Trying to feed a family of four on less than $5 per day

“Privilege is when you think something is not a problem because it’s not a problem to you.”

— Recent Facebook entry

Trying to feed a family of three on $4.50 per day per person provides us with a challenge to our entitlement. At the price of beef, chicken, pork and milk — one can’t feed such a family well.

Add to the impossibility of providing good nutritious protein, if you have children, especially girl children, you should be buying the organic kind of milk, sans added hormones, at around four dollars a half gallon. You would have to spend most of your waking moments planning meals, buying groceries, clipping coupons, and cooking in order to get the most out of your funds, but a majority of the folks having to live on such means are working one, two or three jobs.

How can one be expected to work for menial wages at several jobs in order to afford housing, clothing, cars to get yourself to work, insurance, taxes, heating, utilities, and food and spend the day planning and cooking? The simple answer is you can’t. People who are in such a situation deserve our help, not our judgment.

I’ve heard people talk with derision about “welfare moms” who have the audacity to own a microwave or (gasp) even a refrigerator. How can this nation call itself “Christian” in any capacity when some of their fellow Americans live in cars or even in the streets? How is the waste of these people and their lives in any way good for this country?

Many would say “Well, they should have gotten an education” and yet Republicans are out there trying to privatize education in order to deprive us of that equalizer. They’re trying to cut SNAP funds so that the children in these families have even less to eat, outlawing tuna fish in Missouri as being too luxurious for those on welfare despite the fact that there is less than 0.2 percent fraud in the system (The Atlantic). They would deprive families of Medicare and tell them to take the children to the emergency room if there’s a medical issue. All the while, our lawmakers in D.C. pull down a huge salary for 123 days of work a year; they enjoy premium insurance, round-the-clock medical assistance, and other privileges that the normal American never sees.

If you doubt the need in our community, read “Our Neighbor in Need” or “Our Students in Need,” where heart-breaking stories abound: people who sleep on the floor, have no chairs, no way to even get to job interviews, children who lack underwear and warm clothing.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, “more than one in five American children falls below the relative poverty line… The United States ranks 34th of the 35 countries surveyed, ranking only above Romania and below virtually all of Europe plus Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan.” Such statistics must shock us out of our complacency.

If there was ever a time for us as a community, as a nation, to put ourselves in our neighbors’ shoes, that time is now.

Patricia Rosenleaf is a retired Great Falls teacher who writes a monthly political column for the Two Cents page.