US Lawmakers Propose a $2.5 Billion Pilot Guaranteed Income Program (msn.com) 250
Amid fears that technology may be quietly eliminating many basic jobs, late last month several U.S. lawmakers "proposed legislation that would dole out regular stimulus checks — or guaranteed income — through monthly payments of up to $1,200 for adults and $600 for children," according to a local news report from WCCO TV:
The program, if the legislation were to pass, would not immediately begin sending out $1,200 checks to most Americans. Instead, it would create a $2.5 billion grant program to fund pilot guaranteed income programs across the country. The programs would be studied from 2023 to 2027 and then the national program would begin in 2028, Minneapolis' WCCO-TV reported. Then the legislation would provide $1,200 per month to people making $75,000 or less per year. The heads of households with an income of up to $112,500 would receive $1,200 under the program. And $600 would be provided for each minor child.
Though it's a long way from becoming law, one of the legislators proposing it says "We need a paradigm shift in how we measure and evaluate our economy. If my district, New York's 16th, was a country, it would have the 8th worst inequality in the world. Our barometers for economic success, as well as our policies, must be centered around meeting basic levels of care and dignity for all of our people."
The bill proposes that a new Office of Guaranteed Income Programs be established in the U.S. Treasury Department to oversee all the payments. Though it seems like this would cost something like a trillion dollars a year...
Though it's a long way from becoming law, one of the legislators proposing it says "We need a paradigm shift in how we measure and evaluate our economy. If my district, New York's 16th, was a country, it would have the 8th worst inequality in the world. Our barometers for economic success, as well as our policies, must be centered around meeting basic levels of care and dignity for all of our people."
The bill proposes that a new Office of Guaranteed Income Programs be established in the U.S. Treasury Department to oversee all the payments. Though it seems like this would cost something like a trillion dollars a year...
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In what way doesn't it work?
What's happening is that minimum wage workers are able to get a pay raise.
It's only not working if you are among the super-wealthy who have seen their share of the country's wealth increase over the pandemic.
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In what way doesn't it work?
What's happening is that minimum wage workers are able to get a pay raise.
It's only not working if you are among the super-wealthy who have seen their share of the country's wealth increase over the pandemic.
Paying people to not work is insanity and it is unsustainable.
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Unemployment isn’t permanent. Maybe if companies paid more they could attract workers. It’s been proven that at $15 an hour McDonalds will have to raise prices four cents on the dollar. Four fucking cents is all that’s needed for better wages and better service as a result.
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Unemployment isn’t permanent. Maybe if companies paid more they could attract workers. It’s been proven that at $15 an hour McDonalds will have to raise prices four cents on the dollar. Four fucking cents is all that’s needed for better wages and better service as a result.
But... think of the shareholders! /sarcasm
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My lawyer said I should rather not.
And my cardiologist agrees.
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Right here https://www.marketwatch.com/st... [marketwatch.com]
Re: Again? (Score:2)
Paying $20/hr to punch buttons on a cash register at a fast food restaurant is the best way to get those workers replaced with self-order kiosks.
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to the point where nobody evens wants to work at McDonalds.
To me, that sounds like it's working.
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You know unemployment is based on your previous salary right? If McDonalds is paying that little then where does the problem lie? It sounds like a market correction is happening with wages and that seems pretty capitalist to me.
Re: Again? (Score:2)
The 'extra' $300/600 week we've been adding to everyone's unemployment check is the problem.
$600/week is the same as a $15/hr job, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week - that Las for sitting home. That's the problem.
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Now look at that, if you can't force people at gunpoint to slave jobs, they don't do them.
Who'd have thought?
Before anybody complains about the debt (Score:2, Insightful)
Try not to forget the billions going into Wall Street bailouts every single month. This is chump change
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Well aside from the whole, citation please, there's the question of are they paying it back because bailouts are always talking points even when it is paid back.
Re: Before anybody complains about the debt (Score:3)
Please, describe the 'subsidies' going to Wall Street? You act like the gov't is cutting billion dollar checks to brokerage houses.
Please, specify the 'subsidies' you are complaining sbout.
New Economy? (Score:2, Interesting)
In this current economy, it seems we do not have the right tools setup for this to work.
We have inflation issues. We have employment issues. We have housing issues. These things are not trivial, and these are things I see in almost every community I visit.
With the current state of how things are run in the United States, I just don't see how we do this, without completely changing how we do things. I would imagine that we would need to take these large corporations and break them up into thousands of
Actually they're all pretty trival (Score:3)
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"having the gov't build affordable housing"? So you want to bring back the "projects [google.com]", because run-down "affordable" government housing is your ideal?
And then you want to bring back 70s style inflation and the associated crappy economy.
"Ban corporations from owning single family homes"??? So basically, no one can every get a mortgage again, because no company will loan without being able to foreclose. It doesn't sound like you've thought any of this through, but that's part for the course for left-wingers o
Actually the projects were fine (Score:2)
The government doesn't have to actually build the houses, they can hire contractors or just structure loans the way they did in the 40s 50s and 60s exactly as I explained
Please seek help (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not just denial of reality and history you are engaged in, it's something much deeper and more dishonest.
The reason the "misery index" was created was that Jimmy Carter was so damned bad that he accomplished something previously thought impossible: simultaneous inflation, unemployment, and interest rates all in the double digits. Reagan's turn around of the economy was so successful that Reagan was reelected in 1984 with a record-shattering landslide - Reagan won 49 states, losing only Minnesota which was his opponent's home state. Most people today cannot imagine an America where the President wins 49 states.
sorry, but your account of history is worse than the worst science fiction. Some of us (like me) were there and lived through it. I remember the gasoline rationing, and the moron peanut farmer in the White House putting on a sweater and lecturing Americans on the need to cut back and get used to a new normal, blaming the citizenry for things going wrong rather than taking any personal responsibility, etc. The only American president to perform worse than Jimmy Carter in the post WWII era was Barack Obama. Now, given the inflation rate just achieved since his swearing in, it's possible Joe Biden will do worse than both Obama and Carter. The basic laws of economics are inviolable - as Jimmy proved, these nutty leftist economic ideas which deny the law of supply-and-demand are always doomed to fail, just as any scheme that denies the reality of gravity is doomed to fail.
Re: New Economy? (Score:3)
We have plenty of land - it just may not be where the homeless/poor want to live, but we've got plenty.
Money? (Score:2)
Re:Money? (Score:5, Interesting)
The full equation for money is:
MV = PQ
where PQ is the price of everything, M is the total money supply, and V is the speed at which money changes hands (velocity).
We've been printing money like crazy, so M has been going up a lot as you can see here [stlouisfed.org]. At the same time, V has been going down (graph [stlouisfed.org]), because people weren't spending as quickly, so it evened out. Notice that velocity has stopped going down, but we're still printing money.
The second thing to note is that it takes between 6 months and 2 years for inflation to kick in after printing more money.
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Re: Money? (Score:3)
Paying people to consume goods is not a sustainable economic model.
UBI is no such thing (Score:3)
UBI is just a new name for basic Marxism.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need
Of course, the government is the agency of moving the money, so it does not LOOK like direct armed robbery, it's armed robbery by proxy. Also the government is the one who determines WHO has "needs" and how big those needs are, and the government is the one who decides WHO has abilities and how much THEY must "contribute" - and the government aims guns at anybody who disagrees.... but go ahead and kee
We don't need UBI (Score:2)
But we could try the FairTax prebate.
Health Care (Score:5, Interesting)
How can we even contemplate universal basic income when we aren't willing to have universal health care?
I know on the surface, this sounds like whataboutism, as technically the two independent, but realistically, if single-payer health care is politically dead as being too much socialism, how can we ever get to universal basic income? Then again, if we shift the debate a bit, maybe we could finally do health care right.
This. (Score:2)
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OK I have paid in 3.8% 2x( I am self employed) of my lifetime W-2 earnings. For that I was promised Medicare when I got old.
Reality is
- Part A (this is what is provided for that 3.8% 2x of lifetime earnings) covers 80% of health care needs but none of the big stuff. Now that leaves the rest,
To keep things simple Part A is a car with no engine, tires or seats, but you have a car right?.
Now to
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Lack of universal healthcare is a tool to keep the threat of poverty hanging over your head.
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Very much this. $1200 a year, when a single minor accident can set you back $20K even WITH insurance, is basically worthless in reality.
When gimmick schemes like this also burn up money that could go towards the US HAVING universal health care in the first place, it goes from being a virtue-signalling farce to something outright detrimental.
Re: Health Care (Score:3)
So you want everyone's medical care to be 'universal' snd 'single-payer'?
That sounds awesome, how will we avoid the staffing issues like Canada or the resource constraints like Canada & UK? They've been doing it for decades and haven't figured out how to fix those issues, what's your secret for avoiding those issues?
Alternatively... (Score:2)
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The problem is exactly that there simply aren't enough jobs. You can't create jobs, neither as a government nor as an investor. I can create jobs when I have the money to buy something that forces a company to employ someone to produce that good or service that I want to buy. That is the only way in our economy how a job gets created.
Someone needs to have enough money to request goods or services.
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Re: Alternatively... (Score:2)
Right, because raising the pay for their employees means prices go down? Stay static? Go up?
Raising the cost of production increases costs.
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Higher demand will only fuel inflation if it cannot be met with supply. But there is no shortage of supply.
Forget income (Score:2)
There should be a guaranteed basic caloric intake, we have enough give everyone basic provisions. Guaranteed bed and place to take a shower. No luxury but enough for some dignity. Guaranteed access to enough education to get you a job. Beyond that you're on your own.
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We have that already, SNAP program AKA food stamp, housing, free education... which some have used to get themselves good career in life, but with others seems a waste.
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Because those are either the mentally ill or dumb ones.
Re: Forget income (Score:2)
We do, for asylum seekers. Poor inner city residents not do much.
Funded on Taxes Levied On People Going To Work (Score:2)
Instead of trying to come up with ways to tax working people to pay for the goods and services of others, how about Congress just work with companies to lower the cost of our goods and services.... oh yeah, they won't, because the lobbies fed off of profits
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"Supposed to" according to what doctrine?
You know, roughly 150 years ago, a lot of people thought that blacks are supposed to be owned, and in other parts of the world, some people thought they're supposed to rule based on what cunt they plopped out of.
I guess it's time to tell you that I don't give a fuck about what I'm supposed to do.
Proposal from the Squad - Irrelevant (Score:2)
Brace yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what this comments section is about to be flooded with, which is ironic scince people making such comments are usually only a missed paycheck or two, or a sudden injury/illness, or some other unforseen disaster away from homelessness and losing everything.
Yeah, some people will be loafers, but that's a small price to pay to ensure that people don't have their whole lives crashing down because of the aforementioned calamities.
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The "Universal" in UBI means it encompasses
wages, housing, healthcare, private school (Score:2)
The real issue is that wages have been flat compared to inflation and GDP for nearly 50 years. I don't know what the answer is but fixing wages would make guaranteed income programs moot. Taxing investment income and labor at similar rates would be a good start.
This kind of monthly income is going 3 places, housing, healthcare, and education.
Re: wages, housing, healthcare, private school (Score:2)
Wages have not been flat for 50 years, wages have been flat after accounting got inflation.
50 years ago, the minimum wage was not $7.25/hr.
Re: wages, housing, healthcare, private school (Score:2)
...accounting FOR inflation...
Waste of breath (Score:2)
The program, if the legislation were to pass, would not immediately begin sending out $1,200 checks to most Americans. Instead, it would create a $2.5 billion grant program to fund pilot guaranteed income programs across the country. The programs would be studied from 2023 to 2027 and then the national program would begin in 2028, Minneapolis' WCCO-TV reported.
It's being proposed under one administration, which ends Jan. 2025, then remains "under evaluation"under another administration, and may begin in 2028, under a third administration...
There are too many administrations involved to think this stands a chance, IMHO
"universal" (Score:2)
Long term it may be a better idea to give a small amount to everyone. Even if it's $7 each (2.5 billion/330 million) to start with. Then they can slowly start increasing the amount.
Dumb idea (Score:2)
Instead of laying people to do nothing we need to train them with the skills needed for them to be productive.
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So Whose the Dummy Here?
I can't imagine.
So Who's the Dummy (Score:5, Insightful)
So Whose the Dummy Here?
I can't imagine.
Slashdot readers. Because "several U.S. lawmakers proposing legislation" is pretty much meaningless. To turn into actual legislation it has to get into committee, get out of committee, get onto the floor, and then get passed by both the House and the Senate.
This is not going to happen. This is display, not real legislation.
Re:So Who's the Dummy (Score:5, Informative)
"several U.S. lawmakers proposing legislation" is pretty much meaningless.
This is a proposal from The Squad [wikipedia.org] who have little influence even within the Democratic Party.
Also, it is not UBI since it is means-tested.
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"several U.S. lawmakers proposing legislation" is pretty much meaningless.
This is a proposal from The Squad [wikipedia.org] who have little influence even within the Democratic Party.
Also, it is not UBI since it is means-tested.
The "Squad" only accounts for a few of the 95 Congress persons and the one Senator who openly admit that they prefer Marxism/Communism/Socialism/whatever over our Republic and its rule of law under the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
https://progressives.house.gov... [house.gov]
Maxine Waters and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are equally outspoken and just as crazy as Bernie.
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The "Squad" only accounts for a few of the 95 Congress persons and the one Senator who openly admit that they prefer Marxism/Communism/Socialism/whatever over our Republic and its rule of law under the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The constitution and bill of rights do not prescribe an economic system. There is no inalienable right to form a limited liability S-corp. Also none of those people are socialist let alone Marxist Communists. Bernie is a New Deal style social democrat. No one currently in Congress is doing anything seriously to change the relationship between labor and capitol. They just want to expand safety nets and make our current system less punative, not overthrow it.
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Also none of those people are socialist
Bernie and AOC both self-identify as socialists.
Re:So Who's the Dummy (Score:5, Informative)
Bernie and AOC both self-identify as socialists.
They self-apply the term because it makes them popular with the American left, but they have very little in the way of socialist policies. Socialism means the workers own and control the means of production. That could be directly though something like a worker-owned co-op, syndicalist commune, or Russian-style farmer's soviet. Or it could be indirectly through the state if the state is organized around socialist principles.
Medicare for all is a social welfare policy: something enacted by the government for the good of society. Nationalizing the healthcare system or mandating that every hospital be run as a worker-owned co-op are socialist policies: changing the economic system to give the working class control of the means of production and prevent the exploitation of labor by capital.
Re: So Who's the Dummy (Score:5, Interesting)
a) Marx was opposed to wealth redistribution schemes. Read his "Critique of the Gotha Program" from 1875 to see why.
b) Universal Basic Income is a Libertarian proposal. One of the first proposals was by Hayek in "The Road to Serfdom" from 1944, as a way to reduce Big Government.
~sigh~ Slashdotters, and Americans in general, really have close to no knowledge of Economics, much less of Economic Schools, and literally none of History of Economics.
Re: So Who's the Dummy (Score:3)
Which is ironic, considering that Karl Marx spent his entire life on wealth transfer schemes. When his patrons ran out of money, he starved.
Re: So Who's the Dummy (Score:2)
This will be studied under the Biden admin, then under Trump's second term, then under the desantis administration it will go live?
Uh, No. LOL
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Taxes don't have to be raised. Just stop subsidizing the financial industry.
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"Just stop subsidizing the financial industry."
How do you do that?
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> The fed is feeding billions every month into Wall Street. That is why all these unicorns are popping up with insane valuations.
I'm curious about two things:
A. Precisely how does that work, in your imagination?
B. If you actually believe that you can announce "I'm gonna have a company" and the fed will hand you a billion dollars, why the HELL haven't you done so?
I don't want to make you uncomfortable. If the answer is "I haven't done so because I don't really believe that nonsense, it's just fun to say"
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No, not my imagination, the fed is financing stock buybacks and mergers at insane prices. The unicorns are in the "valuations" All these new record closings are courtesy of the fed, while down here we hear whining about debt ceilings to water down needed infrastructure bills, which is ok because that's just feeding a bunch of cronies anyway.
The point is that UBI, etc is easily affordable by simply redirecting the money.
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Well, the fed is definitely trying an experiment. It's not clear it will work out, that's for sure.
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That money eventually comes back into the Fed. They're not just pumping cash out. They're mostly purchasing assets that are later paid off (mortgage-backed securities) or redeemed (treasuries), resulting in cash coming back into the Fed. It's a two-way street. As of last week, it held $8.28 trillion in assets. Of that, $5.27 trillion is in US securities with a further $2.38 trillion in mortgage-backed securities. Any resulting profits go into the Treasury--$88.5 billion last year alone. It's an elegant syst
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And don't do this program. And let people keep their own money.
Re: So Whose the Dummy Here? (Score:2)
The subsidies you talk about are tax deductions - cutting them IS a tax increase.
If your home mortgage deduction were eliminated, you'd consider that a tax increase, wouldn't you?
how about free Jr College and Vo tech? (Score:2)
Instead of handing out freebees ... fund free education so these folks can learn to service the robots, or do help desk or whatever new tech jobs this will spawn. We will need even more electricians and HVAC folks. Those jobs are not sexy but they pay well. Raising everyone's taxes for welfare for everyone will insure that Republicans run the government forever ... which is not necessarily a good thing.
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The people who continue working and pay $1200 a month more in taxes
It's not a 1:1 ratio. $2.5 billion divided by 300 million comes out to about $8 per person. Ignoring the inherent inefficiencies in a government program (You'll probably get nothing out the bottom of that pipe while the bureaucrats siphon off their shares). It's quite clear that this stipend is intended to go to a very exclusive slice of our population. Not even everyone making making $75,000 or less per year.
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Wonder if there's an average for per-dollar unrelated costs that politicians cram in because we let them adulterate the language and effect of every bill they pass with unrelated items?
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The dummy is anyone who thinks the income phaseout is a good idea, because losing the benefit when you work harder is tantamount to being paid to work less. If you paid people not to work, what do you expect would happen to the country's GDP?
Otherwise, this lets us eliminate the minimum wage, and wouldn't that be a good thing?
Nobody (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone focuses on the factories going overseas because, well,
But while that was happening the jobs that stayed were quietly being eliminated.
So the question of "who's gonna pay for it?" is "the robots and computers that took our jobs".
Of course standing in the way of that are the Elon Musks and Bill Gates
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It has to pass, anyway. The likes of Elon Musk and Big G won't be making any money if people have no money to spend. These programs exist to give people a solid cushion on which they can rely to improve themselves, but they also exist to boost their spending power because productivity is meaningless if no one can afford to buy the products.
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"The Legislature Members who now have to raise taxes on their constituents?"
Why? The war in Afghanistan is over, now there are 45-100 billions a year more in the piggy bank.
Re: So Whose the Dummy Here? (Score:2)
Why? The war in Afghanistan is over, now there are 45-100 billions a year more in the piggy bank.
No, war spending was deficit spending, we won't suddenly have a budget surplus, we will simply be spending a little less.
So far the Biden administration is averaging about a Trillion dollars in discretionary spending (on top of current budgeted spending) per month. With no signs of slowing down. (Of course the spread the 'emergency' spending over the next three to five years, but they are approving the spending at that rate.
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Re: So Whose the Dummy Here? (Score:2)
In Denver they spend more on the homeless than it would cost to give all the homeless apartments.
The issue with giving the homeless apartments is we don't have a housing surplus to put them in.
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Jealousy is used to keep you down.
Finland just ended homelessness. Gave every homeless person an apartment. Cheaper than not doing it apparently.
If you think you can "end homelessness" by "getting every homeless person an apartment", you've never worked with homeless people.
(Also, of course, what you've written is factually not even close to correct-- but another poster has already called you out on that).
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And if you use them on the investment bankers, there's even plenty of money to redistribute.
Pilots are already on the dole (Score:3)
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You can try. If enough do it, we may finally get to see new apartments being built.
Re: Hold up (Score:2)
That presumes they are educated to a level that allows to you perform those jobs.
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The key problem is that we have arrived at the point where more challenging tasks are too challenging for a sizable portion of the population where retraining them to do jobs that still need to be done isn't possible anymore.
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Only tons? Considering that the average human weight somewhere between 60 and 90 kilograms, that ain't that many.
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Why do you assume that our supply cannot compensate for the potential increase in demand? Also, why would I want to drink more milk? Do you honestly think that anyone out there cannot afford milk so with a sudden influx in money we'd have to face an increased demand in milk?
Why do I suddenly think that you don't have the foggiest idea about economy and are just parroting something?
Re: Inflation. (Score:2)
What "increased demand" - everyone in America eats - we hear activists talking not about "hunger" but "food insecurity", a contrived term that allows them to greatly inflate their numbers.
Food insecurity is based on finances, location of grocery stores in relation to their homes, etc. not on going to bed hungry.
School children get two meals a day, 5 days a week at their schools, they can get leftovers to take home, etc. that is in addition to numerous food and cash programs like welfare, EBT/SNAP, WIC, etc.