Record numbers go hungry in the US

[Pastor Dale Morgan]

*Perilous Times

Record numbers go hungry in the US*

Government report shows 50 million people unable to put food on the
table at some point last year


* Chris McGreal in Washington
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 November 2009 18.25 GMT

National Academy of Science Report Shows US Poverty Rate To Be 15.8 Percent

One in six of the population could not afford to buy sufficient food to
stay healthy at some point last year. Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

More than a million children regularly go to bed hungry in the US,
according to a government report that shows a startling increase in the
number of families struggling to put food on the table.

President Barack Obama, who pledged to eradicate childhood hunger, has
described as "unsettling" the agriculture department survey, which says
50 million people in the US – one in six of the population – were unable
to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy at some point last
year, in large part because of escalating unemployment or poorly paid
jobs. That is a rise of more than one-third on the year before and the
highest number since the survey began in 1995.

The agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, said: "These numbers are a
wake-up call … for us to get very serious about food security and
hunger, about nutrition and food safety in this country."

Vilsack said he expected the numbers to worsen when the survey for this
year is released in 2010.

The report said 6.7 million people were defined as having "very low food
security" because they regularly lacked sufficient to eat. Among them,
96% reported that the food they bought did not last until they had money
to buy more. Nearly all said they could not afford to eat balanced
meals. Although few reported that this was a permanent situation
throughout the year, 88% said it had occurred in three or more months.

Nearly half reported losing weight because they did not have enough
money to buy food.

The number of children living in households where there were shortages
of food at times rose by nearly one-third to 17 million. The report says
that most parents who did not get enough to eat ensured their offspring
received sufficient food but that more than 1 million children still
suffered outright hunger.

The worst affected states are in the south with Mississippi having the
largest proportion of its population enduring shortages of food followed
by Texas and Arkansas. More than half of those affected are minorities,
principally black people and Hispanics.

Millions more Americans do not go hungry only because they are so poor
they receive government food stamps or rely on handouts from food banks
such as Feeding America. In some states, such as West Virginia, one in
six of the population is on food stamps.

Vicki Escarra, head of Feeding America which runs 200 food banks across
the country feeding 25 million people, described the report as
"alarming" and noted that the situation is continuing to deteriorate.

"Although these new numbers are staggering, it should be noted that
these numbers reflect the state of the nation one year ago, in 2008.
Since then the economy has significantly weakened, and there are likely
many more people struggling with hunger than this report states," she said.

Feeding America said there had been a "dramatic increase" in requests
for emergency food assistance from food banks across the US. It said
that food banks in some parts of the country were requesting more than a
50% increase in assistance than over a year ago.

"Our network food banks are calling us every day, telling us that demand
for emergency food is higher than it has ever been in our history," said
Escarra.

The principal cause is unemployment, which has risen past 10%, as well
as increasing numbers of people who have had their hours cut back or
been forced in to minimum wage jobs. Even before the recent economic
collapse many working people were struggling to meet rising living
costs, such as those who drive long distances to their jobs in rural
states who were hit by the rising cost of fuel.

Feeding America said 40%of the people it helps live in families with at
least one working adult.

Charities say that many of those who fall into financial difficulties
take years to get back on their feet and so the problem is likely to
persist for years.

The report comes as the United Nations holds a summit in Rome on food
security. The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, told the summit that a
child dies of hunger every five seconds somewhere in the world and that
more than 1 billion live with hunger.