Live and Learn 9depression differently. In his mind, a sluggish economy did not merit
national intervention. Overproduction and hunger were temporary
anomalies that volunteers and nonprofit relief agencies could bridge
until markets realigned themselves.
Notwithstanding his rationale, a moral question loomed—how could
a country with so much food not share it with those in need? If the job-
less had no income with which to buy farm products, and an oversupply
of food dropped prices below what farmers needed to stay afloat, then
channeling surplus food to unemployed urban workers would solve both
problems. Hoover’s defeat in the presidential election of 9 cleared
the way. As one official put it, “We got a picture of a gorge, with farm
surpluses on one cliff and undernourished city folks with outstretched
hands on the other. We set out to find a practical way to build a bridge
across that chasm.”
So in 9 , with the promise of more food and stable prices, taxpayers
climbed aboard as Congress stepped in to rescue farmers by raising farm
income. During the Great Depression, food comprised one-quarter
of household expenditures, and unemployment peaked at 5 percent.
Only government had the capacity to expediently reconcile excess pro-
duction with the widespread need for food assistance.
Nonetheless, what followed became a missed opportunity to live and
learn—a missed opportunity that continues to this day. At the time
of the depression, people believed that farmers deserved help and that
unemployment was temporary. Addressing questions of what should
be the proper role of government post-depression fell by the wayside.
Before the decade was over, and despite steady growth in farm in-
come, subsidies and protections became a permanent feature of ongoing
farm legislation. Likewise, though the economy recovered and unem-
ployment fell, leveraging hunger with public safety nets would become
a tool for politicians to accumulate influence with the public to stay in
office (political capital) and for businesses to sell more food and enrich
profits. The opportunity to structurally address, rather than exploit, the
connection between subsidies to produce food and food assistance to
arrest hunger would be squandered.
Over the decades, other sectors of the economy also found ways to
benefit or cash in. For the military, food-assistance programs became
an issue of national security as malnutrition from lack of food had been