Evans Politics

One in six Americans felt pangs of hunger in ‘08, © The Washington Post, November 17, 2009, by Amy Goldstein, excerpt quoted verbtim:

The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat.

At a time when rising poverty, widespread unemployment and other effects of the recession have been well documented, the report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides the government’s first detailed portrait of the toll that the faltering economy has taken on Americans’ access to food.

The magnitude of the increase in food shortages — and, in some cases, outright hunger — identified in the report startled even the nation’s leading anti-poverty advocates, who have grown accustomed to longer lines lately at food banks and soup kitchens. The findings also intensify pressure on the White House to fulfill a pledge to stamp out childhood hunger made by President Obama, who called the report “unsettling.”

The data show that dependable access to adequate food has especially deteriorated among families with children. In 2008, nearly 17 million children, or 22.5 percent, lived in households in which food at times was scarce — 4 million children more than the year before. And the number of youngsters who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.

Among Americans of all ages, more than 16 percent — or 49 million people — sometimes ran short of nutritious food, compared with about 12 percent the year before. The deterioration in access to food during 2008 among both children and adults far eclipses that of any other single year in the report’s history.

Read the U.S.D.A. Report on Household Food Security, 2008, hosted here on Evans Politics. More than 49 million Americans are now at risk of hunger.

See Hunger in U.S. at a 14-Year High, The New York Times, November 16, 2009, by Jason DeParle.

See Study: Half of Our Kids Are on Food Stamps, CBS News, November 3, 2009, © by Associated Press: For black children the astounding percentage on food stamps is 90 percent.

Visit the Food Research and Action Center, an excellent informational resource.

	Donate now to Feeding America, and be part of an effort that provides a feast of 9 million meals.

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BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Hunger in America | PBS

A Still Very Relevant Classic from October, 2008