Editorial: Hunger still stalks Wisconsin
Posted: June 7, 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In eastern Wisconsin, thousands of residents - from children to senior citizens, from high school dropouts to college grads - find themselves going hungry for lack of money. They find themselves choosing between food and rent or food and heat or food and medicine. No American should have to choose between necessities for survival.

America's Second Harvest of Wisconsin, a food bank, released this week a research report profiling the clients of the 1,100 food pantries, soup kitchens and meal programs it supplies in 36 eastern counties. The document underscores the importance of donating non-perishable food or money or time to Second Harvest or similar organizations.

But it should also warrant public policies to curb hunger, which, to judge by anecdotal evidence (namely, reports of growing demand from food pantries and soup kitchens), appears to have been spreading this decade.

About 235,000 people rely on Second Harvest for food in a year's time. Half are very poor - that is, with household incomes below $10,000. A tenth have household incomes above $20,000.

About 35% of the households rely on jobs as a source of income. For 27%, employment is the chief source. Only 4% cite Wisconsin Works as a source, perhaps because W-2 purposely avoids handing out grants. Some 79% do get government assistance in the form of Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, unemployment compensation or child care assistance. For 22%, Social Security is the chief source. Finally, about 11% report receiving no income at all.

Surprisingly, only 40% of the households get food stamps. Clearly, policy-makers must find out why so many people in need of food fail to take advantage of that federal program. Should rules for eligibility be revisited? Is the application process too complex, particularly for clients who would receive only a small amount of stamps?

Public policy ought to be aimed at ensuring that work pays - in other words, that people who work full time are ensured of life's basic necessities, including food. Unfortunately, the trend is in the opposite direction. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in Washington, D.C., notes, "Real median wages for the bottom one-fifth of full-time workers fell in 2003, 2004 and 2005" - in other words, during an economic recovery.

Also, public policy ought to be aimed at boosting the low end of the wage scale, through such strategies as lifting the minimum wage and expanding the earned income tax credit.

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