Hunger and Cameron’s budget cuts

The news out of England have been mostly filled with the LIBOR scandal and what the executives knew or did not know. Meanwhile, as the recession has hit the UK, hunger is a new problem, the country hasn’t seen in a long time. From Bloomberg.

Virtually unheard of during the decade-long economic boom that ended in 2007, food banks are opening at the rate of two a week. Mould said the number of people receiving emergency grocery parcels doubled to almost 130,000 in the 12 months ended in April — about 33 percent of them as a result of benefit reassessments — and the figure may reach 500,000 by 2016. Those referred for food aid, usually by doctors or social workers, are typically not destitute, rather people on low wages or on welfare.

“There is a lot of hidden hunger in Britain,” Mould said. “These are people who are working and trying their best to make ends meet. They are often working a concoction of part-time jobs, with zero-duration contracts. Their benefit support is being reduced and that will get significantly worse.” (Full article here.)