Blog # 4 Spain Recoils Its Hungry Forage Trash Bins for a Next Meal
By: Suzanne Dailey for the New York Times

Scavanging for food has grown into a very common thing in Spain. The unemployment rate is over 50% among young people and more and more households have adults without jobs. 22 Percent of Spanish households are living in poverty and about 600,000 have no income at all. Spain has tried to meet its budget targets and it has introduced more and more austerity measures like cutting jobs, salaries and pensions and benefits, even as the econonmy continues to shrink.  The government has also raised the value tax three percentage points to 21percent on most goods and 2 percentage points on many food items. About 1/3 of people receiving help from social services and charities have never had to use a food pantry or a soup kitchen before the economy hit the economic crisis. Many citizens are deeply embarressed to visit food pantries so charities have made their sites look like super markets and took off their names. There has also been raids on super markets, forcing them to donate food to the needy. Globalization and being in dept to other countries who lean and borrow money through the international fund has caused the government to raise taxes in order to compensate for their dept but it has been at the sake of their citizens. It is very sad that families are forced to scavage for food because they are too embarressed to see others seeing them receiving help or the donated food at markets are not enough. I never hear about poverty in Spain. I always so the tourist side of Spain so it surprises me that they are in dire need of aid and their people are living in poverty. The economic crisis is similar to our economic crisis here in America.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/world/europe/hunger-on-the-rise-in-spain.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&hpw