AEI study: Food stamp reform can save $31 billion a year.
Does money cause happiness; or do happy people earn more money?
Forecast: By 2100, 54 percent of the world’s babies will be born in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Bill Clinton did away with Welfare as we know it. Yet, it’s been creeping back in one targeted benefit at a time. Consider the SNAP program. It provides food, freeing up food budgets for other things. Food stamps harken back to a Christian obligation to feed the hungry. Throughout most of human history hunger was a constant problem for the poor. Nowadays, hunger is not a problem, yet the desire to feed the hungry still persists. Today hunger is a symptom of other problems, such as child neglect, child abuse, drug abuse, alcoholism, senility, disability, etc. There were economic studies years ago calculating the cost to feed a family. The figures are now outdated but the cost was (is) cheap. Dried beans & rice provide a near perfect protein and are eaten by probably a billion people daily around the world. You can buy frozen veggies for just over $1 a bag.
Asians historically ate small amounts of protein and lots of rice. The French Revolution erupted partly due to crop failures and the high cost of bread (flour, water, butter and yeast). Importing potatoes from the New World to Europe led to a population explosion, that manned armies. Eggs may be expensive at the moment due to bird flu, but food has probably never been cheaper.