The number of U.S. families that struggled to get enough to eat last year was essentially unchanged from the year before, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest report on “food security”. The agency says that about 17.5 million families — or 1 in 7 — were food insecure last year. That means that at some point during the year, the household had trouble feeding all of its members. In 2012, the number was 17.6 million.

The number of households experiencing what the government calls “very low food security” — which means people actually miss meals or cut back their intake because they don’t have enough money for food — was also essentially unchanged last year at 6.8 million households.

Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, has called for a massive new government jobs program, a significant increase in the minimum wage and a robust increase in the federal nutrition safety net program. (Adapted from an article on the NPR website. 4 Sept 2014)

With Congress likely to be in Republican hands very shortly the chance of any help for these poor people is remote in the extreme. Some Republican candidates are moving to the center to get elected, and are espousing an increase in the pathetic minimum wage, but nothing will be done because the candidates will not have the power. That lies with the hard money men of the corporations.  It bodes ill for the future.  At some point the American people will have had enough, and will overturn the current  capitalist system that offers the vast majority so little. and cares not a jot.  But meanwhile men and women of goodwill must give back to society what they can  and meanwhile keep their peace in the Epicurean garden.