Three weeks into a fiscal cliff, a large food bank line emerged on Saturday (Aug. 22) in Queens, a New York City borough, stretching for nearly a quarter-mile down the street.
With each passing day, the failure of Congress and the Trump administration to agree on the next round of stimulus exerts more and more pressure on consumers, who now derive a quarter of all personal income from the government.
The La Jornada food pantry, located on 133-36 Roosevelt Ave, Queens, usually hands out food packages to 1,000 families per week. Now, according to the New York Post, the number, in recent weeks, has skyrocketed to 10,000.
“It reminds me of the picture from the Great Depression where a man in a suit and tie is giving another man in a suit and tie an apple. That’s all he had,” La Jornada’s Pedro Rodriguez told The Post, adding that food supplies are running low.
Rodriguez, a volunteer of the food pantry who is executive director, said, “We feel like we are underwater, drowning in a tsunami of people.” He said the surge in hungry families coming to the food bank is “unbelievable.” – READ MORE
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