Know Your Class War: Eating in Capitol City and Elsewhere

For context, please read this column from a person who works as a chef for a government contractor--who happens to use food stamps.

Businesses who contract to do services for the US Government should pay a living wage. That much should be readily understood. How should anyone who goes to Washington believing that work should pay and that Americans should be able to get successful, good-paying jobs, and thinks this is okay, would be beyond me. But we know that people are on food stamps--and here is an interesting point--more people are going on them, not because the economy is getting worse, but because they are becoming aware that benefits are available.

Not everyone would see this as a success, but I do, because it means that people who might have been underfed or unduly struggling before because they were not aware that benefits were available, are now getting the nutrition they need to do better. Everyone should keep in mind that diet is the first medicine. People can't get well and do well without food in their stomachs. And eating is what leads to work, and not the other way about. It would just be better if people made enough to live, and eat well, on.