Tony Hall: “I know it seems that we can be lulled asleep in this country thinking that everything is going so well. The fact is that…”

“I know it seems that we can be lulled asleep in this country thinking that everything is going so well. The fact is that we do have a budget that is balanced. We have people that are working. We have very low unemployment across this country. But at the same time, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, according to Second Harvest, according to a survey that I did with 200 food banks across this country, we have somewhere between 15 percent and well over 100 percent in some parts of our country of the increase of people asking for food in the last six months, and it is staggering. It does not seem possible. These people are not people that are on public assistance. These are not people that qualify for any help. These are people, somewhere in the area of about 25 to 30 million people, that are two or three, sometimes four days a month, they go to bed, and their children, without food. What happens is, after they pay their rent and they pay for the utility bills, they run out of money. These are the working poor and, in many cases, senior citizens. It is this group of people that find themselves going to food banks and soup kitchens.”