Greg Kaufman: America's Poor Are Demonized To Justify Huge Cuts in Gov't Prgrams

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http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/greg-kaufmann-american-poverty



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Bill Moyers: Food stamps were at the core of the monster farm bill that went down to defeat in the House of Representatives last week. That bill would have cut food stamps by some $20 billion over 10 years, but that was too little for House Republicans and too much for House Democrats, although Senate Democrats had already agreed to cuts of more than $4 billion.

Here to talk about food stamps and the farm bill is a journalist whose beat is hunger, politics, and policy. Greg Kaufmann is poverty correspondent for “The Nation” magazine and a contributor to our website, BillMoyers.com. He’s also an advisor to the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, founded by journalist Barbara Ehrenreich and the Institute for Policy Studies. Greg Kaufman, welcome.

Greg Kaufmann: Great to be with you, Bill.

Bill Moyers: There are almost 48 million people using food stamps a day, and over recent years that’s a 70 percent increase. What does your own reporting tell you about why?

Greg Kaufmann: Well, the biggest reason, I think, is the proliferation of low-wage work. People are working and they're not getting paid enough to feed their families, pay their utilities and pay for their housing, pay for the healthcare. We had 28 percent of workers in 2011 made wages that were less than the poverty line. Poverty wages.

Fifty percent of the jobs in this country make less than $34,000 a year. Twenty-five percent make less than the poverty line for a family of four, which is $23,000 a year. So, if you're not paying people enough to pay for the basics, they're going to need help getting food.

[Thinkingabout]

1. It does not make any sense to keep the corporate welfare going and cutting food stamps

To those who can not feed their families. The disparity in wages has grown at accelerated speed in the past few years. If amazes me so many I know are continually vote for the same group which works against their best interest. I am a retiree who has gone back to work on a minimum wage job and could not conceive providing for one person and never a family on these wages.

[starroute]

2. So just raise the damn minimum wage already

Why should taxpayers be bled dry to keep the Walton family's profits up?

But it only works in one direction. Raising wages would cut food stamp use -- but slashing food stamps will do nothing about wages. Congress has this by the wrong end.