The economy is doing better, so why are food pantry lines longer? There are many factors contributing to long lines at food banks and pantries despite reports that the economy is improving, writes Felipe De La Hoz for Epicenter-NYC. Among those factors is a decrease in pandemic-relief payments to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients this past March. Similarly, wages are more stagnant in lower-income industries (think: food service) than in higher-income industries, according to a study by the New School's Center for New York City Affairs.
Plus: $10M grant awarded for Indigenous food sovereignty programs (Native News Online)
Plus: Centers for Disease Control announces salmonella outbreak linked to cantaloupes (Native News Online)
🚀
You can now find our partners' essential intersectional reporting and perspectives at our new URL Media website updated daily. Dive into the stories that matter. Check us out here!
There's a lot we don't know about farmworker deathsThrough the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program of the Department of Labor, employers can bring migrants to the U.S. to work in fields nationwide. Each year, hundreds of thousands of H-2A workers come to the United States with a large percentage of laborers arriving in Southern states. Recently, a Prism staffer attended a press conference in North Carolina following the death of José Arturo González Mendoza, an H-2A worker from Mexico, who worked for Barnes Farming, the world's largest sweet potato producer. Prism reports that Mendoza worked less than two weeks before he died, and people in direct contact with his family said the company did not provide enough food or water to employees.
Hurricane Katrina's preparedness failures exposed the country's disaster response inequitiesIn 2005, Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest and costliest storms in U.S. history, revealed deep flaws in the U.S.’ disaster preparedness and crisis response systems, reports Yasmin Garaad for Scalawag. Long before Katrina, Louisiana residents were also devastated by Hurricane Betsy in 1965. Mona Lisa Saloy, a native of New Orleans who was a teenager at the time, recounts what it was like living through that storm: “I remember diving off the porch to swim. I remember the bodies of dogs and people floating.”
During Hurricane Katrina, the city mayor failed to give residents enough time to evacuate, leaving nearly 200,000 residents to languish. This affected many vulnerable groups, including the elderly, low-income individuals and residents of the predominantly Black Lower 9th Ward.
Meet the Game Changers
Highlighting the innovators transforming health outcomes in our communities
Deborah Gregory used her imagination to escape the challenges of growing up in foster care. One day she would go on to publish a 16-book series that inspired Walt Disney's hit TV movie "The Cheetah Girls.” Listen to Gregory’s story on the Black History Year podcast by
PushBlack