“You can’t pay less in rent or you are homeless; you can’t refuse to pay your medical bills or you don’t get treatment,” said Joel Berg, the chief executive of Hunger Free America. “If you add up all the unavoidable costs of living, there is not enough money for food.”
The implication of such food insecurity for those well above what the federal government considers poverty looms large, Mr. Berg said. “This issue is the canary in the coal mine for the collapse of the society,” he added. “If people can’t afford the basic costs of living in what were previously middle-class jobs, society is failing in fundamental ways.”
