No Evidence of Hunger Problem

To the Editor:

Several people you interviewed in “No Relief for Nation’s Food Banks” (November 16) expressed the view that the 1996 change in the federal welfare law is responsible for the growing demand on food charities. How can that be when demand on these charities has been growing steadily for the last 20 years? Moreover, rising demand has had no relationship to economic upturns and downturns.

The real reason demand is growing is because supply is growing. The food is free for the asking, and since it has a limited shelf life, it must be distributed relatively quickly or go to waste.

There is no evidence that there is a hunger problem of any kind in America. A report by Second Harvest titled Hunger 1997: The Faces & Facts, probably the best study of its kind, found that 70 percent of food-charity recipients who were interviewed said that adults in their households had not missed any meals in the past month. Ninety percent of children had not missed any meals in a month.

It is encouraging that more food charities are trying to help recipients find jobs and to overcome problems such as alcoholism. But it is disheartening to see them trying to increase their food supplies when all that does is to allow more people to become dependent. It is equally disheartening to see organizations such as Catholic Charities USA lobbying to expand welfare programs and thus also increase dependency.

Food charity personnel need to do some serious rethinking about their operations or the problem they have created will only get worse.

Daniel T. Oliver
Research Associate
Capital Research Center
Washington