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EDITORIAL: Food insecurity is a problem in this community, across America

3 min read
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Earlier this week, the Observer-Reporter reported on the large number of people who turn up at the LeMoyne Community Center on the second Saturday of every month for food distribution that is carried out in a partnership with the Greater Pittsburgh Food Bank.

Organizers say people come from not just Washington County but also Greene and Fayette counties and West Virginia to get food and other household goods. Sometimes people turn up as early as 7 a.m. and, according to the O-R’s story, “The number of people taking advantage of the event has grown to more than 100 each month.”

It’s a clear signal that hunger is a problem in this community and in America as a whole.

This is not a newsflash, of course – as long as there is poverty there will be hunger, a fact that was highlighted almost 60 years ago, when Robert Kennedy toured Appalachian communities and he “sloshed through deep mud and ragged hollows” in West Virginia and “played with ragged children,” according to a New York Times account. What has given hunger a new dimension is the inflation that is draining the wallets of Americans. Many people are now turning up at food banks and pantries who are working hard to support their families but simply not earning enough. They might have been getting by a year or two ago, but they’re not getting by now.

Other points to consider: According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 34 million people in America are food insecure, which means they lack reliable access to affordable food. And of that 34 million people, almost one-third are children. Many of the households that are food insecure do not qualify for federal nutrition programs. Rates of food insecurity are higher in rural communities than in urban areas – 63% of American counties are rural, but make up 87% of counties with the highest food insecurity rate, according to the advocacy group Feeding America. The high rates of food insecurity in rural areas is exacerbated by jobs that don’t pay enough, underemployment and lack of transportation.

According to Feeding America, the food insecurity rate is 12.7%. In Washington County, it’s 10.4% and in Fayette County, it’s 15.3%, the second-highest in the commonwealth, only a half-percentage lower than Philadelphia’s 15.8%.

Hunger is a multi-pronged problem that defies a simple, silver-bullet solution. But, as the holidays approach, we should ask ourselves: Is it right that so many people have so much difficulty putting food on the table in a country as wealthy as ours?

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