The American minimum wage and social security payments are just not enough to sustain families. During the Depression years, there was plenty of food in the stores but the jobless and the poor just couldn’t afford to buy any. In the 1930s, the US government burnt grain, dumped it in the ocean, ploughed in ripe cornfields and destroyed livestock – all to prevent collapse in food prices. What was good for the agri-business lobby was devastating for the poor. During the Depression around 2.5 million people lost their homes and were thrown onto the streets. Today, foreclosures are again forcing people out of their homes. Americans aren’t that desperate yet, but things could worsen. Since the figures were disclosed, millions more have lost their jobs and homes, so the number of the hungry and starving is likely to be higher. The latest figures do not include the estimated 750,000 Americans who are homeless on any given day. Also not counted are people living on the fringes of American society—in Miami, for instance, criminals live under highway bridges with the state’s grudging approval because new laws make it nearly impossible for them to find housing.
What’s scarier is that as food prices spiral out of control, Americans are not just competing with each other for food and resources. In the midst of an economic downturn, keeping in step with a billion Indians and a billion Chinese in the global marketplace is going to be an extremely tall order.
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