Why Ohio? Why Do So Many In Ohio Receive Food Assistance?

[Rick Rowlands]

I wonder if it is all food vs. all medicine, or if those surveyed could have qualified their statement.  Food ranges from a 59 cent bag of potato chips to a $30.00 steak at a fine restaurant.  Medicine ranges from a $1.00 bottle of aspirin to special meds that cost $100 per pill.   So yes I could see that if you have to buy a $100 pill you might not be able to afford a $30.00 steak, but you could still afford those potato chips.  So this is why those types of surveys mean actually nothing, since the range of answers can be so great as to make it meaningless.  But it works on an emotional level, and even though logic and intelligence says this survey is junk, our emotional side is envisioning grandma starving for a week after coming home from the pharmacy.

[Youngstownshrimp]

In Asia, although they have far to come before they have true democracy; there is no widespread welfare, only in extreme conditions.  The poor there have no welfare thrown at them, if they are abled body they work.  Without WORK of the majority in Capitalism, the state will always cease to exist.

[Rick Rowlands]

If 40 percent of people in Ohio must choose between food or medicine, then how are people of Ohio going to provide increased revenues for the state?   

Of course I dispute most of the findings in your post.

[irishbobcat]

Why Ohio? Why Do So Many In Ohio Receive Food Assistance?
Every week last year, 225,700 Ohioans received emergency food assistance from a pantry, soup kitchen or similar service.

A report released today by the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks illustrates the recession's devastating impact on the state.

In all, more than 1.4 million Ohioans received emergency food assistance at least once, and often more frequently, in 2009.

That's a jump of 18 percent from three years ago, the report found.

40 percent of those surveyed in Ohio say they must choose between food and medicine or other health care needs. Thirty-one percent have at least one household member in poor health."

Among the other findings:

* More than a third of those receiving assistance are children.

* 32 percent of households include at least one employed adult.

* Half of those surveyed say they have had to choose between buying food and paying for utilities.

The report is heartbreaking. Yet it underscores the fact that Ted Strickland's campaign to bring jobs back to Ohio is not working. We need to turn Ohio forward in the way we market the state and go after new blue-green jobs.

Ted Strickland's plan to cut more state funding for social programs underscores the need for more increased state revenues instead of Ted's current campaign of axing more social programs. The poor can no longer afford to have Ted Strickland in office another four years.

Dennis Spisak-Green Party of Ohio Candidate for Governor

www.votespisak.org/governor/

www.dennisspisak.com