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Are you ready and able to help? This could become a real problem that requires the nation to buckle-up and share the burden.
The Recession Bread Lines Are Forming in Mar-a-Lago’s Shadow
Food banks around the world have recorded increases in requests for assistance as government-ordered lockdowns have started to bite, prompting employers to lay off staff.
With more than 10 million people across the nation suddenly unemployed, bread lines are forming in the shadows of privileged enclaves like this one in Florida.
For the past two weeks, the kitchen staff at Howley's has been cooking up free meals-the other day it was smoked barbecue chicken with rice and beans, and salad-for thousands of laid off workers from Palm Beach's shuttered restaurants and resorts.
Food insecurity was already a chronic problem in many U.S. communities. Across the U.S. 14.3 million households were short of food in 2018, the last year for which government data are available. That equates to just over one in ten American households. For Black and Hispanic households the rate is closer to one in five.
"We're seeing about a 650% increase in our request for support," said Sari Vatske, executive vice president of Feeding South Florida, which before the pandemic was already serving more than 700,000 people a year in four counties including Palm Beach County. "The growth is exponential."
That is likely only to get worse with the number of people losing jobs at historic levels. In the final two weeks of March alone an unprecedented 10 million workers applied for unemployment insurance. And some economists predict about 20 million people will have lost their jobs by July.
Coronavirus may cause some food shortages, says government document
The nation could begin to see food shortages for some products if the people working on the supply chain lack personal protective equipment, warns an internal Trump administration document obtained by Yahoo News.
The April 2 briefing warns that the task force had completed an analysis and there could be "commodity impacts if current PPE inventory is exhausted." There would be shortages of milk within 24 hours and of fresh fruits and vegetables "within several days.' The document estimates that 'meat, poultry, seafood, and processed eggs' would become scarce within a period of two to four weeks, while 'dry goods and processed foods inventories' - that is, the non-perishables that are pantry staples - could become scarce "as soon as four weeks" after face masks and gloves run out across the food supply chain.
The document is a warning, and is not descriptive of the current situation. There are no signs of a food shortage across the nation. But the coronavirus pandemic is putting strain on every aspect of the food supply chain, from the people who raise and grow what we eat to the people who deliver it to our supermarkets.
The Recession Bread Lines Are Forming in Mar-a-Lago’s Shadow
Food banks around the world have recorded increases in requests for assistance as government-ordered lockdowns have started to bite, prompting employers to lay off staff.
With more than 10 million people across the nation suddenly unemployed, bread lines are forming in the shadows of privileged enclaves like this one in Florida.
For the past two weeks, the kitchen staff at Howley's has been cooking up free meals-the other day it was smoked barbecue chicken with rice and beans, and salad-for thousands of laid off workers from Palm Beach's shuttered restaurants and resorts.
Food insecurity was already a chronic problem in many U.S. communities. Across the U.S. 14.3 million households were short of food in 2018, the last year for which government data are available. That equates to just over one in ten American households. For Black and Hispanic households the rate is closer to one in five.
"We're seeing about a 650% increase in our request for support," said Sari Vatske, executive vice president of Feeding South Florida, which before the pandemic was already serving more than 700,000 people a year in four counties including Palm Beach County. "The growth is exponential."
That is likely only to get worse with the number of people losing jobs at historic levels. In the final two weeks of March alone an unprecedented 10 million workers applied for unemployment insurance. And some economists predict about 20 million people will have lost their jobs by July.
Coronavirus may cause some food shortages, says government document
The nation could begin to see food shortages for some products if the people working on the supply chain lack personal protective equipment, warns an internal Trump administration document obtained by Yahoo News.
The April 2 briefing warns that the task force had completed an analysis and there could be "commodity impacts if current PPE inventory is exhausted." There would be shortages of milk within 24 hours and of fresh fruits and vegetables "within several days.' The document estimates that 'meat, poultry, seafood, and processed eggs' would become scarce within a period of two to four weeks, while 'dry goods and processed foods inventories' - that is, the non-perishables that are pantry staples - could become scarce "as soon as four weeks" after face masks and gloves run out across the food supply chain.
The document is a warning, and is not descriptive of the current situation. There are no signs of a food shortage across the nation. But the coronavirus pandemic is putting strain on every aspect of the food supply chain, from the people who raise and grow what we eat to the people who deliver it to our supermarkets.
