Twenty-five million Americans—nearly 9 percent of the U.S. population—rely on food pantries. Another 13 million aren’t linked to a food distribution network, and 14 million children are at risk of going hungry on any given day. Moreover, the faltering economy is increasing the number of American families that don’t know where their next meals are coming from.

Breadline USA treats this crisis not only as matter of failed policies, but also as a portrait of real human suffering. Investigative reporter Sasha Abramsky focuses attention on the people behind the statistics—the families caught up in circumstances beyond their control. Breadline USA is a vivid reminder of the fate to which many more Americans may be subject without urgent action.

Sasha Abramsky is a freelance journalist and Senior Fellow at the New York City-based think tank, Demos: Ideas & Action. His work has appeared in The Nation, The Atlantic Monthly, New York magazine, The Village Voice, and Rolling Stone. Originally from England and a graduate of Oxford University, he has since adopted his mother’s homeland of America and now lives in Sacramento, California. He has a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. In 2000, he was awarded a Soros Society, Crime, and Communities Media Fellowship. His third book, American Furies: Crime, Punishment, and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment, was published by Beacon Press in 2007. His first book, Hard Time Blues, was published in 2002; his second book, Conned, was published in 2006.

We have come a long way since the Dustbowl era, when hunger was a pressing national concern. Or have we? Abramsky challenges our conventional wisdom with an impassioned plea to take hunger and food production seriously again. In his book, hunger becomes a way to gauge where we are as a civilized nation. Breadline USA is an eye-opening account and, more important, a call to action.
—Sudhir Venkatesh, Gang Leader for a Day

Abramsky writes in the best tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich, Studs Terkel, and John Steinbeck. The fruit of his patient and compassionate research, Breadline USA, is required reading for all of us concerned to banish, forever, the long hidden legacy of hunger in America.
—Raj Patel, Stuffed and Starved

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NEW BOOK EXPOSES GROWING CRISIS OF AMERICAN HUNGER

35 Million Americans Without Proper Access to Food

Sausalito, CA—In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, investigative journalist Sasha Abramsky exposes the untold story of America’s hunger crisis in his new book, BreadlineUSA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It (PoliPoint, June 2009).

Written as part first-person account and part in-depth reportage, Abramsky combines extensive research, interviews with American families who rely on food pantries to stave off hunger and malnutrition, and his own personal hunger journey to illuminate how nearly 35 million Americans can go hungry everyday.

The author documents the stories of the elderly, the middle-aged, and the young–from the inner city to rural America–to show how today’s frayed social safety nets, rising unemployment, gas prices and soaring health and housing costs have driven families to choose between putting food on the table or paying off medical bills and paying rent.

In the tradition of Barbara Ehrenreich, Abramsky also uses his personal experiment with hunger to better illustrate the conditions that he witnessed. He chronicles the near-impossible financial balancing act required to secure enough food to survive, and vividly details the psychological and physical impact of hunger, interweaving his observations and feelings throughout the book.

SOME OF THE NUMBERS FROM BREADLINE USA:

* In 2008, the official poverty line was $ 10,590 for a single person and $21,203 for a family of four. Census data shows 37 million Americans at or below these numbers.

* From 2000 through 2007, as corporate profits grew 2.5% per year, median income for working-age households fell by 0.6 %–with African Americans and Latinos experiencing greater losses.

* In 2008, 28.4 million Americans were receiving food stamps.. In New York City, 1.1 million residents were on food stamps; 700,000 more were eligible but not enrolled.

* A single person on food stamps in mid-2008 received an average of $26 per week and a maximum of $40 in vouchers.
* From 2002 to 2007, the USDA cut its food contribution to the state of California from 97 million pounds to 39 millions pounds.

* In the 1950’s, one in three Americans worked a manufacturing job with fair wages, benefits and secure pensions. By 2007, that number declined to one in 10.

* By 2008, America’s 499 billionaires owned over $1.5 trillion in assets, equivalent to the average annual salaries of approximately 30 million of the country’s workers.

“The failures of our policies that led to this epidemic of hunger and poverty are evident across the country. Unemployment, lack of benefits, and wage cutbacks by major employers are forcing families to the food pantries,” said Abramsky. “Many of these families were pushed over the financial edge before the recession, and their experience and numbers will only worsen now. They’re invisible, and they ought not to be any longer.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sasha Abramsky grew up in London and studied politics, philosophy, and economics at Balliol College, Oxford. He graduated with a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. His work has appeared in many publications, including The Nation, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, and The London Guardian. He is the author of Hard Time Blues, Conned, and American Furies. A former fellow of the Open Society Institute and the Jeht Foundation, he is currently a senior fellow at Demos and a lecturer in the University Writing Program at the University of California at Davis.

Breadline USA: The Hidden Scandal of American Hunger and How to Fix It
by Sasha Abramsky
$23.95, PoliPointPress, June 16, 2009, Cloth
Hard Cover ISBN: 978-0-9817091-1-6, 208 pages, 6”x 9”
eBook ISBN: 978-1-9362272-6-6 Formats: PDF