Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Sid Salter: Christmas Belies Hunger in Mississippi

Perhaps if I were a preacher, which I’m decidedly not, and I offered a sermon, which this decidedly isn’t, I’d call it: “Christmas and The Farm Bill.”

 While most of us in this country and in this state celebrate the birth of Christ with family feasts that call Norman Rockwell paintings to mind, the poor and the hungry remain with us.

The admonition is biblical, from both the Old and New Testaments. In Mark 14:7, we are told: “For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.”

In Deuteronomy 15:11, the message is repeated: “For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.”
What do those passages of scripture have to do with the 2018 Farm Bill? Plenty.



Mississippi is no longer technically the poorest state in the union, according to the latest Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data. That designation belongs to West Virginia.

But we are next to the poorest state, ranking 49th. Mississippi’s 2.984 million people have a median household income of $43,529. One in five Mississippians or 19.8 percent live in poverty – the highest percentage in the nation.
Mississippi’s unemployment rate in January 2010 was 11.5 percent. After a steady decline, the state’s unemployment rate is currently 4.7 percent, less if not seasonally adjusted.

Economists consider unemployment numbers in that range as “full employment” – i.e., “everyone who wants a job has a job” or the lowest unemployment rate that won’t cause inflation.

While Mississippi’s jobs picture has dramatically improved and the state’s economic development efforts have been effective, the state continues to lag economically due to what can best be described as endemic poverty.

What is endemic poverty? According to Daniel Farr in the Encyclopedia of World Poverty, the term is defined as “persistent long-term poverty of a particular people or region that may span not just many years but may extend over generations.”

In Mississippi, that endemic poverty began during the Civil War and Reconstruction, continued through the Flood of 1927 and the Great Depression and stretched past Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil Spill. Generational poverty has been part of the story, as has race, discrimination, and insularity.

For the latest year of available statistics, an average of 582,658 Mississippians received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits or food stamps each month. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that number represented 83.4 percent of those Mississippians eligible to receive those benefits. The SNAP program pumped $810 million into Mississippi’s economy.

Early in the process when Republicans had control the House, the 2018 Farm Bill appeared headed for large cuts in the SNAP program and the attachment of measures to make it harder for SNAP beneficiaries to receive those benefits. But when the Democrats gained enough seats to be headed for control of the House in 116th Congress, a compromise was reached to get the Farm Bill passed in the waning days of the 115th Congress.

Despite demonstrable progress in jobs and economic development, Mississippi remains one of the poorest states in the nation. As the Bible teaches, the poor most decidedly will always be with us – and not just during the holiday season, when we seem particularly attuned to their needs but perhaps not as much in February and March?

The Farm Bill is about food and fiber production, to be sure, but it is also about nutrition and how this nation makes decisions about the needs of the poor. At Christmas, giving is somehow easier and less political. Would that we could hold tighter to that spirit for the rest of the year.

Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not one world about illegitimate births and personal responsibility.

Hank Snow said...

The 4-H really should step up in schools and apparently reintroduce people how to grow their own food. 2 Thessalonians 3:10 For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat." My folks grandparents grew their own vegetables, hogs, canned food in preparation for the future, smoked and cured ham, picked cotton after school while getting their homework done, staying out of trouble and going to Church on Sunday while all 6 were living in 3 room house with no inside toilet. Everyone had it tough in the 50's 60's, not just one class of people. We just don't seem to continue to raise hell about how bad we had it in those days like others do while collecting SNAP and posting selfies.

Anonymous said...

Not a preacher but for decades preachy as all get out.

Anonymous said...

The Democrats made a conscientious decision in the sixties to keep the poor...poor. They have continued that program for decades and we are still as a state and a country suffering the consequences. Encouraging unwed people to breed for money is not a good way of providing them a way to make a living.

Anonymous said...

The SNAP program pumped $810 million into Mississippi’s economy.

So, if more people get on food stamps the economy will REALLY boom!

Anonymous said...

When one looks at all the deathly skinny people in this state, particularly those who Sid says are the victims of "Generational poverty...race, discrimination, and insularity," it underscores the plight of all the hungry people who are going without meals daily.

Anonymous said...

He defines what he is talking about and you guys still try to twist it to fit old and tired stereotypes. He could have written about Comprehension and Ignorance.

Pappy Odaniel said...

Destitution is big business for Sid’s benefactors. As it has been since statehood. We keep supporting people in places where economic activity has long ceased and they stay there where there are no jobs and no future because that’s where the checks come to. And that’s where we can provide Medicare and Medicaid and the prescription drug pushers in short skirts and only the finest suits in Madison County can continue to “help”. That’s why this state can not change...the status quo is too profitable for people invested in Government handouts and the school to prison pipeline

Anonymous said...

"breed for money"

The racist posts on this and every internet site in Mississippi are exactly why this state has been and will always be poor and in last place.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for pointing that out Sid-

Anonymous said...

@5:46 The reason we are poor and will continue to be poor is that the government elected many years ago to spoil and make a large part of our population dependent on the government(Democratic party) for handouts rather than encouraging them to take responsibility for themselves personally and financially. It's been an abysmal failure and now NOBODY knows what to do to help these people.

Anonymous said...

Every time a business announces the need for a significant number of workers hundreds show up the next day and are standing in line when the HR office opens. So 10 -20 are hired and the rest go home to resume their lives as useless, lazy entitlement cheats to keep the Republican bigots happy. How could the state's Konservatives ever survive without those lazy bums at the back of the line to blame for the state's sorry situation.

Anonymous said...

The SNAP program pumped $810 million into Mississippi’s economy.

So, if more people get on food stamps the economy will REALLY boom!


You mean the federal government PUMPED $810 million into Mississippi's economy

Anonymous said...

@10:41 If an able bodied man or woman is not working in this job market they probably are a lazy bum and we would DEFINITELY survive very well without them. The only people who would really miss them would be race hustlers like yourself who exploit them to keep a steady supply of "victims".

Anonymous said...

"people living in poverty in mississippi".......... bullshit.........what is considered poverty in mississippi is considered a good lifestyle in the majority of the world.



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