----- Original Message ----- From: SolidNet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 8:47 PM Subject: CP USA, Hunger grows in the shadow of Wall Street http://www.soldinet.org News, documents and calls for action from communist and workers' parties. The items are the responsibility of the authors. Join the mailing list: info/subscribe/unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] . ================================================================= CP USA, Hunger grows in the shadow of Wall Street --------------------------------------------------------- From: RedNet, Thu, 29 Mar 2001 http://www.cpusa.org , mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ================================================================= >From the March 31, 2001 edition of the Peoples Weekly World. Hunger grows in the shadow of Wall Street By John Bachtell NEW YORK - Shocked Wall Street traders buried their faces as $4.5 trillion in value disappeared on the stock market last week. The fortunes of some wealthy and life savings of many workers were wiped out. Last week, Mayor Rudy Giuliani announced that the $100 billion city pension fund, 70 percent of which is invested in the stock market, lost $100 million with the fall in stocks. Not far from the turmoil of the New York Stock Exchange a more bitter harvest of the record corporate profit-taking of the last decade is being grimly reaped. The New York City Coalition Against Hunger found the demand for emergency food assistance rose in the city by 28 percent over last year. This one-year increase is 55 percent higher than the national average of 18 percent reported by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. A gathering of emergency food providers was held March 20 at the Holy Cross Church, sponsored by the Coalition Against Hunger and the Interfaith Voices Against Hunger. The conference, called Faith and Democracy in Action, stressed the need for political action including registering new voters, passage of a living wage bill, and expanding the number of childcare slots for working parents. Participants also expressed alarm over the large increase in food demand at a time when New York City has not yet felt the full brunt of the economic slowdown. The Rev. Dr. James Forbes Jr., senior minister at Riverside Church delivered the keynote to the Faith and Democracy in Action conference. "If you are only talking and not acting on what you say - your conscience is troubled," he said. Rabbi Michael Feinberg, executive director of the Greater New York Labor and Religion Coalition, expressed outrage that there is so much want in a city of plenty. "The economic structures are causing the division between the wealthy and poor. The U.S. leads the world in the wealth gap. New York State leads the country and New York City has the widest gap in the state." In February, the unemployment rate stood at 5.3 percent, up slightly from January, according to the Labor Department. Yet over two million New Yorkers, or 38 percent of the population, live below the official poverty line. Feinberg cited the need for more jobs at living wages. Seventy-six percent of hunger was traced to joblessness. Feinberg also called for raising the minimum wage on the federal and state level and the unionization of the work force. Nearly 70 percent of those who eat hot meals at the soup kitchens are working, but earn too little to make ends meet. The city's food pantries and soup kitchens can't handle the growing hunger emergency and turned nearly 48,000 people away during January 2000 alone. Children comprised almost half of those turned away and elderly people made up 17 percent. Meanwhile Gov. George Pataki's proposed state budget includes a $2 million cut in funding for both emergency food and summer meal programs. The administration of Mayor Giuliani has done nothing to alleviate the hunger crisis. Instead, last week Giuliani announced preparations to cut nearly $500 million in social programs from both this year's and next year's city budget. The crisis facing the poor is headed for dire straits. Over 500,000 people have been pushed off public assistance in the city by welfare reform. In a few months, hundreds of thousands will have exhausted their five-year eligibility. They will never be eligible for assistance again in their lifetimes. Also, City Councilman Bill Perkins announced that infant mortality rates had reached 15 deaths for every 1,000 births in Harlem and several other city neighborhoods. This is twice the national average and higher than Chile, Barbados, and Jamaica. *End*
