[JustTheNews] Feeding America estimates that 29% of military members faced food insecurity in the previous year.
At least 160,000 active-duty military members are struggling to feed their families, according to Feeding America, which coordinates over 200 food banks across the country.
It is unknown what the exact scope of the issue is, as there have been no formal studies. But activists say it has continued for years, mostly with junior-level enlisted service members -- ranks E1 to E4 in military parlance -- who have children, The Associated Press reported.
I remember being told by some former young military wives about their shame at needing food stamps to get through the month back when Jimmy Carter was president. Is this a thing that waxes and wanes, or has it been consistently like this the entire time?
"It's a shocking truth that's known to many food banks across the United States," said Feeding America's government relations officer, Vince Hall. "This should be the cause of deep embarrassment."
During the previous year, 29% of military members faced food insecurity, according to an estimate by Feeding America.
Junior enlisted ranks receive modest pay and have to frequently move, making it difficult for their spouses to maintain a job, the AP reported.
There is a significant network of military-adjacent charitable organizations, like Blue Star Families and the Armed Services YMCA, that have created an infrastructure of food banks near the majoriy of most domestic bases.
Military families living outside of base grounds receive a Basic Allowance for Housing to help cover the majority of their costs. But the 2008 Food and Nutrition Act counts the allowance as income when calculating food stamps eligibility, which results in disqualifying thousands of military families.
However, the allowance does not count as income with WIC benefits for mothers and children or for tax reasons.
"It's one of these things that the American people don't know about, but it's a matter of course among military members. We know this," said Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a former Blackhawk pilot who lost both of her legs in a helicopter crash in Iraq. "We're the mightiest military on the face of the earth and yet those who are on the lower rung of our military ranks are -- if they are married and have a child or two-- they're hungry. How can you focus on carrying out the mission and defending our democracy. If you're worried about whether or not your kid gets dinner tonight?"
A U.S. Agriculture Department (USDA) spokesman told AP that officials are "taking a fresh look at our authorities with respect to this policy."
Duckworth has sponsored a bill that would establish a Basic Needs Allowance for needy military families. Rep. James McGovern (D-Mass.) has asked for the Department of Defense to study the problem and repeal the USDA regulation that prevents military families in need from receiving SNAP benefits.
Josh Protas, Vice President of Public Policy for MAZON, an organization that has extensively researched military hunger, said military members dealing with food insecurity are less likely to re-enlist and more likely to be distracted in the field, according to the AP. He added that losing such talent may also be generational as military service tends to run in families.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
11/18/2021 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
When I was in, fifty years back, E4 with kids really wanted a part time job. Or food stamps.
Disgraceful. Do you want pix of Meals on Wheels driving into married housing on military bases?
You don't need to pay he E4 and under a princely wage. But if there's a family, for damn' sure you take care of them.
I was, at one point, in a slot where part of my job was what might be considered social work for the troops. Allotments were always screwed up, so we had resources while we got the G89s or whatever at Allotments to get off their butts and fix something.
I remember a First Sergeant, on the horn to battalion finance--that far back. "Misrez Johnson ain't got no food for the baby. You want me to come up there and slap a turd out of you the size of my forarm?" Top would and could have done it. First Sergeants have an ....interesting....position in the Army.
Got it done, too.
Shouldn't have to.
Disgraceful, plus the generational thing. Those are good troops. Can't afford to lose them.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
11/18/2021 1:04 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Disconnect DoD commissary stores from the insane (Box Store) mandate of average regional community pricing and the foking problem will GO AWAY !
BTW, I'm not an advocate of Army privates being married either. Family subsistence is only one of the problems this situation creates.
After Vietnam the Donks decided to punish the military for carrying out their Constitutional responsibilities. No pay raises during the Carter inflation. Then it became a campaign issue in 1980 and suddenly they got a very modest pay raise just before the election (and two more in the next year under Reagan).
During Clinton's administration declaring their Cold War savings, the same thing popped up again. His DoD wormtongue blamed it on the troop having too many kids. Later when pressed, they said a family with two kids was their definition of large.
Got to remember these are the same Leftists clowns who demand a "Living Wage" not "Minimum Wage".
Now way back in as late as the 60s during the draft Army, being married with children was considered for deferment. Junior enlisted had to get their company commander's approval to get married. All because when it comes to their most important asset, the troops, they're raging misers. Up until Reagan even those who resided on post, lived in WWII or earlier housing and billeting. Uncle Same was the biggest slum lord in America.
#6
I don’t know where the DOD commissary tied to community store pricing idea originated because here at NAS Whidbey our commissary is significantly cheaper; now if you want to discuss tying Exchange prices to the community that is different. In response to a question posed to region’s NEX a couple years back i was given a copy (since lost) of an instruction that clearly said NEX gas prices could not be more than a couple pennies cheaper than outside. And that made no allowance for fact on base you paid no state taxes. So NEX gas prices were essentially the same and NEX got to pocket all the (avoided) local taxes. So i seldom buy gas on base.
And finally, while junior enlisted may have to use food stamps, it is enlightening to drive through enlisted housing and see all the BMWs, Lexuses(Lexii?), and similar vehicles. I never had that thought process and bought used for many years.
#7
Ref #6: Good observation and cmnt from NAS Whidbey. I'll never forget seeing foreign diplomats and staff stuffing their shopping carts at the Ft. Bevoir commissary.
#9
So NEX gas prices were essentially the same and NEX got to pocket all the (avoided) local taxes.
Why I buy my gas on the reservation. State lost in court trying to get the gas tax on tribal land. And its cheaper even though procured from the same supplier as the off reservation stations.
#12
For my first 16 years I was an Air Force brat. Dad an 0-5 then 0-6.
We lived on base(s) during all his deployments. Only shopped at Commissary and BX (called PX back in the day). My Mom said they had everything she needed. No need to run into town to A&P.
They split up when I was 16 and boy, going civvie, was a real wakeup call.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
11/18/2021 11:54 Comments ||
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#13
The future all LGBTQ military will not have these sorts of problems.
#17
/\ Doesn't matter. I spotted the widest arssed sojur I have ever seen at FOB Speicher in 2007. Walking away from the DFAC. It was a hot, dusty mid-day. I thought it was a mirage. Had to come to a crawl in my Ranger to confirm. To her credit, she obviously hadn't shirked a deployment.
[Salon] The FBI on Tuesday raided the home of a Colorado election clerk and three others in an investigation into a voting system security breach.
Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, a Republican, was accused by state officials in August of helping to leak voting system passwords to a right-wing blog. Peters later appeared at MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's conspiracy-laden "cyber-symposium," where the pillow magnate promised but failed to produce evidence of election-rigging. Peters later briefly went into hiding with Lindell's help amid FBI scrutiny.
On Tuesday morning, the FBI and local prosecutors raided Peters' home.
#8
If we ever have a real president again, he should order the US Marshals to investigate and do a full audit of FBI activity the past 10 years with ALL laws enforced.
#9
Speaking of Stasi, in the Rittenhouse Show Trial it now appears that ADA Krause may have doctored the video evidence which he and Binger dropped at the 11th hour, 59th minute.
#10
Krause seems to have lied when he says he doesn't know how to compress video:
We interpret this to mean he does not understand the Discrete Cosine Transformation or motion block prediction, but he does have a copy of Handbrake which lets any attorney idiot convert or compress video.
[Free Beacon] Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), the 81-year-old career politician best known for his failed attempt to confront then-vice president Dick Cheney on the Senate floor, announced on Monday that he will not seek reelection in 2022.
The defining moment of Leahy's career came in June 2004 following the U.S. Senate class photo. Leahy, reportedly jealous that Cheney was mingling with a group of Republican lawmakers, approached the vice president and attempted to bully Cheney into acknowledging the Democrats in the room. The confrontation devolved into a shouting match over the Iraq war and other issues until Cheney conclusively ended the exchange. "Go fuck yourself," he told the senator with authority.
#5
I truly enjoyed that "dispute" and, No, it wasn't over the 'Iraq War".
For over a week Pat "Lying Lips" Leahy had been bloviating in the Senate (safely shielded against libel laws by Federal Law) about all of the "obviously sinister, Sinister I say!" things that Cheney was doing in a high-level consultation with the Oil Industry about 'Improving America's Energy Economy'. "They must reveal ALL their secret dealings to the Public unless they are guilty of vile, evil deeds!!!!" And so on and so forth for hours on C-SPAN.
Then it sure looked like Leahy approached Cheney with all "fake fellow Senator camaraderie" where Cheney was ignoring him and Cheney snapped. In an earlier Senate I feel that the two would have had a meeting at dawn with pistols over some of the things Leahy 'implied' about Cheney. That was is my impression of the event and, of course, YMMV.
[Free Beacon] President Joe Biden's nominee to regulate banks stole hundreds of dollars of merchandise from a discount retail store, according to a police report revealed Wednesday.
Saule Omarova, whom Biden tapped to serve as Comptroller of the Currency, was arrested after she was caught stuffing $214 worth of clothes, shoes, cologne, and belts in her purse at a T.J. Maxx in Madison, Wis., in May 1995. Omarova was 28 years old at the time and studying for her doctorate at the University of Wisconsin.
Omarova is slated to appear before the Senate Banking Committee for her confirmation hearing Thursday. If confirmed, Omarova will oversee regulation of the country's banking system. The police report, published by the American Accountability Foundation, could get her into further hot water with Senate Republicans who say she supports radical economic policies.
Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.), the ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee, has pressed Omarova to turn over a copy of a thesis she wrote on Karl Marx while studying at Moscow State University in the late 1980s. Omarova, who attended the school on a Lenin scholarship, scrubbed her résumé of a reference to the Marx thesis at some point over the last few years.
#12
Why does "our" side participate in the "consent" part of the confirmations for these un-American simpletons? Is there EVER going to be a "draw the line" moment where our side does a party-line "no" vote for marxist traitors?
[Breitbart] President Joe Biden warned private companies Wednesday they were not doing enough to help alleviate clogged ship traffic and port delays.
"We need major retailers who ordered the goods and the freight movers who take the goods from the ships to factories and to stores to step up as well," Biden said during a speech at the White House.
Port delays continue as container ships are forced to wait for weeks to offload their cargo, frustrated by traffic and trucking and worker shortages.
#7
We all need to step up. If you ordered some cheap Chinese junk from Amazon, you need to go to the nearest seaport and pick it up personally. Do it for America. Go Brandon!
#9
I'm sure nationalisation of the Oil and Gas industry has been a Democrat wet dream for quite some time.
i suspect that is what they hope any 'investigation' leads too.
#10
^ yes. Also eliminating Big Pharma royalties by expropriating their patents. Then they'll go after miners, timber owners etc and nationalize their lands.,
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Salon] The FBI on Tuesday raided the home of a 
[Free Beacon] President Joe Biden's nominee to regulate banks stole hundreds of dollars of merchandise from a discount retail store, according to a police report revealed Wednesday.
[Breitbart] President Joe Biden warned private companies Wednesday they were not doing enough to help alleviate clogged ship traffic and port delays.
