A new study released by the US Department of Agriculture has revealed a shocking statistic: 50 million Americans, including nine million children, will go to bed tonight having not had enough to eat. This equates to 15% of the population, or one in six citizens, which is roughly the combined population of California and Illinois.
The study also found that 17.9 million households in the US did not have enough food to sustain active and healthy lives for all members of the family over the course of the year. This is a grim reminder that, 45 years after the CBS Reports broadcast of ‘Hunger in America’, the country is still facing the same issues.
The effects of hunger are far-reaching. Homelessness and hunger are often intertwined, and many homeless people have experienced hunger at some point. This is something I can attest to, having gone to bed with an empty stomach on more occasions than I care to remember. Hunger can lead to lethargy, listlessness and an inability to focus, which can have a lasting impact on children’s school performance.
The US is facing a hunger and homelessness crisis of a magnitude that is more commonly associated with third world nations.
Bread Lines
The impact of the recession continues to be felt in the US, with a dramatic increase in the number of people turning to food banks, soup kitchens and bread lines for assistance. According to a report by McClatchy newspapers, food stamp enrollment has nearly doubled since 2007, to 46.4-million people in the first eight months of 2012. Despite this, Republicans, led by GOP vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan, are pushing for massive cuts in food stamp program funding.
Jim Weill, president of the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit anti-hunger group, said: “It’s one thing to say that wages are flat. But it’s something else to say that people aren’t getting enough to eat.” Tommy Grant, who manages one of the food banks, noted that demand for assistance keeps increasing, but donations remain flat.
Matt Knott, interim president of Feeding America, the nation’s largest anti-hunger organization, warned: “Now is not the time to use federal nutrition programs as a trading chip to balance the budget.” Terry Dempsey, an anti-hunger activist in New York, expressed concern that Republican plans to change the food stamp program to a block grant to states could mean that the money would not be used to feed the hungry.
Media Inattention
The issue of hunger, homelessness, and poverty has largely been ignored by the mainstream media, even before the elections brought it to the forefront. This was not always the case, however; in 1985, John Chancellor reported on the NBC Evening News that 25 million Americans were facing hunger, and expressed his shock and dismay at the state of the nation. Joel Berg’s 2008 book, All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America, revealed that over a 37 year period, only 10 network news stories were devoted to hunger in America. This is in stark contrast to the disproportionate amount of coverage given to the Kardashian family, none of whom are going hungry. With the GOP and its presidential nominee committed to cutting food stamps and other services for the poor, and the news media’s indifference to the issue, the problem is likely to become even more severe.
