Watching Wash. & Oregon Crumble (hungriest states)

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/oct2003/hung-o29.shtml

Hunger deepens in the Northwest US

The Northwest corner of the United States—the states of Washington and Oregon—has the highest percentage of hunger and unemployment in the nation. Recent data shows this situation worsening.

Figures from the Oregon Food Bank’s latest report on hunger show that demand on its services has risen 10 percent in the last year and 82 percent since 1996. Growing by almost 75,000 in the last year, the number of children, elderly, unemployed or working poor forced to rely on emergency food boxes now stands at 780,000. Children account for 40 percent of those needing emergency food.

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Washington State residents requiring food assistance numbered 1.2 million between July 2001 and July 2002. This figure represents one out of every five residents—the same as Oregon—and an increase of 13 percent over the previous year. Boeing has recently laid off 30,000 workers, with another 5,000 layoffs planned for next year. In western Washington, where the majority of the population lives, the cost of living is rising at the second highest rate in the country, 65 percent in the last five years.

Both Oregon and Washington have registered the highest hunger rates nationally for several years. According to a US Department of Agriculture study for 1999-2001, 5.8 percent of Oregon households said they experienced hunger at least once in the previous year. Washington’s hunger rate was tied with Utah’s at 4.6 percent. About 25 percent of that number reported being chronically, frequently hungry. Oregon and Washington emerged as high hunger states with the first national survey by the Census Bureau in 1995.
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american kids going hungry.............................

Hey! Did you see that GDP report?!?! WOOOO-HOOOOOO!! And what about those productivity numbers, huh?

...enough to, more or less, battle off the Federal, and corporate, attacks on it's economy.

The repukes are actually targeting the western states with economic strangulation politics.