Today, food assistance for low-income individuals & families is under constant criticism, and budget cuts constantly threaten the Food and Drug Administration--the agency that works to protect our food from contamination and poor handling.
Meanwhile, the unemployed are punished in a variety of ways, and stereotyped as lazy good-for-nothings. Even as private sector job creation is weak, the unemployed face insults from political commentators, diminished unemployment benefits, reduced assistance for job re-training, coerced drug-testing, and employment discrimination.
However, there was a time where the humiliation of the needy was put on a back burner, and more productive & compassionate public policies were utilized. One of these policies was called the Works Progress Administration (WPA, 1935-43). The WPA hired the jobless, and provided food assistance to the needy (and Americans generally) in a number of ways:
1. The WPA created jobs for the unemployed, which meant the unemployed could finally earn money to feed their families. Jane Yoder, a woman who grew up during the Great Depression, said: "...my father immediately got employed in this WPA. This was a godsend. This was the greatest thing. It meant food, you know. Survival, just survival."
(The caption to this photo reads: "WPA worker and family at dinner. Zeigler, Illinois." Image provided courtesy of the Library of Congress)
2. WPA workers distributed food to low-income families:
(WPA workers preparing food for distribution in Maryland. Image courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives)
3. WPA artists created posters promoting nutritious foods:
(WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
4. WPA artists created posters promoting food safety:
(WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
5. WPA artists created posters promoting local food markets:
(WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
6. WPA workers provided food to low-income children, at schools, nurseries, and in special summer lunch programs:
(Children sitting down for lunch at a WPA nursery in Cambridge, Maryland. Notice the box crate chairs. Image provided courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives)
7. The WPA built farm-to-market roads, to enable farmers to more easily get their food products to consumers:
(WPA laborers working on a farm-to-market road in Allegany County, Maryland. Image provided courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)
8. The WPA planted 8 million bushels of oysters, thereby putting smiles on the faces of many generations of American seafood lovers:
(WPA workers planting oysters in the Chesapeake Bay. Image provided courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)
9. The WPA built or improved fish hatcheries across the nation (many of which are still in use today), thereby providing generations of anglers & consumers with an ample supply of aquatic fun & nourishment:
(WPA laborers working on a fish hatchery in Frederick County, Maryland. Image provided courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.
10. The WPA created subsistence gardens in communities, so low-income residents could grow their own food:
(WPA poster. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)
Imagine if we had a WPA today. The unemployed could be hired to work and, among other things, provide food for low-income families. Wouldn't that be better than humiliating the jobless and cursing food stamp recipients as "takers" and "parasites"?
I was raised Christian, and even though I'm not a religious person today, I still hold many of the teachings dear, e.g., "if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday" (Isaiah 58:10, Holy Bible, New International Version). This seems to square nicely with the U.S. Constitution's promotion of the general welfare in the preamble, and the statement that Congress shall have the power to provide for the general welfare (Article I, Section 8).
President Franklin Roosevelt said: "Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference." And Ronald Reagan said, "The WPA was one of the most productive elements of FDR's alphabet soup of agencies...it gave men and women a chance to earn some money along with the satisfaction of knowing they earned it."
Given these words from the Bible, the Constitution, FDR, and Reagan, why are we still refusing to provide direct employment to the jobless, and why are we still acting cruelly to those who need governmental food assistance?
(Jane Yoder quote from "Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression," by Studs Terkel, 1970. FDR quote from "American-Made," by Nick Taylor, 2008. Ronald Reagan quote from "Ronald Reagan: An American Life," by Ronald Reagan, 1990)
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