Air Pie and Shoe Soup
                                          from: Poor (a perspective of poverty and class in the United States)

I had a friend who, by the time I met him, had made a comfortable middle class home for himself, his wife and their daughter in a Charleston, South Carolina suburb. He was born and raised in Virginia. Even though his father and mother both worked, he often went to bed hungry. Sometimes he would ask his mother what was for dessert, knowing there was none. She would look at him, smile and make a loud gulping said, then say, “Air Pie, take a bite.” After he took a big gulp of air they would both laugh. When my own children would ask about supper or dessert I would often reply, “Shoe Soup, take yours off.” They would laugh; I would think of all the children who were hungry and had no hope for supper, let alone dessert.

Being poor often means trying to make it from the payday just passed to within shouting distance of the one coming. In poor households there is a war between a roof over one’s head, running water, lights, and groceries. The one item under complete control of the household is food.

To describe what my grandmother would call, “Doing without”, the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) uses the term food insecurity.i USDA defines food insecurity as a lack of consistent access to enough food for a healthy life. The USDA notes that there are levels of food security. At the highest level are those who had no problem accessing adequate amounts of food and experience zero food anxiety. At the lowest end are those whose eating patterns were disrupted due to lack of money and other food resources.

The USDA uses polite terms when defining the poor and their eating habits. When one lacks the resources to eat on a continual basis there is no food pattern to disrupt. If a child expects to go to bed without supper, perhaps on some higher level of thinking one could call that food anxiety, but simply put, they are hungry. Just as important: some are confused as to why they are hungry; some are embarrassed to be so poor as not be able to eat; some feel that they are a burden to the household, and others wonder what they could’ve have done to deserve to be hungry.

During the harshest days of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States families whose income was in the $50,000 - $75,000 range experienced the most severe increase in food insufficiency.ii Meaning those families who were at a high level of food security were unable to have enough to eat within the previous seven days. Both local and national news organizations noted the many high-end automobiles that made up the often times miles long lines at a food giveaway cite. For that segment of the population the food crisis would have an end and the psychological affects of food anxiety would fade. However, for many of the citizens of the United States, the constant battle against hunger is a way of life.

Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) was born on November 20, 1925 into a wealthy family. He was the seventh of nine children. Robert Kennedy did not have the movie star looks of his older brother John F. Kennedy. Nor did he possess the booming voice of his younger brother Edward M. Kennedy (Ted). The two most notable traits of RFK were his tenaciousness and his heartfelt passion for those less fortunate around him. In 1967 he took a tour of Mississippi. In February 1968 he took a tour of eastern Kentucky and parts of West Virginia. During both these tours RFK saw how the poorest of the poor lived. In 1967 there is a photo of him shaking hands with a Catholic nun both of them surrounded by a large crowd of African-American school children.

In 1968 there is a photo of RFK in a West Virginia cabin. It was obvious from the photo that the dirt floor cabin had no running water or electricity. On his lap he held a young white boy. RFK’s collared white shirt had wilted under the heat and stress of the day, yet it still struck a sharp contrast to the boy’s tattered and worn clothes. In both photographs Robert Kennedy seems to be searching for ways to lift the people that are around him out of poverty. In June of 1968 RFK lay bleeding on the floor of a California hotel kitchen, and few days later the war on poverty lost a valuable soldier.

In the USDA report on measuring food security it defines how an attempt at identifying exactly how many were trapped in food insecurity world be conducted through several surveys. Laughingly, the USDA intended to conduct the survey online. People who cannot afford their next meal tend not to have internet access. The rural poor and the urban poor have to be observed to be counted. Poverty has to be felt first hand to fully comprehend. If RFK were alive he would have told them that.

The basic reasons for hunger are the same throughout the fifty states States. From North to South and East to West; from the most concentrated of urban areas to the most isolated of rural areas the common thread of hunger is poverty. Poverty is the result of unemployment or under employment. It is also attributable to low wages, a by product of a lack of education and/or opportunity. Even when monetary resources are provided to attack hunger, access to adequate food supply is often limited. In urban areas, as previously mentioned, food deserts are major obstacles.

In a November 1997 report by the Economic Research Service for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) the authors tried to ascertain if the poor paid more for food than the non-poor.iii The conclusion reached was yes they do. The report found that many times stores in low income areas may have a higher per item cost than those in more affluent areas. The increased cost is due to higher operating expenses and limited selection.

In more affluent areas stores are larger, have a more varied inventory, offer varied levels of quality, and also are able to offer cheaper “store” brands. In low income urban and rural areas stores tend to be smaller and brand selection limited. At first glance it appears that it would be more advantageous for the low income shopper to patronize markets in more affluent areas; however, transportation cost and geographic obstacles often make that impossible.

The report also noted that even though the per unit price in low income areas may be higher, the shopping habits of the poor enable them to limit the overall affect of the increased prices. Specifically, persons with limited income will try to buy as much as they can for as little as they can. In practice that means a low income shopper will weigh the cost of ground beef against the cost of a can of tuna. Even though that shopper may have a craving for Meat Loaf, their finances may dictate Tuna Casserole.

Freelance writer, Tamara Gane’s experiences as a low income shopper is a valuable anecdotal supplement to the USDA’s report.iv Gane worked full time as a receptionist for minimum wage. Raising her son with the other day-to-day financial responsibilities of living put her firmly in the column of the working poor. As is often the case for those dependent on a minimum wage, a few days to the next payday usually meant her finances were strained.

Gane explained that low income shopping meant no shopping list or expectation. When finances were limited and food was short, whatever was on sale or cheapest in the store went into the shopping cart. Like other poor shoppers, Gane would look for dented canned foods, dry foods with damaged boxes, and of course, store sales items.

While the smart more affluent shopper would go to bulk stores, low income shoppers simply cannot afford the initial outlay to take advantage of the overall savings. If there were fresh fruits, vegetables and meats within her price range, Gane also noted that if one’s electricity was shut off, then perishable items were off the list. The inability to shop in bulk or take advantage of bulk sales means that low income shoppers have limited items stocked at home. Limited stocks at home equates to a constant shortage. When all resources are exhausted and your children still have not eaten, Air Pie is a poor substitute, and does not quash missed-meal-cramps, but is a sad reality.

i “Food Security in the U.S.”, Economic Research Service U.S. Department of Agriculture, https://ww.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutriion-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/measurement.apx#measurement (accessed: July 20, 2021).

ii “More Americans couldn’t get enough to eat in 2020 – a change that hit the middle class hardest”, Zheng Tian and Stephan J. Goetz, United States Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, September 23, 2021.

iii Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, “Do the Poor Pay More for Food? (Item Selection and Price Differences Affect Low-Income Houshold Food Costs), Phillip R. Kaufman et al., Agricultural Economic Report No. 759.

iv “This Is Why Poor People Pay More At The Grocery Store”, Tamara Gane, Guest Writer Huffington Post, HUFFPOST Personal, May 30, 2019, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/grocery-shopping-poverty-_n_5cee9276e4b0793c2348aea8/ (accessed: July 27, 2021)