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Comment by acwan93 | Hacker News Reader

Part of me thinks that this is exaggerations as there’s no way all food banks have lines that are miles long, as stated in the article. I did notice that there are security guards outside my Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s now though.

> Given that everyone is doing their best to return to normal, I feel like running out of unemployment may not be as big of an issue as stated.

The bigger test may be once the PPP funds are exhausted in about a month.

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Most high income nations have been overproduce food via subsidies for decades. For most countries, food security is part of national security. The obesity crisis is a side effect of that:

https://battlepenguin.com/politics/this-is-not-a-time-of-hon...

I think there's enough slack in the system we won't see food shortage. The lines at food banks are a different problem entirely. That's because people don't have jobs, and are afraid to spend what they do have in savings and unemployment.

There doesn't have to be a shortage for people to be hungry - just a breakdown in distribution, and we are already seeing that.

And....no, people aren't lining up at food banks because they are "afraid to spend what they have". They mostly don't have anything to spend. Free food means they can afford the electricity bill, not that they can leave savings untouched.

Electricity is payment deferred during the pandemic.

Not every necessity is deferred. Also, getting food from the food bank may mean saving money that you'll need to buy food on a day when you can't get to the food bank.

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