Middle Class Food Bank Attendees

As reported in a New York Times article and now confirmed in an Associated Press/Yahoo article the middle class around the USA are showing up for the first time EVER at food banks across the country. This article reports that due to the skyrocketing food prices 180 food banks across the country are reporting a 15-40% increase in traffic for April and early May!

To meet growing demand, America's Second Harvest-The Nation's Food Bank Network, pressed lawmakers for the past year to increase the annual level of funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program, commonly know as TEFAP, from $140 million to $250 million annually according to the article.

"If gas keeps going up, it's going to be catastrophic in every possible way," said Ross Fraser, a spokesman for America's Second Harvest. "You're going to get to the point where they are going to have to decide whether it's cheaper to just give a food pantry a check. The price of gasoline is going to drive the price of everything else."

The article had these frightening statistics:

"In Albuquerque, N.M., the Roadrunner Food Bank reported that the pantries it serves are turning people away and running out of food.

"In Baton Rouge, La., the public school system has found students hoarding their free and reduced-price lunches so they can bring them home and have something to eat at night.

"In Lorain, Ohio, the Second Harvest Food Bank is finding that it is meeting only 25 percent to 30 percent of the need for food.

"In Merced, the food bank is planning to curtail a brown bag program, which supplies groceries to senior citizens, from once a week to once every two weeks, Legg said.

"Even in San Francisco, a city that has been relatively unscathed by the foreclosure crisis and economic downturn, food pantries are seeing hundreds of new clients."

Mark my words: we are going to see times as bad as the Depression!

Hugh Simpson