Poor the Poor

September 3, 2014

picasso__le_repas_frugal-e1340367392424Almost a full-sun sunrise this Wednesday morning on California’s north coast, but at the last second, ground fog with an overcast cloud layer muted the air into a thin gray haze.
Shucks! I can’t remember the last time we had a sunny sunrise — nevertheless, in a couple of hours or so, sunshine and warm temperatures.

Not much sunshine, however, for poor folk — the creepy-weird income inequality thingy also includes the kitchen — and this financial gap bleeds downward, into the living of everyday life — a new study indicates the poor eat poor, the rich eat rich: Better dietary quality was associated with higher socioeconomic status, and the gap widened with time. Future efforts to improve nutrition should address these disparities.

Just add more cheese to the potato soup.

(Illustration: Pablo Picasso’s ‘The Frugal Meal’ found here).

And some insight on the gaping “diet gap” from yesterday’s Washington Post:

On the one hand, the analysis found that the American diet, on the whole, improved during the observed period.
“Our study suggests that the overall dietary quality of the U.S. population steadily improved from 1999 through 2010,” the study said, suggesting that Americans are likely responding to recent nutrition education efforts.
That’s consistent with a number of macroeconomic food trends, including America’s shift away from soda.
But that improvement, however encouraging, doesn’t appear to be happening society-wide.
Americans in the top socioeconomic tier are leading the charge while Americans in the bottom tier are being left behind.

“Price is a major determinant of food choice, and healthful foods generally cost more than unhealthful foods in the United States,” the study said.
A significant portion of the U.S. population, after all, has enough trouble feeding itself any food, let alone fancy food — some 15 percent of the U.S. population and 17 percent of U.S. households were food “insecure” as of 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which means that they occasionally run out of money for food, or food entirely.

Odd about this current crop of rich — they’re hoarders, too. Fighting minimum-wage hikes, treating employees like shit, and so forth…and they want to just keep it all.
And to dovetail nicely, and in note of Labor Day, this workman’s creed from the top down — via MarketPlace:

In fact, most American workers have seen little to no growth since the late 1970s, if you adjust for inflation, according to Elise Gould.
She’s an economist with the Economic Policy Institute and author of a new study that analyzes wage data from census surveys over the last several decades.
That’s not to say that individual workers haven’t seen gains.
But, says Gould, “as productivity has continued to rise, typical workers’ wages simply have not.”

Even as economists debate the reasons behind American workers’ stagnating wages, one thing is certain.
They don’t just affect individual wallets, but the economy as a whole.
As Barrington points out, “Every worker is also a consumer.”
And consumers are what drive the modern American economy.

And every modern American in the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth, should just eat more fruit, but there’s still the cheese and potatoes.

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