Food Insecurity & the Working Poor
Cesar Chavez Day honors the legacy of a leader and a movement that defended the dignity, value and rights of farmworkers. Yet decades after Chavez, Huerta and others organized the workers who grow and harvest our crops, food system jobs are still among the lowest paying in the U.S. This reality is a direct result of increasingly industrialized food and farm policies that have diminished the livelihood options in farming, displaced small-scale producers and retailers, and marginalized poorer consumers.
In the highly inequitable and largely service-based U.S. economy, food service and preparation jobs are among the most common. However almost one-third of food workers suffer from food insecurity, and food workers rely on food stamps to meet their needs at 1.5 times the rate of the general workforce.
In the face of this reality, Southwest Workers Union and the Rural Coalition developed the following report with the goal of examining what the ongoing fight for food justice looks like for today’s working poor in Texas. As the data and stories show, the divide between those who can access a diverse and healthy diet and those who work hard but cannot, continues to grow.
Report Link: Food Insecurity and the Working Poor
SWU organizers and members will participate in this week's Cesar Chavez March on Saturday, March 29 to support the ongoing fight to raise in the minimum wage and to continue to broaden our collective political consciousness around the intersecting fights for justice. Please read, share and use this report, and contact us to get involved with our ongoing food and economic justice campaigns! If you can't join us Saturday, follow us online:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/swunion
Twitter: @swujustice
Hashtags: #raisethewage #march4justice
Note: This report was produced prior to the passage of the 2014 U.S. Farm Bill. Not all of our recommendations were included in the final bill, and detrimental cuts were made to SNAP. However several pieces of the legislation advance equity in food systems, including funding for the Outreach and Assistance Program for Socially Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers, Healthy Food Financing Initiative, and Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program. The Raise the Wage campaign is an onoing critical fight for food workers and the working poor, and gaining momentum. For more information please contact Diana Lopez, Executive Director, Southwest Workers Union: dianalopez@swunion.org.
