Sweet Charity: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement

Janet Popendieck's book "Sweet Charity: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement" reviews issues involving emergency food systems in the United States. She begins by discussing who eats emergency food. She cites a number of statistics that all point to one general idea: poor people eat emergency food. More specifically, the emergency food demographic is comprised by large numbers minority group members and women. Popendieck then explains the problems involved in determining who gets emergency food, specifcally referring to the outdatedness and miscalculation of the poverty line. Due to the increasing standard of living and living costs, people spend more of their money on other living necessities and have little left to feed themselves and their family. Increased living costs come largely from increased housing expenses. Increased housing expenses lead not only to emergency food dependence but also homelessness and lack of shelter. Increased poverty also stems from decreasing job security, availibily, and benefits, as well as lower wages. Minimum wage jobs and unemployment leave millions of Americans below the poverty line and in need of emergency food.



In a related article (http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/hung-f04.shtml), Hiram Lee analyzes a report by Feeding America (FA), an network of thousands of American food pantries and soup kitchens. I think the results are pretty shocking. first off, Lee mentions the statistic that as of january 2010 one out of every eight Americans need emergency food assisitence. In trying to understand the cause of this, Lee echoes many of the ideas brought forth by Popendieck. The problem of low wages is evident as the report reveals that over a third of FA housholds had "one or more adult family members currently employed but still struggled to get enough to eat." In the end I think that the increasing dependence on emergency foods is stemming from the global economic crisis in combination with a higher standard of living.

Discussion Questions
1) What kinds of people are resorting to emergency food systems? How is that significant?
2)Why are peole resorting to these programs?