Today's one-liner: "The shortest way to the distinguishing excellence of any writer is through his hostile critics." Richard LeGallienne
Local Government TV
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Wednesday, June 15, 2011
A Brief History of "Food Stamps"
From LV History: "[I]n 2009, there was a 40% increase in use of food stamps by the residents of Northampton County and a 23% increase in Lehigh County. In 2010 12% of the population in Lehigh County received food stamps and 9.2% in Northampton County. This is a direct result of more people suffering from unemployment. In Northampton County unemployment rose 63% affecting 9.0% of the residents and in Lehigh County it rose 57% leaving 9.2% out of work in 2010. Second Harvest formed a partnership with Bethlehem food banks such as New Bethany Ministries, Holy Bethlel Pentecostal, Concordia Lutheran, Trinity Episcopal, Moravian Food Bank and many others to feed thousands of our neighbors each day. The Animal Food Bank Services in Hellertown takes care of the pets during hard times for their owners."
16 comments:
You own views are appreciated, especially if they differ from mine. But remember, commenting is a privilege, not a right. I will delete personal attacks or off-topic remarks at my discretion. Comments that play into the tribalism that has consumed this nation will be declined. So will comments alleging voter fraud unless backed up by concrete evidence. If you attack someone personally, I expect you to identify yourself. I will delete criticisms of my comment policy, vulgarities, cut-and-paste jobs from other sources and any suggestion of violence towards anyone. I will also delete sweeping generalizations about mainstream parties or ideologies, i.e. identity politics. My decisions on these matters are made on a case by case basis, and may be affected by my mood that day, my access to the blog at the time the comment was made or other information that isn’t readily apparent.
All of this hope and change is making folks hungry.
ReplyDeletedon't be an ass 11:13
ReplyDeleteMaybe a second stimulus would make things better.
ReplyDeleteIt's done so much already.
In this era of hope and change, this may be part of Michelle's plan to get Americans to thin down. Notice how they're not throwing free cheese around. Even the jobless hungry (aka bumps in the road) can take time to look and feel better.
ReplyDeletemaybe these lazy bums should get a job !
ReplyDeleteany stats on the ethnicity of these people?
ReplyDeleteWhat was the purpose of this blog Bernie? To make people who have had to go on food stamps feel bad. Not eveyone of food stamps is a freeloader. Bad things happen to good people. My boyfriend had a stroke over a year ago, he is on in his mid thirites. He is unable to work but denied Social Security disablity, so he had to appeal. It takes 12 to 14 months to get a hearing. They may give him back wages if he wins the appeal, but in the meantime that doesn't pay the bills. The mere 200 dollars in emergency food stamps he were granted after I exhausted every penny payiing bills, including my credit cards, his bills and mine was not much considering the price of food and gas these days
ReplyDeleteThe Animal Food Bank of the Lehigh Valley is now run from the Northampton Community College Southside Fowler Center.
ReplyDelete"What was the purpose of this blog Bernie? To make people who have had to go on food stamps feel bad."
ReplyDeleteNot at all. I love Karen Samuels' blog, and was fascinated by her local history about food assistance. I certainly had no desire or intention to make anyone feel bad. I could be on assistance myself.
An acquaintance of mine was telling me tonight that a whole lot of employees of Olympus were let go last Friday, without any kind of expectation that was coming. He is a single guy, but I am sure some of his fellows who are suddenly unemployed have familiies, and would really like to be working so they could continue to feed and house them. They aren't lazy. If they need food stamps until they can find another job, so be it. One friend of mine, a single woman in her fifties, had a very long drawn-out job search a year ago, and she is an accomplished office manager/book-keeper. Hope that does not happen to you, Anonymous 3:42PM! Cate
ReplyDeleteYes my teabagging friends lets transfer more of America's wealth to the already obscenely wealthy. After all, they have it so they must deserve it, right?
ReplyDeleteGod, I have a feeling you folks are here to guide us to the next Dark Age, good grief!
Dark ages? Stop with the racist crap, wiener. And ask Barry about all his connected friends and their tax breaks and exemptions. I'll hand it to Barry, he has no shortage of squeaky useful idiots defending his train wreck presidency.
ReplyDeleteAnon 9:30 pm -
ReplyDeleteWake up. More people are on food stamps today than ever before. I believe the current statistic is 1 in 6 Americans. Poverty is on the rise.
Pointing this out is not to make anyone receiving aid feel bad. But it should make clear that the economic policies being followed by this President are not making ANYONE'S life better.
There are consequences to socialism and economic class warfare. We're finding out the hard way what those consequences are.
There is no perfect "ism", they are all soulless. Human beings are considered expendable objects by them all.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 12:27 AM said...
ReplyDelete"There is no perfect "ism", they are all soulless. Human beings are considered expendable objects by them all."
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There might not be a perfect "ism", but they're certainly not all the same.
I'll take capitalism, which is the one that best promotes personal freedom; best allows people to choose what course they want to pursue; and best allows those who work the best opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Though not perfect, it certainly works better - for everybody - than any of the others. And I don't think it's soul-less either.
It would be nice if this country would return to it.
The world is a soulles palce anymore, but one almost has to be just to get by and I hate it. How many people say it is not personal it is business? Hate that.
ReplyDeleteThe world is overcrowded and I am never going to be able to make it in the world like or better than my parents did. Not for lack of trying, but lack of succeeding. There is one fact no one wants to admit to, no matter how hard I work, there just too many damn people trying to do the same thing as I am. People have the nerve to tell me that I must not be working hard enough. I should not have to work as hard as my parents, did, I am more educated than they are, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.