Solving America's Hunger Crisis

To tackle hunger and food insecurity, America has to come to grips not just with hunger per se, but with all the huge economic reasons that push people and communities toward or over the financial abyss.That means big-picture reforms to shore up the minimum wage; to protect and expand pension systems and access to unemployment insurance; to provide healthcare for all so that people don't end up having to choose between medicine and food, as they all too often have to do at the moment; to mandate paid sick leave for workers, to prevent illnesses pushing low-income workers into destitution; to provide some form of financial security for new mothers who want or need to take a few months off of work after their babies are born; to make transport to and from work affordable, especially for the rural working poor, people who live far from public transport grids and who, when gas prices soar, can end up spending upwards of 30% of their paycheques on buying fuel.None of these are small challenges, but they are doable. To get there, however, will require years of federal commitments to recreating, re-imagining if you like, the 21st-century social safety net.Such a project was embarked on in the 1930s, with the creation of the institutions that collectively make up the New Deal legacy. The minimum wage, social security, even an early version of the food stamps programme, came out of this period. Today, there's a similar need for governmental action – not piecemeal, band-aid action, but big-picture reforms – and a similar opportunity to reinvent the social compact.