What Hunger Numbers Say About Our Economic Health
Posted by Billy Shore on Wednesday, September 7, 2011
According to new numbers released this morning by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 14.5 percent - or 17.2 million American households - were unable to consistently put food on their tables for their families last year. This year’s rate was virtually unchanged from last year, continuing the prevalence of the highest food insecurity numbers seen in the 16 years that the government has been keeping track.
The USDA report, Household Food Security in the United States in 2010, also shows that 16.2 million children, one out of every five, lived in households that struggled to afford food, skipped meals or ate inadequate diets due to a lack of money and resources.
Also this week, President Obama will address a joint session of Congress tomorrow to talk about jobs. The press coverage will be unlikely to draw any connection between the two events, but it is essential for us to understand, act, and speak out on just how intimately these two issues are tied together.
Getting Americans back to work is a central ingredient to the long-term success of virtually every social program including the anti-hunger programs we champion at Share Our Strength. Record levels of poverty and unemployment make it extraordinarily difficult to reduce economic inequity and win battles to end hunger, ensure equal educational opportunities, and create a more just society. Those of us working toward those goals will come up short unless we take a larger and longer term view that includes economic growth and job creation as a priority.
It’s fairly obvious that when more Americans are working, they are less likely to need food assistance. But what’s less obvious is that enrolling more children in food programs as we do through our No Kid Hungry campaigns can also help create jobs. For example, if more eligible families participated in essential nutrition programs, states would receive up to $7 billion more from Washington. Those dollars would be spent locally to buy and deliver more food products and it could create additional jobs at virtually every level of the supply chain.
The national conversation this week and next will be focused almost exclusively on ideas to create jobs. If we want to be heard, we must find ways to talk about what we do in that context. And the large numbers of hungry children in America need us to be heard if they are to have a voice in that national conversation too.
September 7, 2011 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: american economy, hunger, no kid hungry, president obama
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