Direct Action Vingraphic & Article on Hunger in the U.S.A.

(The original, published in 1919, in Scotland, was a rallying cry for workers to support the tactic of direct action in the workplace. I posted the following article, by a U.S. Congressman, on hunger in America, rather than a labor article, as some of the hungry are working poor).

Ending Hunger in America


By James P. McGovern and J. Larry Brown
6/1/2003

S OUR NATION struggles to meet humanitarian needs in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries, we might also commit to addressing a serious unmet need at home: hunger, particularly among children.


The latest annual report (2001) by the Department of Agriculture and Census Bureau indicates that the disease of domestic hunger threatens 13 million American children and 20 million adults. These staggering numbers among us frequently have no idea where their next meal will come from or have cut back on portions of food served to ration what remains. Millions of them go to bed with the painful sensation of hunger in their bellies.

Imagine an epidemic that threatens nearly one in five of our children. Even more, imagine it is wholly preventable but we let it happen anyway.

This lack of resolve has a measurable toll judging by a plethora of recent scientific findings. Hungry kids get sick more often, miss school more frequently, and are much more likely to be hospitalized. They also experience more depression, anger, and lethargy. Startlingly, even mild hunger - such as missing an occasional meal - leads to cognitive impairment in children. They do less well in school, get poorer grades than peers who are not hungry, and are more likely to fail standardized achievement tests.

Hunger is a moral issue, an outcome that is unfair and unnecessary. By letting children go hungry we rob them of their God-given natural talents. But hunger is an economic issue as well, because we squander educational investments when we send children through the schoolhouse door unprepared to learn. We also squander human capital by subjecting the thinkers and doers of the next generation to a disease that is both debilitating and preventable.

Domestic hunger is not a recent problem, so its solutions are not limited to the improved economy for which we all hope. Hunger diminished little even during the strong growth of the 1990s, a reflection of the growing numbers of parents working more jobs and more hours but at wages that hardly kept up with inflation.

Indeed, the fastest growing segment of those relying on food banks and charitable food pantries are households with at least one adult in the labor force who have young children at home. For them the reward of a weekly paycheck is the horror of having to decide whether to first pay the rent, heat, or the medical bills. Food typically is the expendable item. Forced to rely on less costly but more filling and fattening substitutes, these households frequently fall prey to the twin peril of hunger and obesity. They fill the stomachs of the home to avert the feeling of hunger, but fail to meet required dietary needs thereby robbing the body of what is truly needed for health and development.

This tragic situation can be remedied through presidential and congressional leadership. Working together on a bipartisan basis, we can see that the food stamp program is fully utilized to support work and reward initiative. After all, no working family that plays by the rules should have too little to feed their children.

We also can see that the federal school breakfast and summer food programs reach many more of the high-risk children that they now miss. And while we are at it, we also need to take steps to better protect retirees and others at the opposite end of the age spectrum, to ensure that increasing years are not accompanied by increasing hunger.

Congress and the White House need to be far more proactive in collaborating to end hunger in America. To be sure, government cannot do everything, but governmental policy is the key tool by which we can protect all of our people from the preventable scourge of hunger. Doing so will not only enable us to be more helpful in addressing needs elsewhere in the world, it will reflect our highest moral values as well.

James P. McGovern, Democratic congressman for the 3d District of Massachusetts, is co-chair of the Congressional Hunger Center. Dr. Larry P. Brown, Distinguished Scientist at Brandeis University, directs the Center on Hunger and Poverty.