With unemployment low and wages rising, the struggle for basic necessities like food should be easing. But those on the front lines of feeding the hungry say they are seeing the opposite.
    • girlfreddy@lemmy.world
      423·
      11 months ago

      And still Congress didn’t pass a wealth tax, or close at least some tax loopholes only the rich can access.

      It’s the same damn thing in Canada as well. And it sucks.

      Unless gov’ts get off their asses and DO the things that need to be done, revolution will come … and they won’t like the outcome at all.

      • Skyrmir@lemmy.worldEnglish
        23·
        11 months ago

        No one will like the outcome. Revolution almost never results in a better living standard in the lifetime of those involved.

        That’s not to say it’s the worst course of action, just recognizing the down sides.

      • cmbabul@lemmy.world
        17·
        11 months ago

        I’m convinced the only reason one hasn’t already started is because revolutions, while often very necessary agents of change and herald a lot of good for the future, are both risky and dangerous for everyone involved and in the back of our heads keep hoping things will change for the better without violence. Unfortunately it’s become increasingly and maddeningly obvious that will not ever happen.

        • treefrog@lemm.ee
          9·
          11 months ago

          It hasn’t happened because the people in power have learned the lessons of history and have been manipulating the masses for a very long time.

      • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
        9·
        11 months ago

        The US Congress will never pass a wealth tax without a Democratic majority in both chambers, and enough of a buffer to make Senators like Manchin and Sinema not matter

      • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
        63·
        11 months ago

        Wealth taxes have often been ineffective in other countries where they’ve been tried, since they’re very hard and expensive to administer. Something like a land value tax is much much simpler to collect and produces significantly better economic incentives. Wealth taxes incentivize you to offshore as many assets as possible, while land value takes incentivize you to use land as productively as possible since you can’t exactly hide a chunk of real estate in Switzerland.

        That aside though, any kind of asset-based tax is constitutionally questionable and would absolutely be litigated to the Supreme Court, where I wouldn’t exactly want to place any bets on that outcome right now.

  • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
    411·
    11 months ago

    But with rent that’s more than doubled…

    We really need politicians to start paying more attention to the housing crisis. Housing costs have been such a massive squeeze on literally everyone, and it’s an incredibly stupidly self-inflicted wound because for the last 50 years we collectively decided that housing should be a primary investment asset for all Americans instead of a place to live, and fundamentally, you cannot have housing both be a good investment and have it be cheap.

    Literally just build more housing. Public housing, subsidized housing, private market rate, yuppie condos, literally anything.

    https://usafacts.org/articles/population-growth-has-outpaced-home-construction-for-20-years/

    In the last 20 years, we build around a million single-family homes. In that same time period, the population increased by 3 million. There is no universe in which this happens and housing doesn’t become significantly more expensive.

    • ares35@kbin.social
      9·
      11 months ago

      the lines at the food pantry every week went from a few people and 5 minutes to get through to 50-60+ and 60-90 minutes during that time.

      • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
        72·
        11 months ago

        We used to have a strategic food supply in the US in case other countries fell into famine. Or, if we needed it ourselves. No longer. I guess Congress felt it was too expensive to keep.

  • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
    9·
    11 months ago

    These people need to take a look at The Statistics™ so they understand that the economy is actually very good while their stomachs rumble

  • tsonfeir@lemm.ee
    1417·
    11 months ago

    monthly grocery bill that now tops $2,400 for her family of seven

    I’m not saying the article is wrong, but if you have seven children, you did this to yourself

    • protist@mander.xyzEnglish
      161·
      11 months ago

      A family of 7 implies five six children

      Edit: It says her husband was deported to Mexico and she’s now a single mom

    • Cocodapuf@lemmy.world
      41·
      11 months ago

      So it said “family of seven”, which probably means 5 children and 2 adults, or just as likely, 4 children, 2 adults and 1 elderly parent.

      The really weird thing about this is that even without making any sort of moral judgement, the numbers still don’t add up. For example, I have a family of 6 (and only 2 of those are my kids), and our grocery bill is between $150 and $200 a week (about $700 a month). How do you get to $2400 a month? What are you feeding them? Are you ordering takeout ever day? Because that would be stupid.

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.world
        2·
        11 months ago

        If you read the article it states that her husband was deported back to Mexico, so it’s her and 6 kids.

        You also don’t know if she lives in a food desert where a single grocery store could charge whatever prices it wants because there’s no competition.