The Virus and Capitalism

by ROB URIE MARCH 20, 2020

Photograph Source: NIAID – CC BY 2.0

The U.S. is in the midst of a full-blown public health crisis made worse by systemic political dysfunction. The benchmark Imperial College study suggesting that up to two million people in the U.S. could die from the coronavirus epidemic assumes that the U.S. has an adequate healthcare system— that no one dies from not getting treatment. It doesn’t. Without one, expected deaths are much higher. Should the U.S. experience be similar to Italy or Wuhan to date, add another eleven million* dead to the worst case scenario.

The point here isn’t to create fear or panic, but to illustrate the difference in outcomes that a robust government response can make. In trying to corner the market for virus test kits, Donald Trump assured that few, if any, would be available. In like fashion, House Democrats passed a paid-time-off bill so fraudulent that even Pravda-on-the-Hudson, the New York Times, called them on it. The official plan to date is financial, to bail out Wall Street and the airlines, a payroll tax cut and token checks to the masses, and hope that it all works out.

In lieu of providing an adequate level of healthcare to address the pandemic, which even hardened D.C. hacks know can’t be conjured out of thin air in a timely enough fashion, what is left is ‘social distancing.’ This is polite speak for quarantines variably undertaken. China was able to reduce the mortality rate after Wuhan by 4/5ths through a combination of draconian quarantines and a rapid buildout of healthcare provision. However, the infection rate reportedly began rising as soon as the quarantine measures were relaxed.

The strategy of ‘flattening the curve,’ of slowing the spread of the virus so that the healthcare system isn’t overwhelmed at any one time, could bring the mortality rate in the U.S. down by matching healthcare need to capacity. But implied in the structure of the economic stimulus is a couple of weeks at home watching Netflix and then it’s back to the races. This is a low probability outcome. Eighteen months, the anticipated duration of the pandemic if effective action to mitigate it is taken, means that a radically changed world will emerge from the other side.

The idea being floated by Wall Street that pandemics are ‘black swans,’ unanticipated and unanticipatable events that legitimate extraordinary responses like government bailouts of private enterprises, suggests that history be made a required subject in business schools. Here is a partial list of epidemics and pandemics. They are so common that a functioning society would have thousands of permanent staff that do nothing but plan for them. And they are one of several thousand reasons why a functioning society would have a functioning healthcare system.

To understand why Wall Street should be left to rot this go around, look back to January 1980, when the current bull market can be estimated to have begun. The S&P 500 has to fall by another 2/3rds, from 2,400 to 910, to get to the normal valuation level (CAPE P/E = 8.5) at which this epoch of finance capitalism began. Understand, the S&P 500 at 910 wouldn’t represent a crisis, just a more reasonable valuation level. The financial crisis, to the extent there is one, is due to systemic leverage, the same problem that Wall Street faced in 2008.

The pandemic is but the catalyst for current financial troubles, not the cause. As was warned in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, etc., the Obama Administration’s bailouts were to make rich people rich again, not to ‘save the economy.’ So, here we are ten years later and the previously bailed out are once again telling us that the Federal government has to bail out corporations and the rich to ‘save the economy.’ ‘The economy’ is indeed in trouble, but it is in trouble because of the fragility created to benefit corporations and the rich, not because stock prices have fallen.

If ever there was a time for bold government action, this is it. The problem is that four decades of neoliberalism have instantiated the ethos that the role of government is to make rich people richer. Naomi Klein call this ‘disaster capitalism.’ I defer to Marx and Lenin. The idea that bailouts for corporations benefit workers begs the question: if the goal is to help workers, why not give the money to workers? It is the CEOs and corporate boards that loaded up their companies with debt to raise the value of their stock options that made these corporations so economically fragile.

More broadly, through the self-serving mythology of rugged individualism, capitalism has been used to shape and reshape social relations. This makes its dependence on serial bailouts both ridiculous and pathetic. Conceived several centuries ago to shift power from Aristocrats to a burgeoning business class, without a large and intrusive government to prevent consolidation and self-dealing, it quickly creates a new Aristocracy to close the door behind it. What is left is the privileged, remote and self-dealing oligarchy that now stands before us.

During ‘normal’ times, when this oligarchy isn’t acting to destroy other nations and the world, malgovernance for its own benefit is made the ordinary working of government. For instance, the U.S. military is wildly overfunded while the healthcare system is structured to let the people die at a politically acceptable pace. During ‘not normal’ times, a hierarchy of privilege is set in motion. First, save the wealth of the rich through bailouts. Second, secure the rights of corporations to profit from catastrophe. Last, let the people die at a politically acceptable pace.

A pandemic forces the afterthought— the pace at which the people are allowed to die, to the fore. The U.S. is currently working through bailouts to secure the wealth of the oligarchs and corporate monopoly plays to profit from catastrophe. Threatening to overturn the applecart is people dying at a politically unacceptable pace. The edifice of unenlightened self-interest risks being exposed. A few days without a paycheck and the rent doesn’t get paid. Without the rent, the landlord can’t pay the mortgage. Without the mortgage being paid, the bank goes under.

Suddenly the ‘richest country in the history of the world’ looks like some crappy third-world backwater. The social brutality of working paycheck to paycheck is transformed from individual to systemic failure. Bailouts for the rich expose how they got rich in the first place. And corporate chieftains scrambling to extort profits from sick and dying people exposes the class dynamic by which the rich get rich— by making poor people poor. The risk for the rich is that the logic of the guillotine begins to make sense. The risk for the rest of us can be counted in the sick and dying.

The coronavirus pandemic was both predictable, in that pandemics have been regular occurrences throughout human history, and it is external to how social organization is conceived under capitalism. Neoliberalism is a theory of governance without governing, of letting nature, in the form of markets, decide. Letting nature decide in a pandemic means the passive acceptance of mass deaths, which ties to the neoliberal refusal to create a functioning healthcare system. Political economy premised on individual desires is antithetical to the social nature of a pandemic. As with environmental degradation, it produces the logic of collective suicide.

The official American response to the pandemic has been exceptional only in the sense that markets have failed so spectacularly. The insipid, bi-partisan house ideology hasn’t worked because capitalism doesn’t solve social problems. It isn’t intended to. Donald Trump’s clumsy effort to corner the market in virus test kits for ‘American’ corporations has meant that we simply don’t have them. Obamacare certainly hasn’t produced any. The strategy that is unfolding of ad hoc quarantines and wishful thinking will either be converted into a robust response or the existing political order will end.

The hope that Democrats will fix what the Republicans broke is running up against three decades of Democrats breaking things. Joe Biden, who wholeheartedly supported George W. Bush’s $4 trillion war against Iraq, just last week claimed that the U.S. can’t afford a functioning healthcare system. Mr. Biden’s actual history in elected office has been to the right of Ronald Reagan. He spent decades trying to cut Social Security and Medicare. He supported bankruptcy legislation that shifted the onus for unpayable loans from banks to poor people. He is the worst person the Democrats could put forward in a pandemic if they care about governing.

The question of bailouts is fundamentally different from that of taking care of people. An adequate response to the pandemic will require years of dedicated effort, not tossing a trillion dollars at ‘the economy’ and hoping for the best. Social distancing and quarantines might require income and material support for tens of millions of people for as long as eighteen months. Nancy Pelosi is reportedly already balking at spending government money to do what is necessary. It would be a benefit to workers if she forced her corporate sponsors to provide paid time off for their employees, but she won’t do this.

The economic fragility behind the rapid descent into economic crisis isn’t a product of nature. It was purposely created by the bi-partisan political establishment at the behest of oligarchs and academic economists. NAFTA was meant to make workers economically insecure. Welfare ‘reform’ was passed to make life outside of capitalist employment intolerably tenuous. The minimum wage hasn’t been a living wage for forty years. And plans to cut Social Security and Medicare are meant to increase economic fragility. Likewise, austerity is the enforcement mechanism to keep the rich in control of American political economy.

This combination of manufactured social fragility and neoliberal governance will sooner or later produce a political rupture. The election of Donald Trump was the first act of one. An extended economic crisis can produce social solidarity or a deeply ugly political response. The Democrats’ choice to stick with their neoliberal program means that they are indifferent between electing Joe Biden and a second term for Donald Trump. Add the widespread unemployment that is already baked into their reflexive austerity and a more perfect formula for fascist ascendance is difficult to imagine.

The question of who would be to blame for such an outcome depends who gets to decide the answer. That makes it about power, not truth. As this pandemic plays out, finger pointing will be the least of our worries.

Notes.

* 330 million people X 80% infection rate X 5% mortality rate = 13.2 million dead in U.S.; 330 million is the U.S. population, 80% is the expected infection rate from the Imperial College study and 5% is the realized mortality rate in Italy and Wuhan.

CORPORATE POWER & PROFITEERING

Large defense contractors have played a central role in fighting the post-9/11 wars. They have provided workers who have engaged in direct combat and provided supplies, logistical services, and arms to coalition forces and the new Iraqi and Afghan governments. Private contracting has grown to such a level that, by 2011, there were more private contract employees involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than uniformed military personnel.

Critics have raised major economic and security concerns including the concentration of defense contracts among just a handful of large firms, exorbitant prices for goods and services, fraudulent contracts, and the “revolving door” between the large defense contractors and government, such as that between Halliburton and the Bush administration.

The growth of private contracting has increased not only in the military, but also in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where private contract employees outnumber government employees in United States intelligence operations.

Defense contractors have also played a significant role in arms sales to the Iraqi government. Those sales put a budgetary strain on Iraq when it has yet to restore important services disrupted by the war. Significant numbers of those arms have also since been diverted to the Islamic State or otherwise misused.          https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/social/corporate

https://www.codepink.org/war_profiteers_us_war_machine_and_the_arming_of_repressive_regimes

Beyond Sanctioning Elusive War Criminals, Prosecute the Profiteers
by Holly Dranginis
April 4, 2019

Profiteers: Following the Money to Support War Crimes Accountability.”
IMAGE: Two men walk in March 2014 near the Paloch oil fields in Upper Nile State, the site of an oil complex and key crude oil processing facility in the north of the country near the border with Sudan. Fighting in South Sudan had cut production from the country’s lifeline oilfields by about 29 percent, according to the press secretary to President Salva Kiir at the time. In late February that year, rebels loyal to rival Riek Machar had captured Malakal, the capital of Upper Nile state where most of South Sudan’s oil was produced. (Photo by ALI NGETHI/AFP/Getty Images)

Bidibidi is the world’s second-largest refugee camp. A sea of tents and huts spilling into Uganda from its northern border, the settlement now hosts more than a quarter million South Sudanese seeking safety from a range of horrors in their country, including routine electrocution in torture camps and rape by government soldiers. Last summer, militias perpetrated gender-based violence “on a massive scale” in Unity State, the pride of South Sudan’s oil barons. This is where industry and militarization meet, with government militias paid in revenues reaped from petrol extraction, and repressive tactics surging in service of control over lucrative land.

Survivors of these crimes, along with concerned members of the international community, are searching for justice. The barriers are many, including both an utter lack of will by the South Sudanese government, a co-opted, gutted judicial system, and weakened regional and international systems. For those affected, and for those who care, there has been nowhere to turn to hold the perpetrators of atrocities directly accountable in a court of law.

But an innovative legal strategy being tried by a few advocacy groups and prosecutors holds new promise. In short: Follow the money.

Financial sanctions have long been a critical intervention. But teams that investigate and prosecute the world’s most serious crimes in court are largely ignoring the financial dimensions. In so doing, they’re missing valuable testimony, documentary evidence, and a deeper understanding of criminal networks. As a result, we rarely see executives and corporate entities face consequences in courtrooms, despite their crucial roles in modern armed conflict and atrocities.

In February, a United Nations commission on South Sudan warned, “Impunity is…deeply entrenched in South Sudan’s political culture and legal systems, effectively placing government forces and officials and their allied forces above the law.” Absent the possibility of domestic prosecutions, the next options such as international courts are also non-starters. The government of South Sudan has not agreed to participate in the most obvious venue of recourse, the International Criminal Court. And while the 2018 peace agreement includes commitments to establish a specialized hybrid court of international and South Sudanese jurists, the government has blocked any meaningful follow-through, and the African Union, which has the authority to step in, also has opted out.

From South Sudan to Syria to Myanmar, it has become clear the world lacks adequate mechanisms to prosecute state actors for extreme violence against their own citizens. But state-sponsored mass atrocities are often driven by greed and massive profiteering. Probing the financial dimensions of the world’s deadliest armed conflicts could lead to unexplored avenues for war crimes prosecutions, and improve the credibility of justice efforts overall.

Crimes like forced disappearance and sexual violence may seem detached from illicit finance streams and commercial interests, but they can be part of complex strategies supported by corporate networks. Reporting on one of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s most dangerous armed groups, a U.N. agency said in 2016, “The FDLR have structured a dense and diversified economic web, which in return shapes their military activities.” Another example came in June 2018: French authorities indicted the cement company La Farge on evidence of its complicity in the self-styled Islamic State’s brutalities in Syria.

Violent actors rely on business networks, financing, and equipment to inflict harm on a large scale. In turn, brokers, extractives companies, banks, arms dealers, and shell companies stand to earn millions by facilitating violent strategies on resource-rich land.

More Bloody, Costly, and Intractable Wars

With widespread impunity, many of the most powerful co-conspirators and facilitators of atrocities continue operating quite profitably. And their roles are far from negligible. As scholar James G. Stewart has put it, “As a consequence of the illegal trade in minerals, metals, timber, and natural resources, armed conflicts in which participants are able to draw upon easily accessible natural resource wealth are often more bloody, financially costly, and intractable than other forms of armed violence.”

These dirty money dynamics are often quite clear to those directly impacted. Last summer, a man forced to flee South Sudan spoke to me at a hotel bar in a neighboring capital city. He held a position close enough to power that he met me in secret and could not reveal his identity for this piece. I asked about the objectives of the war. “Frustrate these people,” he said, referring to South Sudanese seeking refuge from attacks in their communities. “Let them leave.”

He paused, his gaze training on the ice in his glass. “And it worked.” Indeed, the refugee flow from South Sudan to bordering countries is one of the fastest-growing in the world. Many are leaving areas endowed with lucrative timber, oil, and strategic trafficking routes. The government’s end goal? I asked. He tipped his eyes up to look at me directly. “They’re rich now.”

Network sanctions and anti-money laundering measures, deployed to create consequences for abusive regimes, are crucial responses to this dynamic. Much more could be done on that front.

But in addition, targeting financial accomplices and illicit cash flows directly through courts could have a transformative impact on the drive for justice. Prosecutors could map corporate profiles of army commanders, investigate complicit executives operating abroad, and seize criminally derived assets.

The ICC, the new hybrid court emerging in the Central African Republic, and war crimes units in the U.S. and Europe have the tools to do this integration, but they’re leaving those innovations on the table. To be sure, investigating and prosecuting war crimes is complex and challenging enough without adding this extra dimension. The stakes are high, and the money for training and expertise is tight. But financial motivations, impacts, and actors are a crucial part of the perpetration of war crimes. Incorporating mechanisms to probe them could produce a fuller picture of how atrocity crimes are executed, illuminate vital documentary evidence, and generate funds with asset seizures to pay for much-needed reparations.

Multiplying Jurisdictions

Moreover, financial investigations could have a multiplier effect on the number of potential jurisdictions with the authority to prosecute. Case in point: When the rebel group Nationalist and Integrationist Front committed atrocities during Congo’s second civil war, they were running a lucrative gold cartel out of one of the country’s largest mining areas. The direct perpetrators were never prosecuted for their crimes, but diligent investigations into the gold supply chains, who profited, and where the money wound up, revealed six different countries with authority to investigate, including the U.K.

Authorities in every government concerned with ending the world’s worst humanitarian crises should take a closer look at the commercial actors in their backyards. Many countries providing perpetrators a financial safe haven have war crimes and transnational crimes units. With the right resources, those specialized teams can investigate and pursue the financial facilitators and impacts of ongoing atrocity crimes. Domestic and international courts can seize criminally derived assets in the course of both criminal and civil trials, and that money should furnish reparations programs designed by survivors and their communities.

War is a moneyed place, and greed is often the fuel and incentive behind the world’s most horrific war crimes. Accepting that fact, acting on it, could be pivotal for the pursuit of justice. Without such a shift, some of the most powerful engines of violence will continue operating, and victims and survivors will almost certainly remain without adequate reparations – a perversion given the exorbitant wealth the facilitators and profiteers have stashed away.

Just last month, South Sudan’s oil minister heralded new international interest in the country’s black gold, promising to bring development “back to pre-war levels.” These announcements are alarming, given mounting links between oil and mass atrocities and a sense that for South Sudan’s government, business ambition and militarization are corollaries. Each new effort to probe those links will add volume to a crucial global message: no matter where they operate, war crimes profiteers will be held accountable. That warning is currently a murmur.

This article is based on a new report by the author published at The Sentry, “Prosecute the 

War Profiteering is Real

by SARAH ANDERSON

The prospect of war with Iran is terrifying.

Experts predict as many as a million people could die if the current tensions lead to a full-blown war. Millions more would become refugees across the Middle East, while working families across the U.S. would bear the brunt of our casualties.

But there is one set of people who stand to benefit from the escalation of the conflict: CEOs of major U.S. military contractors.

This was evident in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. assassination of a top Iranian military official on January 2. As soon as the news reached financial markets, these companies’ share prices spiked.

Wall Street traders know that a war with Iran would mean more lucrative contracts for U.S. weapons makers. Since top executives get much of their compensation in the form of stock, they benefit personally when the value of their company’s stock goes up.

I took a look at the stock holdings of the CEOs at the top five Pentagon contractors (Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman).

Using the most recent available data, I calculated that these five executives held company stock worth approximately $319 million just before the U.S. drone strike that killed Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani. By the stock market’s closing bell the following day, the value of their combined shares had increased to $326 million.

War profiteering is nothing new. Back in 2006, during the height of the Iraq War, I analyzed CEO pay at the 34 corporations that were the top military contractors at that time. I found that their pay had jumped considerably after the September 11 attacks.

Between 2001 and 2005, military contractor CEO pay jumped 108 percent on average, compared to a 6 percent increase for their counterparts at other large U.S. companies.

Congress needs to take action to prevent a catastrophic war on Iran. De-escalating the current tensions is the most immediate priority.

But Congress must also take action to end war profiteering. In 2008, John McCain, then a Republican presidential candidate, proposed capping CEO pay at companies receiving financial bailouts. He argued that CEOs relying on taxpayer funds should not earn more than $400,000 — the salary of the U.S. president.

That commonsense notion should be extended to all companies that rely on massive taxpayer-funded contracts. Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance, has a plan to deny federal contracts to companies that pay their CEOs excessively. He would set the CEO pay limit for major contractors at no more than 150 times the pay of the company’s typical worker.

Currently, the sky’s the limit for CEO pay at these companies — and the military contracting industry is a prime offender. The top five Pentagon contractors paid their top executives $22.5 million on average in 2018.

CEO pay restrictions should also apply to the leaders of privately held government contractors, which currently don’t even have to disclose the size of their top executives’ paychecks.

That’s the case for General Atomics, the manufacturer of the MQ-9 Reaper that carried out the assassination of Soleimani. Despite raking in $2.8 billion in taxpayer-funded contracts in 2018, the drone maker is allowed to keep executive compensation information secret.

We do know that General Atomics CEO Neal Blue has prospered quite a bit from taxpayer dollars. Forbes estimates his wealth at $4.1 billion.

War is bad for nearly everyone. But as long as we allow the leaders of our privatized war economy to reap unlimited rewards, their profit motive for war in Iran — or anywhere — will persist.

JANUARY 17, 2020
More articles by:SARAH ANDERSON

Meet the Corporate War Profiteers Making a Killing on Trump's Attacks on Iran

As long as the top executives of our privatized war economy can reap unlimited rewards, the profit motive for war in Iran—or anywhere—will persist.

by Sarah Anderson

We can put an end to dangerous war profiteering by denying federal contracts to corporations that pay their top executives excessively. (Photo: Chris Devers / Flickr)

CEOs of major U.S. military contractors stand to reap huge windfalls from the escalation of conflict with Iran. This was evident in the immediate aftermath of the U.S. assassination of a top Iranian military official last week. As soon as the news reached financial markets, these companies’ share prices spiked, inflating the value of their executives’ stock-based pay.

I took a look at how the CEOs at the top five Pentagon contractors were affected by this surge, using the most recent SEC information on their stock holdings.

Northrop Grumman executives saw the biggest increase in the value of their stocks after the U.S. airstrike that killed Qasem Suleimani on January 2. Shares in the B-2 bomber maker rose 5.43 percent by the end of trading the following day.

Wesley Bush, who turned Northrop Grumman’s reins over to Kathy Warden last year, held 251,947 shares of company stock in various trusts as of his final SEC Form 4 filing in May 2019. (Companies must submit these reports when top executives and directors buy and sell company stock.) Assuming Bush is still sitting on that stockpile, he saw the value grow by $4.9 million to a total of $94.5 million last Friday.

New Northrop Grumman CEO Warden saw the 92,894 shares she’d accumulated as the firm’s COO expand in value by more than $2.7 million in just one day of post-assassination trading.

Lockheed Martin, whose Hellfire missiles were reportedly used in the attack at the Baghdad airport, saw a 3.6 percent increase in price per share on January 3. Marillyn Hewson, CEO of the world’s largest weapon maker, may be kicking herself for selling off a considerable chunk of stock last year when it was trading at around $307. Nevertheless, by the time Lockheed shares reached $413 at the closing bell, her remaining stash had increased in value by about $646,000.

What about the manufacturer of the MQ-9 Reaper that carried the Hellfire missiles? That would be General Atomics. Despite raking in $2.8 billion in taxpayer-funded contracts in 2018, the drone maker is not required to disclose executive compensation information because it is a privately held corporation.

We do know General Atomics CEO Neal Blue is worth an estimated $4.1 billion—and he’s a major investor in oil production, a sector that also stands to profit from conflict with a major oil-producing country like Iran.



Suleimani’s killing also inflated the value of General Dynamics CEO Phebe Novakovic’s fortune. As the weapon maker’s share price rose about 1 percentage point on January 3, the former CIA official saw her stock holdings increase by more than $1.2 million.

Raytheon CEO Thomas Kennedy saw a single-day increase in his stock of more than half a million dollars, as the missile and bomb manufacturer’s share price increased nearly 1.5 percent. Boeing stock remained flat on Friday. But Dennis Muilenberg, recently ousted as CEO over the 737 aircraft scandal, appears to be well-positioned to benefit from any continued upward drift of the defense sector.

As of his final Form 4 report, Muilenburg was sitting on stock worth about $47.7 million. In his yet to be finalized exit package, the disgraced former executive could also pocket huge sums of currently unvested stock grants.

Hopefully sanity will soon prevail and the terrifyingly high tensions between the Trump administration and Iran will de-escalate. But even if the military stock surge of this past Friday turns out to be a market blip, it’s a sobering reminder of who stands to gain the most from a war that could put millions of lives at risk.

We can put an end to dangerous war profiteering by denying federal contracts to corporations that pay their top executives excessively. In 2008, John McCain, then a Republican presidential candidate, proposed capping CEO pay at companies receiving taxpayer bailouts at no more than $400,000 (the salary of the U.S. president). That notion should be extended to companies that receive massive taxpayer-funded contracts.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, for instance, has a plan to deny federal contracts to companies that pay CEOs more than 150 times what their typical worker makes.

As long as we allow the top executives of our privatized war economy to reap unlimited rewards, the profit motive for war in Iran—or anywhere—will persist.


Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project of the Institute for Policy Studies, and is a co-editor of Inequality.org. @Anderson_IPS

Military spending: 20 companies profiting the most from war
Samuel Stebbins and Evan Comen
24/7 Wall Street

There was a 1.1 percent increase in global military spending in 2017, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The global rise was driven partially by a $9.6 billion hike in U.S. arms expenditure – the United States is the world’s largest defense spender by a wide margin. Though it is yet unclear what the growing arms investments will mean for international relations, major defense contractors around the world stand to benefit.

Total arms sales among the world’s 100 largest defense contractors topped $398 billion in 2017 after climbing for the third consecutive year. Notably, Russia, one of the countries with the fastest growing militaries over the last decade, became the second largest arms-producing country, overtaking the United Kingdom for the first time since 2002. The United States’ position as the top arms-producing nation in the world remains unchanged, and for now unchallenged.

The United States is home to five of the world’s 10 largest defense contractors, and American companies account for 57 percent of total arms sales by the world’s 100 largest defense contractors, based on SIPRI data.

Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the largest defense contractor in the world, is estimated to have had $44.9 billion in arms sales in 2017 through deals with governments all over the world. The company drew public scrutiny after a bomb it sold to Saudi Arabia was dropped on a school bus in Yemen, killing 40 boys and 11 adults. Lockheed’s revenue from the U.S. government alone is well more than the total annual budgets of the IRS and the Environmental Protection Agency, combined.

24/7 Wall St. reviewed data provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute to identify the companies profiting most from war. Companies were ranked based on arms sale revenue. Chinese companies were not considered due to lack of sufficient data. Total 2017 revenue and arms sales were provided by SIPRI. Profits and total sales came from fiscal year 2017 annual financial disclosures filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or published independently. Employee counts are the most recent available estimates, and are in some cases from corporations’ 2018 financial disclosures.

20. Textron

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $4.1 billion
• Total sales: $14.2 billion
• Profit: $1.2 billion
• Employees: 35,000

Textron, based in Providence, Rhode Island, is one of 11 American companies to rank among the world's largest defense contractors. The company ranks 20th among companies profiting the most from war in 2017 with $4 billion in arms sales through its subsidiaries, which include Bell Helicopter and Textron Systems.Though the majority of Textron's revenue comes from deals in the United States and Canada, the company also does business in the Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Textron defense products include armored vehicles, unmanned aircraft, and attack helicopters.

While it is one of the largest defense companies in the world, over 70 percent of Textron's revenue comes from commercial deals. The company's non-military subsidiary aircraft brands include Cessna and Beechcraft.

19. Naval Group• Country: France
• Arms sales: $4.1 billion
• Total sales: $4.2 billion
• Profit: $36.5 million
• Employees: 13,429

French industrial conglomerate Naval Group sold $4.1 billion worth of arms in 2017, among the most of any company worldwide. One of the oldest companies on this list, Naval Group's business activities date back to the early 17th century, when the group built the French Navy's Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets. Today, Naval Group is the leading provider of naval defense systems in Europe.

Some of the major innovations throughout the company's history include the launch of La Gloire, the first ironclad steam frigate, in 1858, and the launch of Le Redoutable, the first ballistic nuclear submarine, in 1967. In recent years, some of the company's most lucrative contract work has included the delivery of the FREMM Tahya Misr frigate to the Egyptian Navy, completed in 2015, and a commitment to build 12 submarines for the Royal Australian Navy, awarded in 2016.

18. Leidos• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $4.4 billion
• Total sales: $10.2 billion
• Profit: $242.0 million
• Employees: 31,000

Nearly half of the $10.2 billion in revenue of Virginia-based technology company Leidos in 2017 came from its defense and intelligence division. The company's services include IT infrastructure, data analytics, cyber security, logistics, surveillance vehicle and equipment development and maintenance, and consulting. Its defense clients include the U.S. Air Force, Army, Navy, and NATO.

Though the majority of the company's revenue comes from contracts outside of the defense industry, the company's history with the federal government goes back almost to its founding in 1969. The following year, Leidos won a contract with the Defense Nuclear Agency, now known as the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

17. Rolls-Royce

• Country: United Kingdom
• Arms sales: $4.4 billion
• Total sales: $19.3 billion
• Profit: $5.3 billion
• Employees: 50,000

Rolls-Royce Holdings is separate from Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the luxury automobile manufacturer, having sold the Rolls-Royce brand name and logo to German group BMW in 1998. While Rolls-Royce Holdings sold $4.4 billion worth of military products and services in 2017 – making it the 17th largest defense contractor in the world – weapons manufacturing accounts for a relatively small share of the company's total revenue. Today, the largest share Rolls-Royce Holdings' revenue comes from civil aerospace, followed by power systems, defense aerospace, marine, and nuclear technology.

Some of Rolls-Royce's major defense contracts in 2017 included renewals with the U.S. Department of Defense for supporting approximately 3,000 engines on aircraft such as the C-130 Hercules and T-45 Goshawk, and engine orders from the Japanese Self-Defense Force for its new V-22 Osprey fleet.

16. Honeywell International

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $4.5 billion
• Total sales: $40.5 billion
• Profit: $1.7 billion
• Employees: 114,000

New Jersey-based Honeywell International sells its software and consulting services in a range of industries, including health care, oil and gas, manufacturing, and industrials. In addition, defense contracts accounted for about 11 percent of the company's 2017 revenue. For decades, Honeywell has had a contract with the U.S. Army to develop longer range weapons systems, operating systems for unmanned aerial vehicles, and missile navigation systems. The company has also manufactured over 6,000 T55 engines, which the Army uses in its iconic heavy-lift Chinook helicopter. The company has an ongoing partnership with the Army for maintaining and overhauling the engines.

Honeywell has defense contracts with foreign governments as well, inking a deal with the U.K. in 2016 to install navigation systems in the British Army's AJAX armored fighting vehicles.

15. United Shipbuilding Corp.

• Country: Russia
• Arms sales: $5.0 billion
• Total sales: $5.6 billion
• Profit: $101.0 million
• Employees: 80,000

The United Shipbuilding Corporation was established in March 2007 in accordance with a decree from Russian President Vladimir Putin. The state-owned defense contractor sold $5.0 billion worth of arms in 2017, the third most of any Russian company and among the most of any worldwide. Arms sales accounted for 89 percent of USC's total revenue for the year.

In July 2014, USC was added to a list of companies banned from doing business in the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The sanctions were imposed in response to Russia's continued support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.

14. United Aircraft Corp.

• Country: Russia
• Arms sales: $6.4 billion
• Total sales: $7.7 billion
• Profit: $325.3 million
• Employees: 98,000

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has been transitioning to a privatized economy. The defense industry, however, remains almost entirely state-owned. The United Aircraft Corporation was established by decree of Russian President Vladimir Putin in early 2006. While the company manufactures civil and special purpose aircraft, over 80 percent of its $7.7 billion in revenue in 2017 came from arms sales. UAC's military aircraft include MiG, Sukhoi, and Yak fighter jets. Though based in Russia, UAC has partners in India and Italy.

13. Huntington Ingalls Industries

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $6.5 billion
• Total sales: $7.4 billion
• Profit: $479.0 million
• Employees: 38,000

Shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries of Newport News, Virginia, is the sole manufacturer of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the United States and is responsible for 70 percent of the U.S. Navy's current marine fleet. According to SIPRI, HII brought in $6.5 billion in defense revenue in 2017, the eighth most of any U.S. company and 13th most worldwide. Some of the major contracts awarded to HII in 2017 included upgrades the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer Jack H. Lucas, development on the U.S. Navy's new Columbia-class submarines, and providing nuclear waste cleanup services at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

In addition to manufacturing nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines, surface combatants, amphibious assault and transport vehicles, and Coast Guard Cutters, HII offers technical solutions services in such fields as information technology and oil and gas engineering. Non-defense related activities accounted for 13 percent of HII revenue in 2017.

12. L-3 Technologies

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $7.8 billion
• Total sales: $9.8 billion
• Profit: $693.0 million
• Employees: 31,000

L-3 Communications changed its name to L-3 Technologies on Dec. 31, 2016. The $7.8 billion in arms sales the company made in 2017, according to SIPRI estimates, was effectively unchanged from the previous year. The company's operations include intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance products and services in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. The company's communication technology is integrated to the Predator and Global Hawk drones and is used in U.S. Army communication infrastructure. L-3 also designs power distribution systems and communication technology used by the U.S. Navy's Virginia-class submarine.

in 2017, contracts with foreign governments totaled $1.4 billion in sales, a fraction of the $6.3 billion in contracts L-3 had with the Department of Defense.

11. United Technologies Corp.

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $7.8 billion
• Total sales: $59.8 billion
• Profit: $4.9 billion
• Employees: 240,000

Largely through its subsidiary brands Collins Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney, United Technologies is one of the largest defense contractors in the world. Collins Aerospace designs and sells advanced systems for military helicopters, including rescue hoists, autopilot systems, and laser guided weapon warning systems. Pratt & Whitney designs and manufactures engines currently in use by 34 militaries worldwide. In the U.S. military, the F-22 Raptor, F-16, and F-15 fighter jets, as well as the C-17 Globemaster III, are just a few of examples of military aircraft powered by Pratt & Whitney engines.

In late 2018, United Technologies announced plans to split into three independent companies. The company's defense division will remain under the United Technologies name, while the Otis Elevator Company and Carrier HVAC company will break off as independent entities. 

10. Almaz-Antey

• Country: Russia
• Arms sales: $8.6 billion
• Total sales: $9.1 billion
• Profit: $422.6 million
• Employees: 129,000

Established in 2002 under the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Almaz-Antey is the largest known state-owned defense contractor, as measured by revenue, in the world. Almaz-Antey primarily manufactures surface-to-air missile systems for use by the Russian military. Due to increasing domestic and foreign demand, Almaz-Antey's arm sales rose 17 percent from 2016 to 2017, one of the largest increases of any defense company. The Moscow-based contractor had $8.6 billion in arms sales in 2017, according to SIPRI. This was the most of any Russian company and the 10th most worldwide – the highest position occupied by a Russian company since SIPRI began tracking international arms sales.

In July 2014, Almaz-Antey was added to a list of companies banned from doing business with the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. The sanctions were imposed against the company for its involvement in Russia's continued support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and occupation of Crimea.

9. Leonardo

• Country: Italy
• Arms sales: $8.9 billion
• Total sales: $13.0 billion
• Profit: $310.3 million
• Employees: 45,134

Named after the Tuscany-born Renaissance man, Leonardo is the only Italian company to rank among the world's largest defense contractors. The company has products and services in multiple branches of defense, including land and naval electronics, information systems, helicopters, jet aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Leonardo also manufactures weapons systems, torpedoes, and ammunition for naval and land artillery. Leonardo products and services are used in 150 countries. After Italy, the company's largest customers are the U.K., U.S., and Poland.

8. Thales

• Country: France
• Arms sales: $9.0 billion
• Total sales: $17.8 billion
• Profit: $931.1 million
• Employees: 65,000

This Paris-based contractor, which offers products and services in land, air, sea, and cyber defense, went from the world's ninth largest defense contractor in 2016 to eighth largest in 2017 after its total arms sales jumped 7 percent from $8.4 billion to $9.0 billion. Late last year, the company announced a deal with the French Navy to install seven new radar systems on frigates for missile fire control. When released, 2018's figures may show even more growth for the company. As of the first quarter of 2018, the value of all orders increased 34 percent from the first quarter of 2017.

7. Airbus Group

• Country: Trans-European
• Arms sales: $11.3 billion
• Total sales: $75.2 billion
• Profit: $3.3 billion
• Employees: 133,671

Though the company's primary business is in commercial and private aircraft, Airbus is the second largest defense contractor in Europe. Airbus has taken orders for over 600 of its Eurofighter Typhoon jet from a number of countries, including Austria, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar. The company has also taken hundreds of orders for its A400M and C295 transport aircraft. Airbus makes secure communication devices for a client list that includes NATO and the French Navy. Like many other companies on this list, Airbus is involved in cybersecurity and has worked with defense departments of countries across Europe to protect vulnerable systems from cyber threats.

6. General Dynamics Corp.

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $19.5 billion
• Total sales: $31.0 billion
• Profit: $2.9 billion
• Employees: 105,600

Incorporated in 1952, General Dynamics has sold a wide range of armaments, including missiles, warships, submarines, and rockets to all branches of the U.S. military since its beginning. In 2017, the Falls Church, Virginia, contractor sold $19.5 billion worth of arms, the fifth most of any U.S. company and the sixth most of any company worldwide. In 2017, the company received a $5.1 billion contract to design and develop a prototype of the Columbia-class submarine and delivered the latest iteration of the Abrams tank to the U.S. Army. GD is also the company behind the new Arleigh Burke-class Destroyer and Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer, developed and built at its plant in Bath, Maine. Like a number of other companies on this list, GD also provides communications, IT, and cyber security products and services.

5. Northrop Grumman Corp.

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $22.4 billion
• Total sales: $25.8 billion
• Profit: $2.0 billion
• Employees: 85,000

The company now known as Northrop Grumman was founded in Hawthorne, California, in 1939. The company built its first aircraft, the N-3PB patrol bomber, for the Norwegian Air Force in 1940, and it has since expanded into four primary business sectors: aerospace systems, innovation systems, mission systems, and technology services. Northrop Grumman pioneered the Flying Wing concept – an aircraft with no tail or definitive fuselage in which most of the crew, payload, and equipment is situated in the main wing structure – and incorporated the technology in its B-2 stealth bomber line.

According to SIPRI, Northrop Grumman made $22.4 billion in arms sales in 2017, the fourth most of any company in the United States and the fifth most of any company worldwide. Some of the major contracts won by Northrop Grumman in 2017 include a $750 million deal to provide maintenance services for the U.S. Army's Special Electronic Mission Aircraft fleet and a $265 million deal to provide maintenance and logistics support for the U.S. Air Force's Battlefield Airborne Communications Node system.

4. BAE Systems

• Country: United Kingdom
• Arms sales: $22.9 billion
• Total sales: $23.5 billion
• Profit: $1.1 billion
• Employees: 83,200

BAE Systems is the largest defense contractor based in the United Kingdom, and the fourth largest in the world. The company builds ground combat vehicles – including the Challenger 2, the main battle tank for both the British Army and Royal Army of Oman – for different situations and clients. The company is also in the early years of a decade-long contract with the U.K.'s Royal Air Force to support its fleet of Typhoon fighter jets, and it is assisting in the continued development of the F-35 fighter jet in a partnership with U.S. companies Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.

While many other companies on this list also have a lucrative deals with private and commercial clients, 98 percent of BAE Systems' 2017 revenue came from arms deals.

3. Raytheon

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $23.9 billion
• Total sales: $25.3 billion
• Profit: $2.0 billion
• Employees: 67,000

The third largest defense contractor in the world, Raytheon is a missile defense and long-range precision weapons maker headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Through customers in over 80 countries, the company reported $25.3 billion in revenue in 2017, 94 percent of which came from arms sales and defense contracts. The United States and many of its allies rely on the company's radars and ballistic missile interceptors as part of their defense strategy. Raytheon also makes a wide range of air-to-surface, surface-to-air, air-to-air, and surface-to-surface precision guided missiles, in addition to bombs, torpedoes, and tactical small-arms sights.

2. Boeing

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $26.9 billion
• Total sales: $93.4 billion
• Profit: $8.2 billion
• Employees: 153,000

Boeing made $26.9 billion in arms sales in 2017, according to SIPRI, the second most of any company worldwide. Defense contracts accounted for 29 percent of Boeing's revenue, a far smaller share than most companies among world's 10 largest military contractors. A bulk of Boeing's revenue comes from commercial aircraft such as the 737, 747, 767, 777, and 787 families. In 2017, Boeing completed 763 commercial aircraft deliveries – an industry record – and won over 900 orders to grow its order backlog to a total of 5,864 airplanes.

Boeing won in 2017 the first international order, from Japan, of a KC-46 aerial refueling aircraft, whose design is based on the commercial 767 airplane. Other major defense contracts and continuations of previous contracts won by Boeing in 2017 include the manufacturing of 27 P-8 Poseidon aircraft, 36 advanced F-15 fighters, and 268 Apache helicopters.

1. Lockheed Martin Corp.

• Country: United States
• Arms sales: $44.9 billion
• Total sales: $51.0 billion
• Profit: $2.0 billion
• Employees: 105,000

Lockheed Martin is by far the largest defense contractor in the world. In 2017, the Bethesda, Maryland, company made $44.9 billion in arms and defense contracts, nearly twice the amount of arms sales at Boeing, the second largest defense contractor. The company makes a wide range of military aircraft, including the F-16, F-22, and F-35 fighter jets, as well as sonar technologies, ships, missile defense systems, and missiles used by the Navy. More than $35 billion of Lockheed Martin's arm sales in 2017 came from the U.S. government, more than the entire budget of the Internal Revenue Service and Environmental Protection Agency combined.

Net sales are expected to have climbed even higher in fiscal 2018. In late 2018, the company was awarded a $22.7 billion contract for 106 F-35 fighter jets for the U.S. military and another 89 for ally nations.

24/7 Wall Street is a USA TODAY content partner offering financial news and commentary. Its content is produced independently of USA TODAY.

NOT 2023 BUT CURRENT 2020 MILITARY SPENDING 

RIP
Actor, singer, 'The Gambler': Kenny Rogers dies at 81

By KRISTIN M. HALL, Associated Press

Actor-singer Kenny Rogers, the smooth, Grammy-winning balladeer who spanned jazz, folk, country and pop with such hits as “Lucille,” “Lady” and “Islands in the Stream” and embraced his persona as “The Gambler” on record and on TV died Friday night. He was 81.

© Provided by Associated Press FILE - In this Oct. 24, 2017 file photo, Kenny Rogers poses with his star on the Music City Walk of Fame in Nashville, Tenn. Actor-singer Kenny Rogers, the smooth, Grammy-winning balladeer who spanned jazz, folk, country and pop with such hits as “Lucille,” “Lady” and “Islands in the Stream” and embraced his persona as “The Gambler” on record and on TV died Friday night, March 20, 2020. He was 81. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

He died at home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, representative Keith Hagan told The Associated Press. He was under hospice care and died of natural causes, Hagan said.

The Houston-born performer with the husky voice and silver beard sold tens of millions of records, won three Grammys and was the star of TV movies based on “The Gambler” and other songs, making him a superstar in the ‘70s and ’80s. Rogers thrived for some 60 years before retired from touring in 2017 at age 79. Despite his crossover success, he always preferred to be thought of as a country singer.

“You either do what everyone else is doing and you do it better, or you do what no one else is doing and you don’t invite comparison,” Rogers told The Associated Press in 2015. “And I chose that way because I could never be better than Johnny Cash or Willie or Waylon at what they did. So I found something that I could do that didn’t invite comparison to them. And I think people thought it was my desire to change country music. But that was never my issue.”

A true rags-to-riches story, Rogers was raised in public housing in Houston Heights with seven siblings. As a 20-year-old, he had a gold single called “That Crazy Feeling,” under the name Kenneth Rogers, but when that early success stalled, he joined a jazz group, the Bobby Doyle Trio, as a standup bass player.

But his breakthrough came when he was asked to join the New Christy Minstrels, a folk group, in 1966. The band reformed as First Edition and scored a pop hit with the psychedelic song, “Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In).” Rogers and First Edition mixed country-rock and folk on songs like “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town,” a story of a Vietnam veteran begging his girlfriend to stay.

After the group broke up in 1974, Rogers started his solo career and found a big hit with the sad country ballad “Lucille,” in 1977, which crossed over to the pop charts and earned Rogers his first Grammy. Suddenly the star, Rogers added hit after hit for more than a decade.

“The Gambler,” the Grammy-winning story song penned by Don Schlitz, came out in 1978 and became his signature song with a signature refrain: “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ’em.” The song spawned a hit TV movie of the same name and several more sequels featuring Rogers as professional gambler Brady Hawkes, and led to a lengthy side career for Rogers as a TV actor and host of several TV specials.

Other hits included “You Decorated My Life,” “Every Time Two Fools Collide” with Dottie West, “Don’t Fall In Love with a Dreamer” with Kim Carnes, and “Coward of the County.” One of his biggest successes was “Lady,” written by Lionel Richie, a chart topper for six weeks straight in 1980. Richie said in a 2017 interview with the AP that he often didn’t finish songs until he had already pitched them, which was the case for “Lady.”

“In the beginning, the song was called, ‘Baby,'” Richie said. “And because when I first sat with him, for the first 30 minutes, all he talked about was he just got married to a real lady. A country guy like him is married to a lady. So, he said, ‘By the way, what’s the name of the song?’” Richie replies: “Lady.”

Over the years, Rogers worked often with female duet partners, most memorably, Dolly Parton. The two were paired at the suggestion of the Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb, who wrote “Islands in the Stream.”

“Barry was producing an album on me and he gave me this song,” Rogers told the AP in 2017. “And I went and learned it and went into the studio and sang it for four days. And I finally looked at him and said, ‘Barry, I don’t even like this song anymore.’ And he said, ‘You know what we need? We need Dolly Parton.’ I thought, ‘Man, that guy is a visionary.’”

Coincidentally, Parton was actually in the same recording studio in Los Angeles when the idea came up.

“From the moment she marched into that room, that song never sounded the same,” Rogers said. “It took on a whole new spirit.”

The two singers toured together, including in Australia and New Zealand in 1984 and 1987, and were featured in a HBO concert special. Over the years the two would continue to record together, including their last duet, “You Can’t Make Old Friends,” which was released in 2013. Parton reprised “Islands in the Stream” with Rogers during his all-star retirement concert held in Nashville in October 2017.

Rogers invested his time and money in a lot of other endeavors over his career, including a passion for photography that led to several books, as well as an autobiography, “Making It With Music.” He had a chain of restaurants called “Kenny Rogers Roasters,” and was a partner behind a riverboat in Branson, Missouri. He was also involved in numerous charitable causes, among them the Red Cross and MusiCares, and was part of the all-star “We are the World” recording for famine relief.

By the '90s, his ability to chart hits had waned, although he still remained a popular live entertainer with regular touring. Still he was an inventive businessman and never stopped trying to find his way back onto the charts.

At the age of 61, Rogers had a brief comeback on the country charts in 2000 with a hit song “Buy Me A Rose,” thanks to his other favorite medium, television. Producers of the series “Touched By An Angel” wanted him to appear in an episode, and one of his managers suggested the episode be based on his latest single. That cross-promotional event earned him his first No. 1 country song in 13 years.

Rogers' family is planning a private service “out of concern for the national COVID-19 emergency,” a statement posted early Saturday read. A public memorial will be held at a later date.

Coronavirus and Poverty: A Mother Skips Meals So Her Children Can Eat


Manny Fernandez
19 hrs ago








Summer Mossbarger’s children say grace before eating dinner.

7 SLIDES © Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times


BRENHAM, Texas — With her six hungry children in the car, Summer Mossbarger was one of the first in line for lunch at the drive-through. Not at a fast-food restaurant, but outside Alton Elementary School.

Alton was closed — all the public schools in Brenham, a rural Texas town of 17,000 about 90 miles east of Austin, have shut for the coronavirus — but one vital piece of the school day lived on: free lunch. Ms. Mossbarger rolled down the window of her used, 15-year-old S.U.V. as school employees handed her six Styrofoam containers.

Even as the carnival aroma of mini corn dogs filled the vehicle on the drive back home, and even as the children sat on the porch and ate from their flipped-open containers with the family dogs running around, Ms. Mossbarger ate nothing.

She skipped breakfast and lunch, taking her first bite of food — food-pantry fried chicken — at about 5:30 p.m. All she consumed from the time she awoke that morning until she ate dinner were sips from a cherry Dr Pepper.

Money was tight. Ms. Mossbarger, 33, a disabled Army veteran, does not work. Her husband’s job as a carpenter has slowed in recent days and gotten more unpredictable as people cancel or delay residential construction jobs. She had plenty of worries — paying the $1,000 rent was at the top of the list — but lunch for her children was not one of them.

“If we didn’t have this, I probably would have a mental breakdown with stress,” she said of the free meals at Alton. “I’m not going to let my kids go hungry. If I have to just eat once a day, that’s what I have to do.”

The power of the coronavirus to produce upheaval in people’s lives depends in part on income. Americans with fewer financial resources have fewer options as they navigate the new normal of school closings, shuttered businesses and shelter-in-place orders.

Poverty experts said that in times of natural disasters and large-scale emergencies, low-income families who are already living on tight budgets with overdue bills, unstable housing, poor health care and unsteady employment often bear the brunt of the pain.

“They tend to be the first hit when things go wrong and then also to take the longest time to recover,” said H. Luke Shaefer, a professor of social work and public policy at the University of Michigan and the faculty director of its Poverty Solutions initiative.

Ms. Mossbarger’s self-imposed starvation was one quiet, anonymous moment amid a national crisis, and one sign of the depth of the virus’s impact on the working poor.

The Brenham Independent School District’s free-lunch drive-through was one of many underway this week in Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Oregon and other states attempting to ensure that schoolchildren continue to receive free meals Monday through Friday during weekslong virus-related closures. Educators and school nutritionists said that for some impoverished children, the free breakfast and free lunch at school are the only substantial meals they will eat in a day.

Albuquerque Public Schools, New Mexico’s largest district, where about 69 percent of students receive free or reduced-price meals, began passing out free breakfasts and lunches at dozens of its schools starting Monday. In California, the Elk Grove school system in Sacramento has since last week provided nearly 11,000 students with two daily meals, lunch and tomorrow’s breakfast.

In Brenham, where 60 percent of the 5,000 public-school students qualify for free or low-cost meals, the school district handed out more than 1,000 lunches and more than 800 breakfasts to children over the program’s first three days this week.

Brenham is a working-class town, known in Texas as the home of Blue Bell ice cream. Cattle and horses graze in the pastures that line the roads and highways, and the cowboys don’t bother to take off their hats when they climb into their trucks. The town is the uncredited backdrop of countless postcards, posters and Instagram accounts — the bluebonnets are bright and ubiquitous, and even color the grassy medians. But beneath its rustic beauty and ice-cream-company charm lies financial hardship. Brenham has a median household income of roughly $44,000, and a poverty rate of 18.6 percent.

On Tuesday, the long, tranquil driveway outside Alton Elementary was the coronavirus equivalent of an old-fashioned soup line, roughly 10 cars deep. District employees who volunteered to pass out meals recognized some of the drivers — they worked for the district, too, and had brought their children to get a free lunch.

The nation’s free or reduced-price lunch program has long been used as an indicator of a community’s poverty level, but there was no sign of embarrassment, resentment or shame in the drive-through line. Some drivers hollered a loud thank you to the volunteers as they pulled away, and most didn’t even bother to ask what was inside the lunch containers: mini corn dogs, baked beans, baby carrots, an orange. People seemed more concerned with social distancing than any social stigma. One woman kept her driver-side window rolled up as she interacted with the volunteers, to avoid having them get too close to her.

They pulled up in beat-up cars with rattling engines, newly washed trucks, sleek Cadillacs, old minivans. They were white, black, Hispanic. Mothers were behind the wheel of most of the vehicles, but there were a few fathers, too, and high-school students with their younger siblings inside. The only requirement was that children under 18 had to be inside the vehicle to receive the meal, but no one was asked to prove the children attended a district school.

For many of the families, the free meals were not the difference between their children eating or not eating. Instead, they said they viewed it as a way to stretch their budgets a little longer, so that the money they would have spent on that day’s lunch could instead go to tomorrow’s dinner or next week’s bill. Word had spread while families idled in line that the Texas governor was activating the National Guard, that some of the shelves at a local grocery store were still barren. The drive-through at Alton was one small bright spot at an anxious time, even though their county had no confirmed cases of coronavirus.

Gabbie Salazar, 28, made two trips to the drive-through, each time with different sets of nieces, nephews and cousins in her car. She knows Alton well: She manages the school cafeteria. She is a single mother who works two jobs, at the school and at a day care, and makes a total of about $2,000 a month, with a rent of about $800 monthly.

“Save a little money, you know?” Ms. Salazar said of the free meals. “I’m a single mom. I only have to do one meal at night, so that helps a lot.”

Before Ms. Mossbarger pulled up in the drive-through line on Tuesday, she took her six children to the HEB grocery store. She went to the aisle for paper towels and toilet paper, but there was nothing left — the shelves were empty, and customers were crowding around to grab whatever they could. She gathered the children, left the cart in the middle of the aisle and walked out, frustrated that she had wasted gas in her Chevrolet Suburban.

“I couldn’t deal with it,” she said of the grocery store. “It stresses me out. Because me as a mother, it makes me feel like I’m not going to be able to provide for my kids.”

Her husband, Jordan Spahn, 47, said they do not have the luxury of stockpiling. When he found out he didn’t have any carpentry jobs on Tuesday — usually, he makes about $180 daily — he worked on a friend’s patio-furniture set to make a few extra dollars.

“We live check to check,” Mr. Spahn said. “We’ve seen those that have more than others be the first ones to get everything they could get their hands on. It shows a little bit of the state of society these days. What if it gets 20 times worse next week, and now we don’t have nothing to get?”

The family moved into a rental home a few weeks ago. Empty fields sprinkled with bluebonnets gave the children space to run around, ride their bicycles and swing from the tire hooked to a tree branch and from the hammock on the porch. Ms. Mossbarger thinks of her military training when she thinks about mealtime for her four boys and two girls — Tristan Spahn, 5; Layla Ray, 6; Stasy Spahn, 7; Hayden Brown, 9; Gavin Brown, 9; and Joseph Brown, 10. “I was a cook in the military, so I’m used to feeding the masses,” she said.

Ms. Mossbarger was raised in Brenham. Years ago, her father was one of her husband’s high school teachers. They laugh about it now and said that’s just how things work in a small town. She wears her devotion to her children on her skin. The tattoo of the Teddy bear on her arm was for 10-year-old Joseph, the initials on her chest for six-year-old Layla, who is named for the Eric Clapton song.

The spread of the virus, for Ms. Mossbarger and Mr. Spahn, was one struggle in a lifetime of them. Ms. Mossbarger said that years ago, there was a time when she was homeless. Two of Mr. Spahn’s older sons — Matthew, 21, and Jonah, 24 — were both struck by vehicles in separate accidents and killed in the past year and a half. Their pictures and track jerseys cover the walls of the living room.

“We’ve been through some hard times in these past 16, 17 months,” Mr. Spahn said. “We’ve had heartache, heartbreak and now with this coming on, it’s kind of like, all right, bring it.”

Dinner, like lunch, was served on Styrofoam.

The entire meal was provided by Ms. Mossbarger’s sister-in-law and by a food-distribution nonprofit, Bread Partners of Washington County. The children ate leftover spaghetti, canned vegetables, microwave biscuits and Goldfish crackers. Ms. Mossbarger and her husband ate fried chicken with rice and the canned vegetables. The children said grace before their parents even sat down.

Ms. Mossbarger hardly mentioned it, but she was starving. “I honestly wasn’t going to eat, but Jordan was like, ‘You got to eat something,’” she said.

The next morning, she again skipped breakfast and was sipping a Monster Energy drink. She was tired and her head hurt.

“I feel it,” she said.

Her husband’s job was called off yet again, heightening her financial concerns about the coming days and weeks. “I’m constantly thinking what’s the next move going to be,” Ms. Mossbarger said. “Basically, if he’s not working, I’m going to eat as little as possible because I know that’s less food in my kids’ mouths.”

Soon, it was almost 11 a.m. She packed the children into the Suburban. She was headed again to the drive-through at Alton.

Simon Romero contributed reporting from Albuquerque, N.M.