? Nope. According to the Conference of Mayors annual report, it’s America.
This year it was ABC that fell for the annual holiday-timed report. Farai Chideya reported on the December 14 World News Tonight: "According to a new study of Philadelphia and 28 other cities, [the] need is greater than ever. Requests for emergency food assistance in those cities rose by 16 percent, the biggest increase in five years. Two major reasons, according to the study, are low wages and high housing costs. About 20 percent of the time, people who asked for food didn’t get it."
She continued: "Ironically, the rise in urban hunger comes at a time when much of the economy is booming. Unemployment is at the lowest level in years, and many employers can’t find enough workers for the Christmas rush. That’s little consolation for Americans left hungry during the holidays."
Chideya didn’t question the veracity of the findings from big city, mostly Democratic mayors, although a quick bout with a calculator indicates that if the report’s annual findings from 1985 are to be believed, hunger in America has mushroomed by a staggering 861 percent since then. In no year has there been less than a nine percent jump in "demand for emergency food."
On January 11 NBC focused on welfare reform as the root cause of increased hunger. Nightly News Sunday anchor Dawn Fratangelo introduced a Roger O’Neil story: "One reason for the balanced budget is welfare reform. While many former recipients may be working, often there is not enough money for one basic need: Food."
Bucking liberal claims that most people spend only brief periods on welfare, O’Neil found a man who had been dependent for 14 years: "For the new working poor like James Bobo this is the dark side of welfare reform." O’Neil surveyed food banks in Colorado, Georgia and Virginia and found nothing but trouble: "The demand for food is now greater than the supply. Those who serve the poor worry about empty shelves if welfare reform continues to leave the working poor hungry, even if they have a job."
