Food Banks In New York Are Running Out Of Food

Welcome to the Recovery! Food banks across the US state of New York are running out of food (37% of food pantries say they have had to turn away needy people because they ran out of food), amid falling funds and rising demand from people that have trouble affording food. About 2.6 million people have trouble affording food across New York with about 1.4 million New York City residents relying on food pantries to feed themselves, according to the Food Bank For New York City. But as PressTV reports, contrary to the belief that people visiting food pantries are homeless and jobless, most customers are employed, but are not paid enough money to put food on the table without help.

Michael Berg, the director of an organization that runs three food pantries in New York, told The Associated Press that demand for food there has risen by about 20 percent each year for the last few years.

Food banks across the US have seen increased demand from hungry Americans since 2013, ever since Congress cut funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as the food stamp program, by an average of $18 per person a month.

About 40 percent of those receiving food stamp benefits then turned to emergency food services, leading to an increase in demand, according to The New York Times.

Despite the state doing “relatively well” at feeding its hungry compared to the rest of the country, New Yorkers now miss about 100 million meals each year, and 37 percent of food pantries say they have had to turn away needy people because they ran out of food, The Times reported.

As Joshua Krause via The Daily Sheeple notes,

Despite the media’s claims that we’re no longer in a recession, millions of Americans are still struggling to make ends meet. It seems that America has developed a permanent underclass of citizens that just can’t quite rise above their poverty. No matter how high home prices rise or how far the stock market soars, the profits never seem to trickle down to this segment of society.

If you’re looking for proof that this permanent underclass exists, look no further than the massive number of people who still rely on food stamps and food pantries to survive. In fact, their ranks may be growing, which is starting to cause some food pantries to run out of resources on a regular basis. In New York City, 1.4 million residents eat at food pantries (out of a total population of 8.5 million), a number which is currently growing 20% every year.

The largest influx of food bank users occurred in 2013, when Congress cut the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program by $18 per person. Since that time, 40% of food stamp users have had to turn to food banks to sustain themselves, and 37% of food banks in New York City have admitted that they have turned away hungry residents in recent years, after running out of food.

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