Hunger in America: Shame of a Nation
By Max J. Castro
What happens when a brutal recession strikes a nation that has been busy shredding its socioeconomic safety net for a quarter century? The result is an enormous toll of human misery and deprivation. That is what is happening in the United States today.
To be sure, capitalism being a global system, the economic downturn is hitting every nation on the planet. But all other advanced countries have sturdier safety nets that cushion the blows coming from the economy. Three decades of class warfare against the poor and middle class have left a very thin cushion in the United States. Here, the result of the Great Recession has been skyrocketing poverty, bankruptcies, foreclosures, homelessness, and a general feeling of anxiety and insecurity.
But, as a just published report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) makes clear, the economic crisis has brought an even more dire consequence: a sharp rise in hunger in the United States.
It is an embarrassment that there is widespread hunger in such a rich country — even in good times. This is not a good time; the figures on hunger reflect that with a vengeance. Last year the rate of hunger rose faster than any time since 1995 when the USDA began to compile the data. Nearly 50 million people in this country suffered from lack of food during some or all of 2008. In 2007, 11.1 percent of American households experienced food insecurity, in effect difficulty in obtaining sufficient food. In 2008, the percentage shot up to 14.6 percent. This means that in a single year inadequate access to food increased by almost a third.
The most vulnerable fared worse than the population as a whole. Among households with children, 22.5 percent suffered from hunger. The number of children living in food insecure households rose by 13 to 17 million between 2007 and 2008 alone.
The states with the highest prevalence of food insecurity are Mississippi (17.4 percent), Texas (16.3 percent), and Arkansas (15.9 percent). The lowest rates were recorded in North Dakota (6.9 percent), Massachusetts (8.3 percent), and New Hampshire (8.3 percent).
Tom Vilsack, the Secretary of Agriculture attributed the problem to unemployment. Since the data for this report covers 2008 and unemployment has surged in 2009, the figures in the next report are likely to be even more appalling.
It is imperative that the United States, a major exporter of food, make eliminating hunger here a top priority. This would require not only a more effective way of delivering food assistance by expanding the food stamp program, but especially more vigorous efforts to stimulate the economy and to directly create employment through public works programs.
As we enter the holiday season, it is a disgrace that in this bountiful nation, there exists a Third World of 50 million people who struggle to get enough to eat. This administration, which unlike the preceding one is sensitive to the problem and the role that government can play in combating it, can seriously alleviate the shame of hunger in this country by devoting to it just a small fraction of the money it spent to bail out Wall Street and Detroit not to mention the trillions of dollars that will be the final cost of waging two wars.
