This isn’t hyperbole. Avalon has been volunteering at our local food bank once or twice per week for the last few months. Business is brisk. She said the people coming in look like us. Many are nervous because it’s the first time they’ve ever had to do this. While the MSM touts all-time stock market highs and household net worth also at all-time highs, that narrative only applies to the top 5%. The formerly working middle class is dying, figuratively and literally – as suicides skyrocket among middle aged white men. A tipping point will be reached when more people start to go hungry and food banks can’t keep up. Tick, tick, tick.
For the first time, millions of Americans waited in food bank lines this year, unlike anything seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
According to AP, as the pandemic rages on, with more than 20 million still claiming unemployment benefits, food banks are dishing out more meals than ever.
The one place millions of Americans found themselves this year, as readers may recall, really starting in mid-March, have been food bank lines. We highlighted this phenomenon sweeping across the country as the pandemic wrecked the working poor as they grappled with food insecurity.
Among some of the most memorable sights this year, reminiscent of the Depression-era, were mile-long food bank lines. Huge traffic jams captured by civilian drones documented large lines in San Antonio, Texas to Toledo, Ohio to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Orlando, Florida, where thousands of vehicles carrying hungry people waited for care packages.
Feeding America, a nationwide network of more than 200 food banks, was overwhelmed with demand as 20% of the organization’s food banks were at severe risk of running out of food earlier this year
Demand at food banks has been so high, that Feeding America handed out 4.2 billion meals from March through October, the most ever.
The organization reported a 60% average increase in food bank users during the pandemic – and at least 30% are first-timers.
Data from Feeding America showed 181 food banks in its network distributed nearly 57% more food in the third quarter than the same period in 2019.
Estimates from the food bank suggest 1 in 6 Americans, from 35 million in 2019 to more than 50 million by the end of this year, will have food insecurity problems. The problem is worse for children – nearly 1 in 4 will go hungry as the pandemic deeply scarred the economy.
Shockingly, Feeding America found that 1 in 5 residents in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana could not put food on the table.
AP interviewed Duerr, 56, who said she must “either pay bills or get food.” She said food bank donations have greatly helped her as she struggles to survive.
Many of the folks attending food bank lines are the working poor who once had jobs in the service industry. Because of permanent job loss, many of their jobs will be completely wiped out.
For communities of color, such as those in the inner cities, the pandemic has been disastrous. Blacks and Latinos are dealing with high rates of infections and deaths from the virus, along with high joblessness. For example, just look at the food bank demand soaring in Chicago:
If food demand continues to soar – Feeding America, in a separate report from October, warned that it could face a deficit of “10 billion pound shortfall between now and June of 2021 – the equivalent of 8 billion meals.”
Watch: Many Americans ‘worried about their next meal’
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Just employ Occum’s razor: The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. They are reducing the world’s population.
Admin – they look like you. But I bet they did not act like you.
Look at the cars lined up in any of the photos. Nice, bright, shiny new cars. Bought on the cuff most assuredly. McMansions. Debt of all kinds, with credit cards maxed out and enormous mortgages.
They look like you. But they are by and large nothing whatsoever like you. You are a paragon of financial virtue, as is Avalon no doubt. Those in line? Not so much.
People have lived happily far beyond their means for very a long time. And they have no idea how to struggle and survive, as they have never had to do it.
Actions have consequences. If it was not the “pandemic”, it would have eventually been something else. And they were totally unprepared for whatever it was to be. They made their bed. Sure, some of them are innocent. But as a group, they did this to themselves. And I hope that the cost of their bad decisions does not flow to the young, but are rather for gather to bear themselves. May God save their children, who will unfortunately pay a price for the irresponsibility of their parents.
Avalon has a good heart.
No one makes you take out that loan for stuff you don’t need, will be broken in a couple years, and will get replaced before the loan is paid off. Sounds like a solid plan.
My daughter has such a big heart. Just precious. I don’t think anyone else in our family could be handling alopecia as well as she is, but she always puts others first. She decided to make some White Trash (some recipe with Chex Mix, candy canes, white chocolate, and who knows what else), bag it up, and market it at the bottom of our driveway. She said it’s free but please provide whatever you can because 100% is going to our local food pantry. I think she ended up making over $100. There’re a lot of hurting people out there and it infuriates me.
AOC – I know people are hurting. If they are saved from reaping what they sowed by others, how will they learn?
The Great Depression bred a generation of hard people who did not waste. That did not happen because they were coddled. It was hard, but it paved the way for prosperity, that has now been squandered.
To get out of this mess, people are going to have to suffer, and to learn, and change. There can be no returning to the status quo.
My sister came to me once, crying as she could not meet her mortgage. She, her husband, and their 16 year old daughter all drove new cars bought on credit. I drove a 20 year old Ford, and my wife a ten year old one, as we saved and invested in our business and our future.
I told her to sell the cars and quit acting stupid, and for her not to expect me to help her get out of problems caused by her own stupidity. I do not believe in helping people who are doing the wrong thing. I help those that are doing the right thing but due to circumstances outside their control end up in trouble.
Large mortgages, car payments, credit card debt, expenditures on gizmos, large student loan debt, etc. are almost always self-inflicted wounds. Not my problem. Actions have consequences, and we have forgotten that, and it must be relearned rapidly.
Most people must learn by experience. You can tell them not to pick the cat up by the tail, but until they do it, they will simply not understand.
Llpoh, I agree with you completely BUT I also empathize with Avalon. That is my daughter, a pure heart who ALWAYS puts others first. The example I’ve given on here before is that any dick cop who comes to me for something after SHTF will not get anything from me. But I will not turn my back on his children.
You can’t save people from stupidity. But maybe it’s possible once SHTF that some of them will learn to use my jackhammer to sink some posts through feet of limestone for a few meals. Because Lord knows doing just one of them today beat the shit out of my lower back.
My old many put up chainlink fence through the Mojave. When we drove through he would point it out. The holes for the posts often had to be made with long iron bars because of the rocks. He had the strongest hands of any man I have ever met, and it is not close, that were developed by cutting chainlink fence with pliers. Not wire cutters. Try to cut chainlink with pliers sometime. Just once. Then imagine doing it day after day. Different time, different people. And he could do it with either hand, even into his sixties.
I can’t even imagine. I have a ton of respect for hard labor these days. Two feet of limestone with a 55 lb. hammer, un-fuckin-believable. My wife came out there today asking me WTF I keep messing with it for when I could hire someone. I said NO damn it, I wanna do it my way because I don’t want the damn posts even 1/8″ off. And nobody does it “right” here, because of the rock.
BTW, good book here with some tips and tricks on strong post footers if you don’t wanna use concrete on the non-stretch points.
And as I said, Avalon has a good heart. I admire that.
Llpoh, I agree. Even educated people sink themselves. My sis got a graduate degree in counseling that was priced 3x higher than one at a state uni. She would have been able to do her work from the git go after graduating from the state uni. But since it was a private school she had to work under instruction for 2 years before she could work on her own. I asked her why and she said she liked the teaching staff where she went. I asked her what the difference in income she would be making and how long it would take to pay off the student loan for the degree with after tax income. She plans to work as long as she can into her late 70s to be able to do it. Her daughter bought her a car and makes her car payments. The stupid it burns.
For the cost of the gas money, these people could have bought a bag of potatoes and maybe a few other items.
that would require 2 things:
1. effort
2. a pot.
but they can’t because they own:
a 1000w countertop flamepoweredselfbrowningquickcooker from Ronco.
(only cooks frozen ribs, or re-heat yesterdays fried chicken, not for use on raw potatoes)
I’m still employed, so we’ve sent money to our local food bank twice this year. There, but for the grace of God, go we all.
James – I do not believe that for a moment. There is an old saying that God helps those that help themselves. God has damn little to do with the plight of these people. There are nefarious forces at work, but God gave them free choice, and a great many of them chose poorly.