American Hunger- 11.9% Are "Food Insecure" & 14.7% Increase in one year

[Clara T]

American hunger: Are scientists lying?
by Julian Edney

http://www.opednews.com

I gambled $31.50 on the new USDA report ERS-ERR-11, not sure if I would understand. Government reports are often clogged with asphyxiated prose and gravel-gray pages of footnoted tables. But mercifully “Household Food Security in the United States 2004” is a readable booklet. Its main point is clear: hunger in America is rising.

The basics: the Fed has surveyed 60,000 American families. It found 88.1% to be “food secure” – they don’t worry about getting food. But 11.9% are “food insecure” – sometimes they don’t know if they can afford food, but by doing without medications or delaying the rent they avoid hunger. That category is 13.5 million households. Finally 3.9%, or 4.4 million American households, sometimes go hungry for lack of money.

The statistics also show a 14.7% increase in hunger in one year – as we enter another year of recovery from the recession.

<snip>

Sachs is promoting his plans for the abolition of chronic hunger in the rest of the world in ten years. Meanwhile, in the most technological, scientific, transparent and wealthy country in the world, the United States, by our own statistics, homelessness is spreading, and poverty is mounting year to year. And hunger is growing like gangbusters.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_julian_e_051209_american_hunger_3a_are.htm

[Kindigger]

1. That was a question in the Zogby survey this week

"Have you or anyone in your household been without food for 24 hours."

[Clara T]

2. Imagine how tragically sad

it must be for a parent to see their children crying from hunger.