That's more than the federal government spent in 1994 on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Supplemental Security Income, food programs, housing benefits, education aid, child care, job training, the Earned Income Tax Credit and other programs serving low-income people, all put together. Soup kitchens and food pantries surveyed by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger turned away almost 59,000 people in January 1998. More than half of them were children. But even if these food programs could serve every hungry person, they would not suffice. A new study by Project Bread and the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Tufts University makes clear that emergency food programs are no substitute for the regular, nutritious diet children need for healthy development.
Undernourished children are more susceptible to illness and have more difficulty in school.
New waves of welfare cutoffs will keep adding to the problem. Massachusetts has been dangerously stingy about granting time-limit waivers. That's not enough to support a family. They're joining the growing ranks of workers earning less than a living wage. The government abolished the wrong welfare program in 1996 - the one serving the nation's most impoverished women and children.